Working in English B2_autumn 2023

Class 8_16 Nov

Hello everybody,

First of all, a big thank you for doing the course. I’ve had a few groups in my time but you are certainly one of the nicest I’ve had. I sincerely hope you enjoyed it and learned something. My motto has always been “Worthwhile, Interesting, Fun, Educational”.
                                                                                                                                                                                       It’s a pity it has to end now but anyway you’d have got tired of my irony eventually. Plus it’s great that you’ve found a way to continue on your own! I hope it works out.
                                                                                                                                                                                        I’d also like to thank Linn and Delba for their excellent presentations on Thursday! No prizes for guessing who was less nervous. With the presentations in mind, I’ve attached two worksheets with English (mostly business-related) words that can be hard to pronounce correctly. In the first one, I’ve highlighted the stressed syllable, e.g. CANADA. In the second I’ve also highlighted a few words with Schwas in them, e.g. CANəDə. Very important in English pronunciation, unless you want to sound like a pata/anka.
                                                                                                                                   Re. listening, here’s the link to Amy Cuddy’s Ted Talk that we didn’t have time to listen to on Thursday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc, which is about non-verbal communication. Although her research has since been discredited somewhat, the talk is still very motivational and could actually give you an idea or two on how to prepare mentally when you have to talk or give a presentation in English.
                                                                                                                                                                       Everything else is material from our last class. Marisela, I’m sending your CV seperately. Sandra, you’ll have to give me a couple of days more to enhance your LinkedIn profile.
                                                                                                                                                                                   Also, feel free to mail me if you have any “Vad-heter-det-nu-redan-på-engelska” questions and good luck.
                                                                                                                                                                                    Best wishes,
Eddie
Final material

Class 7_9 Nov

Hello everybody,

Thanks again for Thursday evening and for being such a nice, positive group. Thank you to Sandra as well for the report from England.
                                                                                                                                                                                        I’d also like to reiterate how good the CVs were. I’ll send them to you separately in a few minutes.
                                                                                                                                                                      Homework this week is the 3 vocab exercises, but please note that you don’t have to do (all of) them if you’re giving a presentation.
1. 10 business verbs ending in “IZE”
2. 10 “Latin” adjectives
3. 15 useful idioms 
                                                                                                                                                                              Everything else is from class time. I’ve also attached the answers from the “passives exercise” from last week.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Hope to see you next week for our last session.
                                                                                                                                                                                    Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material

Class 6_26 Oct

Hello everybody,

I’ve just been away for the weekend and realized when I got back that I “failed to send” you (formal way of saying I didn’t do it) the newsletter last week before I went. Apologies for the slight delay, even though most of you have the homework anyway.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Many thanks for the lovely CVs and nice to see Maria back in class again. Sandra, I hope your course is going well.
                                                                                                                                                                      Homework this week is as follows.
1. Reading – “How not to sound like a fool”…next week’s theme will be jargon and buzzwords.
2. Reading for negotiation – “New Castaway”Based on the survival criteria on page 2, 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 but the discussion will be in a group). Next week we’ll have a negotiation/group bonding exercise with a twist.
3. Passives exercise…please put the correct verb in English sentence (in the correct form)
 
                                                                                                                                                                       Everything else is from class time as usual.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Hope to see you all on the 12th!
Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material

Class 5_19 Oct

Dear students,

Many thanks for yesterday evening as always. You really are a very nice group. I wish the classes were a little bit longer, but you might not agree
                                                                                                                                                                                        Of course, it wouldn’t be an Eddie newsletter if it didn’t include at least one apology, so deepest apologies to Sandra for failing to correct her homework writing. Very unprofessional of me.
                                                                                                                                                                                          It goes without saying that I found the email and understand now that I was so distracted by the news that you had booked your trip to Brighton that I didn’t notice the attachment and forgot to save it. By the way, regarding vocabulary I have a good (and relatively new) business vocabulary exercise book I can lend you (Cambridge Business Vocabulary in Use). You’re welcome to scan a few pages as long as I get the book back. That’s my best suggestion apart from reading. Best of luck in Brighton.
                                                                                                                                                                                Maria, hope you’re feeling better. We missed your nice English in class.
                                                                                                                                                                      Homework this week is as follows.
1. Common business prepositions – please do the exercise
2. Reading for discussion + short questionnaire – “When East meets West”. The topic next week will be Building Relationships and Networking.
3. (last chance to do any English writing) Please write a CV OR a cover letter OR a LinkedIn profile/summary in English of about 200-300 words (the CV can be a bit longer), or send me your existing English CV to check!
                                                                                                                                                                                Here’s a link in to some LinkedIn profiles that they apparently “love”, with a few tips. https://www.linkedin.com/business/talent/blog/product-tips/linkedin-profile-summaries-that-we-love-and-how-to-boost-your-own They’re a bit more creative that the summary part at the start of a CV but you can use any style you feel comfortable.
                                                                                                                                                                                  Hope to see you next week!
                                                                                                                                                                                    Best wishes,
Eddie
Homework
Class material

                                                                                                                                                                                  Class 4_12 Oct

Hello everybody,

Many thanks for yesterday evening and apologies for messing up the timing again.  Marisela, I hope you managed to meet your son on time. On the upside, we covered some useful and important points during the class. Nevertheless, next week I’ll make sure that you all do more speaking together.

