Final newsletter_24 November
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
A final many thanks to all of you for doing the course. Unfortunately, a few of you were a bit short of time, but I sincerely hope you learned something anyway — or at least that you enjoyed the sessions you attended and developed a better understanding of which areas of your English you should focus on going forward.
Please also find attached the final material. If you missed the last class, I strongly recommend that you watch Amy Cuddy’s well-known Ted Talk with English subtitles. Some people think it’s quite inspirational.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc Finally, I wish you all the best of luck with your English and, of course, feel free to mail me any time if you need a bit of advice. I’ll leave the newsletters and course material up on my FU blog for the next year in case you’d like to refer to them/it.
https://blogg.folkuniversitetet.nu/stored/ (under Working in English B2_Autumn 2025)
Best wishes and an early Merry Xmas,
Eddie
Senior Language Trainer,
Folkuniversitetet
Class material
11. Survival Tactics_key
7. Signposting_basic
8. Signposting_advanced
6. A few gestures_key
Newsletter 7 _17 November
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
A weekly “many thanks” to those who could attend on Monday and apologies for my slight tardiness with this newsletter, which was due to a translation deadline.
Lili and Jessica, many thanks for doing the course and have a great time in Japan and the Maldives.
Homework this week is as follows:
1. Reading — “5 keys to great non-verbal communication”. Please read the article about body language (or non-verbal communication as we call it) during presentations etc.
2. Language — survival tactics. Some useful phrases you can use if you make a mistake during a presentation, etc. Match each phrase with the situation you can use it for. There are 2 sets of 4.
Everything else is from Monday’s class, as well as the keys to last week’s homework. Unfortunately, I didn’t allow enough time to go through them.
Next week is our last session. Hope to see everyone there who isn’t on an exotic holiday.
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material
Newsletter 6_10 November
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
Many thanks to those of you who could attend yesterday and to Luisa for letting me know that she was otherwise occupied.
Sadly, my attempt to have a group negotiation didn’t quite work out, but thanks for trying. I managed to introduce a few slightly more advanced discourse markers at least.
Homework this week is as follows:
1. Vocab = 10 “Latin” adjectives. Please do the exercise.
2. Vocab = 15 useful idioms (business). Please match the idiom with what its meaning.
3. Grammar = Passives exercise. You can’t have a business English class without studying the passive aspect a bit, used in reports, technical documents, signage, etc
Everything else is from class time, including the key to the prepositions exercise.
Merle, hope it works out with your landlady.
Looking forward to seeing you next week!
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material
Newsletter 5_3 November
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
As some of you have been asking how many sessions we have left, the answer is 3 = 10, 17 and 24 November, i.e. none in December. Please check your schedules and let me know if you’ll be missing any classes. An 8-week course goes very quickly.
Due to the fact that Jessica was unfamiliar with some quite common English abbreviations, I’ve included a list with the most common ones used in professional English. N.B. most of them are used in a neutral style and a couple of them are a bit informal. In very formal English writing (contracts etc), you shouldn’t really abbreviate.
Homework this week is as follows:
1. Reading “How not to sound like a fool”, an article about giving international presentations. (I’ve attached a file that’s a bit easier to read that the one I gave you in class). Please just read the text. I’ve underlined a few words and expressions. Next week we’ll be touching on business jargon, buzzwords and idioms. And presentations.
2. Business prepositions test – please do the exercise. 50 kronor goes to anyone that gets them all right. (the offer includes Hanna).
Everything else is material from class time and the homework key. I’ve also included some “team building collocations”, which I skipped yesterday so that we could play Taboo.
Hope to see you all next week!
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material
Newsletter 4_27 October
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
Many thanks for yesterday evening and especially to those of you who were able to attend. I actually forgot that this week was the half-term break. Hopefully everybody will be able to come next week.
An additional apology for incorrectly stating in the last newsletter that the deadline for the writing homework was “Thursday” instead of Monday. Hoever, as it turns out, it makes no difference because I still have to correct most of them at the weekend.
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. 10 useful discourse markers…please do the exercise
All the other attachments are from class time, including the keys to the last homework.
Lili…I’m sending you the extra exercise separately
Kirill…as you reminded me that you work in insurance, I’m sending you some insurance terminology in English, (which you might already know).
Next week I’m planning to do more speaking.
Hope to see most of you then!
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Classwork
Newsletter 3_20 October
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
Many thanks for yesterday and apologies to Lili for overrunning slightly. Hope you weren’t late for your other course.
Being an English teacher (and translator) has been and is still a lot of fun, but also challenging — fun because in Sweden you can teach lots of different levels of English including very proficient users, (not just beginners, which is fun in its own way); and challenging because of “Ericsson English”, i.e. English spoken internally in some companies and organizations that would get some funny looks from native English speakers elsewhere. And of course there are millions of users writing different kinds of “English” all over the Internet.
So I’ve had to work hard and do a lot of homework to keep my own English up to date and authentic. I do a lot of research checking English expressions I haven’t seen before. Sometimes my business students use an English expression that I haven’t see before and I find it’s quite common in the USA, UK etc. You can’t get stuck in the past because languages, especially English (and even Swedish), evolve and you need to evolve with them. The key is whether a word or expression is in common usage generally or in a particular context. If it’s in common usage generally then it’s OK.
