Advance your Business English C1+ on Thursdays

Lesson 5_Mar 21

Hello, hej and privet everybody,

Many thanks as always for yesterday evening and for the interesting discussions.
 
A quick link to reassure you that I know what I’m talking about when I say an English “greeting” only refers to when we say “hello” and not “goodbye”. 
Nevertheless, despite more thirty years of teaching English at all levels, I obviously realize that trust is earned and not given. Hopefully, I will earn your trust before the end of the course. 😉
                                                                                                                                                                                     This week’s homework is as follows:1. Reading for negotiation – “New Castaway”. Based on the survival criteria, please pick the 8 items that, in your opinion, would be most useful in a survival situation (remember you’re on your own on the island). In two weeks we’ll have a negotiation exercise with a twist. It’s important that you prepare this a bit otherwise it will bomb.
2. Reading for discussion + short questionnaire – “When East meets West”. The topic next week will be Building Relationships and Networking.
3. Common business prepositions – please do the exercise.
                                                                                                                                                                              There’s an extra exercise for Galina “Using advanced connectors (prepositions)” as she’s done number 3 before. Feel free to have a go if you have time.
 

As always, everything is from class time, including “singular they”, a lot of email material, and the really useful list of conjunctions and adverbials.

Happy Easter and hope to see (most of) you in 2 weeks.

I remain your most humble servant,

Eddie

Lesson 4_Mar 14

Hello, hej, privet and hola everybody,

Many thanks for Wednesday evening and to those of you who could attend.
 
Alexey, Nenne and Åsa …hope you enjoyed your Amsterdam and concert experiences respectively.
 
Homework this week is as follows:
  1. Reading – “Recipes for team building” + short questionnaire. The topic next week will be team building and character.
  2. Grammar – business elementary mistakes  …please do the exercise and see if you can find the mistakes. I think you’ll find it tricky.
  1. 10 useful discourse markers…please do the exercise
Everything else is from class time, including the key to last week’s homework, some very useful polite phrases in ascending order of politeness, and the main differences between UK and US spelling.
 
Hope to see most of you next week.
 
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material

                                                                                                                                                                              Lesson 3_Mar 7

Hello, hej, privet and hola everybody,

Many thanks for yesterday evening as always. Paola, I hope you’re OK?

Next week we’ll be a slightly smaller group and I’ll try and adapt accordingly.

Homework this week is as follows:

1. Reading = Motivation and job satisfaction. Pls do the quick exercise and read the text. Guess what the discussion will be about next week.

2. Damage control = Test your business Swenglish 2. Pls correct the interference mistakes. (We did “Test your business Swenglish 1” in class)

3. Writing = please send me one (1) piece of English writing of about 300-350 words before Wednesday next week (anything that might be helpful to you at work, except a CV, a cover letter or a LinkedIn profile)

You can choose between:

1. Either some old emails from your mailbox (copied into a Word doc)

2. Or some new emails in different styles (pls see attached “Email 1:arranging a meeting”.

or

3. Or any one of the following

* A website ”About Us”* A press release* A proposal* A product or service description* A short article/blog post* An auditor’s report (executive summary)* A survey/research report* A complaining letter* An apology letter

If you’re feeling uninspired, I’ve also attached some writing tasks from The Cambridge BEC exam.

In short, you can do any piece of writng you like that might help you in a professional capacity (except a CV or LinkedIn profile). This especially applies to Åsa. 😅

All the other attachments are from class time, including the keys to last week’s homework.

Hope those that aren’t able to attend enjoy their extracurricular activities. 👍

Best wishes,

Eddie

Homework

3. Homework writing tasks 1

3. Homework writing tasks 2

3. Homework_Email 1_arranging a meeting

Homework reading_job satisfaction

Homework_Test your business Swenglish 2

Class work

2. Key takeaways from the writing

4b. Test your business Swenglish 1_key

5. Homework_style – Formal or informal email_key

6. Homework_10 useful business verbs_update_key

7. More agreeing and disagreeing_2

8. How do people communicate

9. Business topics – communication

Lesson 2_Feb 29

This email was generated by AI. 

Hello, hej, privet and hola everybody,

Many thanks for yesterday evening and for the homework writing. 

