Download this free C1–C2 English worksheet PDF for advanced English learners and teachers. This lesson is based on Safeguard Global’s four-day-week pilot and the wider debate about compressed workloads, autonomy, hidden overtime and sustainable working patterns.
Students practise advanced reading comprehension, high-level vocabulary, phrase matching and speaking skills through a real-world business and workplace topic about burnout, work intensification, flexibility, productivity, autonomy and outcome-based performance. The worksheet is suitable for advanced conversation lessons, online English classes, private tutoring, IELTS-style speaking practice and critical thinking work.
The article explains that the four-day week is often presented as a straightforward antidote to burnout, but Safeguard Global’s experience showed that reducing the number of working days without reducing expectations can intensify pressure. During its 2023 pilot, some employees compressed the same workload into four days, while others quietly worked on Fridays.
This worksheet encourages advanced learners to discuss the difference between genuinely reducing working time and simply squeezing the same workload into fewer days. Students consider whether productivity should be measured by outcomes rather than hours, whether hidden overtime undermines shorter-week schemes, and whether different roles need different working arrangements.
The article also explores what makes shorter working weeks sustainable. Students read that successful schemes may need to cut back on low-value meetings, streamline procedures and redesign workloads so employees can keep pace with demand without letting work spill over into their day off. The lesson asks whether the real issue is the number of working days or how work is designed.
The PDF includes a C1–C2 reading article, True / False questions, Phrase Match, Synonym Match, a task where students use new language, discussion questions and a full answer key. It helps learners discuss work intensification, autonomy, mandates, symbolic change, sustainability, exhaustion, workload design and the balance between flexibility and organisational needs.
Level: C1–C2
Date: 17 September 2026
Focus: advanced reading, vocabulary, four-day week, workload, autonomy, burnout and speaking
This free worksheet includes:
- a C1–C2 reading article about a four-day working week
- True / False comprehension questions
- Phrase Match practice with advanced expressions
- Synonym Match with high-level vocabulary
- a sentence-writing task using new language
- discussion questions for Student A and Student B
- full answer key
The worksheet includes useful advanced phrases such as fall behind, move away from, rule out, bear the brunt of, cut back on, keep pace with, spill over into, boil down to, switch off and iron out. It also practises vocabulary such as antidote, intensify, autonomy, rigid, exhaustion, mandate, genuine, streamline, symbolic and sustainable.
Worksheet preview
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