Strangely enough, when I arrived home my laptop connected and booted up normally. I also noticed that the school computer I borrowed wasn’t recharging either, so instinct tells me that there was some sort of issue with the FU electricity supply? Many thanks to Delba for trying to help   When you’re trying to do two things at the same time and look professional while you’re doing it, it helps if you’re using a laptop you’re familiar with so you don’t have think about what you’re doing with your hands. It also helps if strange windows in Spanish don’t suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

Anyway, to start with I’ve attached a worksheet on the modal verbs “may” and “might”. Hope it helps. They’re pretty similar.

Homework this week is as follows:

  1. 10 Useful Business Verbs_update– please put the correct verb in the context
  2. 10 Useful discourse markers– please do the exercise
  3. Reading: Team Building– please read the text, and there’s a short questionnaire to do. The discussion topic next week will be Teamwork (and Motivation).

Everything else is from class time.

Hope to see you all next week!

Best wishes, Eddie

Homework

Homework_10 USEFUL DISCOURSE MARKERS

Homework_10 useful business verbs_update

Class material

8. More agreeing and disagreeing_2

2. Synonyms_A_key

3. Euphemism

4. polite requests

5. Style – Formal or informal email_key

6. Introduction to discourse markers and linking words

7b. Linking – formal writing_key

Class 3_5 Oct

Hello everybody,

Hope you’re all well and many thanks for Thursday evening. Apologies for the slight delay in sending this newsletter. (I had a deadline yesterday).

Marisela, I hope you’re feeling better (I have some homework writing for you) and Linn…say hi to Gothenburg for me.

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. Style: “Formal or informal email”…please match the informal phrases with the more formal ones.
  3. Writing = please send me one (1)piece of English writing of about 300-350 words before our next class (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) and send them to me,
  2. Orsome new emails in different styles (pls see attached “Email 1:arranging a meeting”),
  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.

Basically, you can do any piece of writing you like that might help you in a professional capacity (except a CV or a LinkedIn profile).

Everything else is from class time, including the keys to last week’s homework.

Hope to see you most of you next time!

Best wishes, Eddie

Homework

Homework_Email 1_arranging a meeting

Homework reading_job satisfaction

Homework writing tasks 1

Homework writing tasks 2

Homework_ style – Formal or informal email

Class material

11. Business topics – communication

1. Spelling – Euroenglish

4. GERUNDS

5. Singular they

9. Style transfer 1_short

10. Test your business Swenglish 1_key

Class 2_28 Sept

Hello everybody,

Many thanks for yesterday evening and for all the nice writing. Now I have quite a lot of writing to “enhance”

Homework this week is as follows:

  1. Reading: Communication 3 + short exercise.The topic next week will be communication (communication issues and how to improve them)
  2. Quality control: “Test your Business Swenglish 1”…the highlighted words are what we call “interference mistakes” aka Swenglish. See if you find the correct English word.
  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.

The rest of the attached material is from class time.

You’re still welcome to write to me if you have any questions of requests.

Have a nice weekend!

Best wishes,

Eddie

Homework

Homework_Test your business Swenglish 1

Class material

8. business topics – meetings

2. online resources

4. Synonyms_adjectives 1_EASY update_with comments

5. Compound nouns and collocations

5. Meetings collocations2

7. GIVING OPINIONS_short

Class 1_ 21 Sept

Hello everybody,

Many thanks for yesterday evening, it was very nice meeting you all. You have the makings of a very pleasant and interesting group! And apologies for getting distracted by the discussion and messing up the timing. I promise to finish on time next week.

One thing if I forgot to mention that’s quite important is to please drop me a quick email beforehand if you can’t attend class. We’re quite a small class and it’s very helpful for my planning.

As I mentioned yesterday, because it’s a short course I won’t be using a course book, but if you need help with your email writing I can recommend Email English 2nd edition by Paul Emmerson. Looks like there’s a few copies left at Bokus. I’ll bring my copy again next week.

https://www.bokus.com/bok/9780230448551/email-english-2nd-edition-book-paperback/

The best English grammar book in the world is Murphy’s English Grammar in Use 5th edition (Intermediate). It looks like this.  https://www.bokus.com/bok/9781108457651/english-grammar-in-use-book-with-answers/ Again, I’ll bring my own copy next week.

Here’s a link to my blog. https://blogg.folkuniversitetet.nu/stored/  There’s nothing in the class folder as yet but I’ll be posting all the newsletters and class material there as I go along.

I’ve also posted a lot of links to “useful dictionaries” (though mostly Swedish-English) as well as two English glossaries. The “Talking about Sweden” dictionary is quite useful if you want to avoid Swenglish.

The Cambridge learner’s dictionary and pronunciation feature is here https://dictionary.cambridge.org/

Next week at the start of class, I’ll give you a few more tips for useful online resources. If I can find anything else that might help one of you I’ll make sure to mail it.

Homework this week is as follows:

  1. Reading “Make meetings work for you”(+ short exercise, which you don’t need to do). Please read the text. 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 topstoreytution@gmail.com (or eddie.storey@folkuniversitetet.se) by next Thursday.

Remember that you’re supposed to be describing your job/role, not writing about yourself. Try to avoid using “I” and “you”, if possible. For example, in my case I would use “an English language trainer” or “English language trainers” or “ELTs” or “they”.

But the main thing is that you just write something in English about your job/role

And please feel free to mail me at this address if you have any questions or if there’s anything you’re not sure about..

Hope to see all next week!

Best wishes,  Eddie

PS FYI I usually get to class a bit early.

Homework

HW writing – job report

HW Reading – make meetings work for you

Classwork

6. Synonyms_adjectives 1_EASY update

4. Basic Course Framework for WIE