Rikard, I hope you’re feeling better (I’ve attached all the material from class time at least)

Paola, I hope your daughter is OK. You brought back some memories. Please say hi to her from me.

Homework this week is as follows:

  1. Reading: Communication 2 + short exercise.The topic next week will be communication and how to improve your communication at work.
  2. Vocabulary: “10 useful business verbs_update”…please do the exercise.
  3. Style: “Formal or informal email”…please match the informal phrases with the more formal ones.

Everything else from class time, including the list of Internet resources. There are innumerable ways of improving some aspects of your English for free (including pronunciation) if you know where to find them. If you happen to know any more, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

Now I have a lot of job reports to correct. 😅

Have a nice weekend!

Best wishes,

Eddie

Homework

Homework reading_communication 2

Homework_ style – Formal or informal email

Homework_10 useful business verbs_update

Class material

1. Summary of class needs

2. online resources

3. Compound nouns and collocations

4. Meetings collocations2

7b. Style transfer 1_long

10. business topics – meetings

10. GIVING OPINIONS 2

Lesson 1_Feb 22

Many thanks for yesterday evening, it was nice meeting you all. You have the makings of a very interesting group, but don’t be shy about speaking up in class. As I mentioned yesterday, I still haven’t completely recovered from a virus (not covid) but I’m hoping to be back to “normal” by next week. 

I’m mailing you Bcc from my business address topstoreytuition@gmail.com to my Folkuniversitetet address for reasons of privacy because I forgot to ask you if it was OK to mail you all together directly. If you need to contact me urgently, for example if you’re ill and you can’t come to class, please use my gmail address because I check that account very often.

As regards my laptop, I’d just like to explain that. Having spent thousands of kronor over the years on expensive laptops that lasted only a year or two, I’ve taken to buying cheap, recycled laptops from Inrego. I have one at home that works perfectly, as well as my desktop, and one that I take to my classes. Yesterday I was using a “brand new” recycled laptop and as you noticed I had a few problems with the touchpad (and with the latest version of Word). My fault for not practicing in advance! Next week I’ll bring a remote mouse so I can look more professional.

Here’s a link to my FU blog, in case you didn’t write it down.

https://blogg.folkuniversitetet.nu/stored/

Under “useful dictionaries” the “Talking about Sweden” dictionary is very good as it contains a lot of common Swedish concepts, including cultural ones. It was compiled by a colleague of mine who used to work at Riksdagen and I’ve updated it a little bit as well. I have plenty of other useful resources as well, which I’ll be introducing during the course, for example https://dictionary.cambridge.org/.

The two English exercise books I bought to class look like this https://www.akademibokhandeln.se/bok/business-skills-email-english-students-book/9783191728847 (you might be able to find a better price than this)

and https://www.adlibris.com/se/bok/english-grammar-in-use-book-with-answers-and-interactive-ebook-9781108586627

I’ll bring them again next week so that you can have a proper look at them during the coffee break.

Otherwise, as mentioned yesterday evening, homework this week is as follows:

1.  Reading “Make meetings work for you” (no need to do the exercise). The topic of “meetings”, both old school and New Normal, will form the basis of the group discussion next week.

2.  Writing “job report”: use the rubric to write a well-organized report in your most professional/formal English (in a Word file) and send it to me at this addess  topstoreytuition@gmail.com (or to eddie.storey@folkuniversitetet.se) by next Wednesday. Remember that you’re supposed to be describing/giving advice about your job/role, not writing about yourself. Nor is this a job description of the kind that you might see in a situations vacant ad. The people you’re giving advice to are new employees, i.e they’ve already been employed (new work colleagues). I’ve included a generic report introduction to help get you started. The writing is one of the few opportunities I have to help you individually.

3. Style/register “writing extracts”: Please read the 4 extracts and decide where they come from, whether they’re formal/neutral/informal and any other thoughts you have about style, vocabulary etc.

Finally, please find attached the homework and the material from class time.

Hope to see all next week!

Best wishes, 

Eddie

Homework

HW writing – job report

HW Reading – make meetings work for you

Class material

2. Eddie_LinkedIn page_update7

4. Actual Student Level

5. IMPORTANT FACTORS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING

6. Basic Course Framework for AYBE

10. Synonyms_A_key