Welcome to the class blog for this online business course!

Here I will post notes from each class, homework and pre-study for the next class, and any other useful information or links that I think might interest you.

The comment function will be enabled, so I hope you make the most of the chance to communicate with your fellow students and share tips and links that you have found useful or interesting in your own studies.

Best,

Mark

Class 1:

– Introduced ourselves and discussed why everyone was taking the course.
– In breakout rooms went through an introductory exercise practicing language to do with first meetings; opening lines, talking about job, showing interest etc.
– Discussed the difference between formal and informal language for emails. Went through a number of exercises.
– Finished with a quick discussion about difficulties and fears around the use of English.

Homework:

Can you complete page 2 on the informal/formal handout you worked on today. Here is the document for those who weren’t able to participate in today’s class – Formal or Informal

Can you all please fill in this form for me also. It will only take a few minutes, I promise, so it would be great if you can have it done for Wednesday’s class.

See you all soon.

Class 2:
– Went through homework on the difference between formal and informal emails
– Worked in groups with ‘common email mistakes’ exercise, which led to a lot of discussion on some confusing and difficult grammar topics. Likely we will return to some subjects that we barely touched upon
– Divided into groups to choose a company name and product. These groups will work together on their shared company until the end of the course.

Homework:

Can you complete the rest of the ‘common mistakes’ handout – Common Mistakes

Can those of you who haven’t yet completed the class form please do so as soon as you can. It really helps me plot out what to cover in class.

Continue to work on your companies so that you have some fresh ideas to bring to the discussion tomorrow.

Extras:

This is an interesting website about how to write a business email.

Saw this video and thought you might find it interesting. It can be silly at times (why so they insist on trying to be funny), but it has some very useful tips. Have a watch and let me know what you think of it in the comments below.

 

Class 3:
– Continued with our study of common mistakes when writing emails. Led again to various discussions about grammar, and possible future study topics for the class.
– Broke off into the different company teams that were created yesterday, to further develop their products.
– Followed that with a discussion about how to deal with customer complaints, and after about what factors contribute to a positive working environment.

Here are the notes from today’s and yesterday’s classes. – Class 2,3 AMNI

Homework:

Write two emails for Monday of about 150 words each.

Email 1: Write a formal email in answer to a complaint about a service/product that your new ‘invented’ company provides. It should cover all the topic headings found in this handout (can be found on p95 of the book) – Complanits email

Email 2: Write an informal email to your new colleague about any subject relating to your new company. It can also be a personal email about what’s going in your life, or on any other matter that interests you. Let you imagination run wild! :). Choose some key phrases from this list of basic email phrases – Email Basics

Extra:

Since there was so much discussion about ‘verb patterns’, here is a useful handout to keep by your desk at work on how verbs succeed each other in sentences.VERB-PATTERNS—tables

As always, don’t be afraid to post comments below and share ideas, opinions, and other useful tips or sites.

Class 4:
– We talked about our weekends and the students discussed difficulties they had writing the emails.
– As we were missing many students, we took the opportunity to focus on some grammar issues that came up during classes last week.
– Students worked in small groups with a number of exercises, and we had discussions afterwards about what tense to use and why.
– At the end of the class we had a brief discussion about what makes a good meeting and what makes a bad one.

Here are the notes for today – Class 4 AMNI copy

And here is the pdf of the exercises from the book – verb forms. Can you finish the rest of the exercises for Wednesday – parts E and F.

Watch this video on Business Meetings before out class on Wednesday, please.

See you in two days 🙂

Class 5:

– Today we dove straight into ‘Meeting English’. We discussed the various elements that are required in order to conduct a successful meeting. Then we work in groups of 5 on a ‘survival’ exercise, where everyone had to agree on the items they would need to survive a weekend in a lift together.
– We finished the class by going through the homework for today and discussing why we choose on tense over another.

Here are the updated notes from today’s class, added to the sheet you got from the last class – Class 4 AMNI copy

Can you do all the exercises on how to arrange a meeting for tomorrow please Arranging a Meeting– It is on page 44/45 of the book.

Verb Patterns:

Thanks for your request, Nomah. I am happy to help! Here is a list of sentences where you have to fill in the correct form of the second verb. I’m just going to send you the questions now, use the sheet I sent you on Monday to identify the correct answer. I will send you the answers soon so you can check how you did. 🙂 Verb Pattern Exercises

I can upload more exercises later if you feel you need more practice.

See you all tomorrow!