But some “Ericsson English” still makes me cringe a bit, for example the way Swedish NGOs use the English word “actor” as a translation of “aktör” all the time. I try not to use it. And I actually researched the English collocations and usages in the English corpus (body of language):
Hollywood actor of course, Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt
A threat actor, bad actor or malicious actor is either a person or a group of people that take part in an action that is intended to cause harm to the cyber realm including: computers, devices, systems, or networks.
External actor
Key actor
Non-state actor
Outside actor
Political actor
Unknown actor
So if I absolutely have to use “actor” in, say, a Sida translation , I use “key actor” or “state actor”, otherwise I use “stakeholder”. You might think I’m a bit extreme, but it helps if you know your subject well (sometimes people like to argue about words ). You don’t have to be a native speaker to teach a language, but you still have to know the language well.
Anyway, homework this week is as follows:
- Reading = Motivation and job satisfaction.Pls do the quick exercise and read the text. Guess what the discussion will be about next week.
2. Vocab = 10 useful business verbs_updated.Sorry, forgot to print this one out and give it to you at the end of class
3. Writing = please send me one (1) piece of English writing of about 300 words before Thursday next week (anything that might be helpful to you at work)
You can choose between:
1. Either some old emails from your mailbox (copied into a Word doc)
2. Or some two new emails in different styles (pls see attached “Email 1:arranging a meeting”.
or
3. Or any one of the following, for example:
* 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
Anything you like that’s related to your work but not a CV, cover letter or a LinkedIn profile.
I also forgot to give you the key to last week’s “formal-informal email” exercise. Sorry about that. Please find attached,
Hope to see you all next week.
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Homework_Email 1_arranging a meeting
Homework writing tasks 1
Homework reading_job satisfaction
Homework_10 useful business verbs_update
Class material
5. GERUNDS
7. Homework_style – Formal or informal email_key
4. Test your business Swenglish 1_key
11. Collocations_communication
2. Key takeaways from the writing
7. More agreeing and disagreeing_short
8. Business topics – communication
Newsletter 2_13 October
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
Many thanks for yesterday and for your enthusiastic participation. Every teacher enjoys teaching committed students. I get the feeling you could speak together for hours, which is very encouraging.
Regarding your speaking skills, I’d just like to reiterate that the general level of the class is very good, B2+/C1 actually, in other words you have nothing to worry about (that includes Merle), but of course there’s room for improvement. Nor have I noticed anyone with any obvious grammatical issues, but some may show up in the writing and I’ll deal with them next week.
As you’ve noticed I’m a teacher that likes to create a relaxed, friendly atmosphere in the classroom, one which encourages students to speak freely. The one downside is that I can’t recreate an authentic (more formal) work meeting in the classroom, only give you a lot of useful phrases and links (discourse markers) that you can use in your own meetings at work. In addition, I try to break down the English language into its constitutent parts so that you become more aware of which parts you should keep trying to improve when the course is over. Learning a language is a process of continuous improvement, which I know from experience.
Anyway, homework this week is as follows:
1. Style: “Formal or informal email”...please match the informal phrases with the more formal ones.
2. Reading: Communication 1 with short questionnaire. The topic next week will be communication and how to improve communication at work.
I’ve also included the “Test Business Swenglish 1” exercise, which I’m planning to do next week. Please get a head start, have a quick look at it and see if you can correct any of the interference mistakes,
Merle, hope you have a nice trip.
See you all next week.
Best wishes,
Eddie
Class material
Homework
Newsletter 1_6 October
Hello, Hej, Ni hao, Hola, Privet, Hallo and Buon giorno everybody (no particular order),
Hope you’re all well and that you enjoyed the session yesterday evening. You have the makings of a very nice (and interesting) group! Not to mention, (no matter what you think) I found your English level to be very encouraging. I will do my utmost to help you as much as I can, both individually and collectively, for the next 7 weeks.
As I mentioned yesterday, it’s been a few years since I taught business classes that are only 1½ hours long so it will take me a few weeks to get the timing perfect. Yesterday I didn’t quite have time to finish everything that I’d plannned to do.
Nor do I use an official course book because they cost quite a lot of money and it’s very hard to use more than a few pages before the course ends. Having said, some of my material is sourced from various course books. The rest is from the Internet or I write the exercises myself based on experience.
A further piece of advice is to do any writing homework I give you because as I mentioned in class it’s the most efficient way for me to help you improve your grammar.
FYI I will post these emails and the material as PDF files on my blog at
https://blogg.folkuniversitetet.nu/stored/working-in-english-b2/ For those of you who speak Swedish I’ve also posted a few bilingual dictionaries there, but please note only the “Glossary of SL terms” is my own. I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the other dictionaries, but they will at least point you in the right direction.
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 description”: use the rubric to write a well-organized report in your most professional/formal English (in a Word file) and send it to me, preferably to this addess topstoreytuition@gmail.com by next Monday evening. Remember that you’re supposed to be describing/giving advice about the job/role, not writing about yourself. Nor is this a job description of the kind that you might see in a situations vacant ad (job advertisement). 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 what type of wrting they come from, whether they’re formal/neutral/informal and any other thoughts you have about style, vocabulary etc. Style, register and context are very important elements of advanced English.
Finally, please find attached the material from class time and the homework, and feel free to mail me at topstoreytuition@gmail.com if you have any questions.
Hope to see you all next week!
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
HW Reading – make meetings work for you
HW writing – job report
Class material
3. Eddie_LinkedIn page_update8
2. Info about FU
6. Actual Student Level
4. Basic Course Framework for WIE
6. Synonyms_adjectives 1_EASY update