Class 6:
– Went through our answers for the ‘Arranging a Meeting’ homework. Led to some discussions about ‘time prepositions’ and some difficult grammar points also.
– Discussed some useful telephone expressions.
– Broke into groups to convert impolite language into more phone friendly phrases
– In those same groups we practiced some telephone conversations, making sure that our camera’s were turned off.

Here are the notes from today’s class – Class 6 AMNI copy

Homework:

This weekend I want you to write another mail for me. This one will be written from the point of your created company. I would like you to write to a potential investor to arrange a meeting for an upcoming meeting. Use language from the ‘Arranging a meeting’ hand out we did in class, as well as some invented details about your own company.

As there is only one mail to write, the word count should be about 250 words.

Here are the answers for the rest of the handout – answers – arranging a meeting

Class 7:

– Started with a quick telephone roll play, to go over the phone vocabulary from last week.
– Did some exercises on ‘describing graphs’, and went over the answers as a group.
– Divided into small teams to create and give a quick presentation on an ‘absurd’ product.
– Quick review on how it went

Here’s a good video on giving presentations in English:

 

Homework:

Can you finish the rest of the handout. Thanks – Describing Trends

See you tomorrow

Class 8:

– Went through the homework handout about ‘describing graphs’, which led to further discussions of prepositions and directional adverbs.
– We divided into our different company groups to plan the end of term presentations.
– I said that the focus should be on content, structure, and language; and that each group should be creative, clear, and precise. Creative in how they develop their products; clear in how they structure their presentations; and precise in the language they use to get their point across.

Here are the notes from today’s class – Class 8 AMNI copy

Homework:

There is lots of great language in this handout so, if you have time, please attempt to do as much as you can for tomorrow. – Action email

As well as this you should continue to work on your end of course presentations.

See you tomorrow

Class 9:

– Reviewed our homework on ‘action verbs’, which included a number of phrasal verbs. There was discussion on when ph v’s should and shouldn’t be used and a little on the grammar that surrounds their use
– We had only a few minutes to work in groups to discuss the end of course presentation due to a number of missing students. I uploaded a list of useful language on giving presentations.
– We did two Kahoots on phrasal verbs which we will come back to next week, once we have had a chance to learn and practice them.

Here are the notes from yesterday’s class – Class 9 AMNI copy

Here are the answers to the Verb Patterns exercise I sent last week – Verb Patterns answers

Homework:

No email assignment this weekend. Instead, you can focus on preparing your presentation. I have a useful handout from the book that some of you have requested more of; it’s about linking words and and sentence structure. – Linking words

See you all on Monday 🙂

Class 10:
– We covered a very difficult subject today – relative pronouns and sentence adverbials. While we went through some of the main uses of the terminology, more work needs to be done. I will find more exercises that, I hope, will simplify the rules for all.
– We agreed to study some phrasal verbs in preparation for a Kahoot on Thursday.

Here is a very good explanation of relative clauses and when they’re used – Relative Clauses explanation. Here are some exercises you can try, though don’t look at the answers until you’ve answered all the questions first 😉 – Grammar-RelativePronouns_2670

The Phrasal Verb exercises will come tomorrow 🙂

Hi all,

Quick update. I’ve decided to choose about 40 or so from this list of 100 phrasal verbs for the Kahoot on Thursday. I know this probably doesn’t make the task much easier for you, but it’s not about winning, it’s learning as much as you can on your journey to the finish line 🙂

See you tomorrow!

Class 11:
– Our last grammar oriented class focused on sentence structure; on how important it is to keep your language simple, and how, by doing this and keeping to simple structures, one can build complex sentences.
– S’s worked in groups to answer questions on sentence structure and we then went through their answers as a group.
– The last 30 mins of the class was spent working on the end of course presentation.

Homework:

Keep working on those presentations for Monday, and go through the 100 phrasal verbs I sent you last night in preparation for the Kahoot championship match tomorrow :).

Class 12:

– We started the class with some general business questions in order to generate some discussion. This was a warmer to kick start everyone using their English brains.
– Students had been given a list of 100 phrasal verbs to prepare for a Kahoot quiz. The quiz consisted of 30 questions multiple choice questions and the winner will receive a certificate ‘of triumph’.
– We completed the handout on ‘sentence structure’ after the break.
– We finished the class with a workshop on the final presentations which will take place on Monday.

Phrasal Verb Book:

It turns out that the Idioms book is to large to share through the blog so I have created a link through Onepoint. Let me know if you’re able to download the book or not. If not, I’ll find some other means to get it to you – maybe through Dropbox.

Good luck preparing for your presentation on Monday :)!