Dialogue by OUP-ELT

Dialogue Issue 1

Business English news from Oxford

Inside ■

This is your pilot speaking The role of English in the aviation industry

Plus Communication between doctors, nurses, and patients ■ The truth about case studies ■ The reality of ESP today ■ Getting the job done ■ Illustrations: a forgotten art? ■ Photocopiable resources ■

Business English your students can take to work today • Communicative syllabus for pick-up-and-use business communication skills • Real-world case studies for practical insights into the business world • Interactive Workbook on CD-ROM with every Student’s Book • Teacher Training DVD with every Teacher’s Book

PLUS The Expert View – from Cranfield School of Management – with all Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, and Advanced case studies

Now available at five levels – find out more at www.oup.com/elt

Editorial 4 What was the question? Communication between doctors, nurses, and patients

6 The truth about case studies Practical tips for using case studies successfully

7 Resource Bank A photocopiable case study to take into class

8 This is your pilot speaking A look at the role of English in the aviation industry

10 ESP – you’re not alone The reality of ESP today

11 Getting the job done English for the technical and industrial sectors: the Tech Talk story

12 Illustrations: a forgotten art? Ideas for an alternative way of presenting material

14 Resource Bank More photocopiables to take into class

One size does not fit all Matching materials to the learner’s profile Robert McLarty Welcome to Dialogue, a collection of articles, features, and resources from the world of business English and English for Specific Purposes (ESP). When I first started teaching ESP, it was viewed as being quite different to general adult ELT. Now, however, mainstream ELT is much closer to ESP because very few people learn English for no reason, and the age people start ESP is getting younger and younger. Inevitably, more general English teachers are getting involved in ESP and many content teachers are being called upon to teach in English. Like maths, it will soon be a basic skill: to be able to work for an international firm or in an international context will imply being able to speak English as easily as most people count. With ESP becoming more and more important, publishers and teaching institutions must ensure that the materials being used are authentic in terms of content learning, and useful in terms of linguistic teaching. Typically, an ESP course has less grammar than a general course, a large amount of specialised vocabulary, and its own set of functional or idiomatic expressions. All of this is set in a professional or work-related context, and the key to success on such a course is getting the right balance of content, language work, and communicative practice. Given any list of people needing English for work, there will be one common aim – to communicate effectively. Any teacher’s aim is to make the playing field level so that the Egyptian pilot landing at Frankfurt can be understood and understand the dialogue with air traffic control, or that the Jordanian surgeon can communicate with the Polish anaesthetist. Or so that the Bangladeshi construction worker understands his Irish foreman. We are often told that ELT is not that serious. I think these examples show that it really can be. And that’s why, at Oxford University Press, we are constantly talking to teachers – to find out what you want, so we can publish materials which best fit the different student profiles and the varied situations, professions, and industries they inhabit. Business Result, the Express series of short courses, and Oxford English for Careers, for example, are new courses that respond to very different but specific needs in the teaching world. Dialogue is a magazine which reflects that commitment and diversity. It’s where the authors and editors working on OUP business English and ESP courses share their thoughts on the realities of business English, and what lies behind the approaches of different courses. I hope you will find innovative and inspiring ideas, and coursebooks that will help you teach exactly what your students need. With best wishes,

Robert McLarty is Publishing Manager for Business English and ESP at Oxford University Press. From 1986 to 1998, he managed ILC Paris and ran courses for the pharmaceutical, oil, finance, insurance and construction industries, as well as DELTA and CELTA courses. From 1998 to 2004 he was the Principal of Oxford Intensive School of English, one of the UK’s leading ESP course providers. He is also the co-author of Business Basics, Quick Work (Elementary) and Business Focus. Front and back cover images © iStock

4 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

What was the question? by Sam McCarter

When doctors or nurses are non-native speakers of English, which basic skills do they need for effective communication with their English-speaking patients?

A basic skill for medical personnel, which is often not completely mastered, is asking questions. A skilful doctor can balance closed questions (‘Does the pain spread anywhere else?’) with open questions (‘Can you tell me a little more about the pain?’) and then cope with a large amount of information in the answer. A doctor who cannot do this risks losing the patient’s confidence, yet the very simplicity of the questions may lead students not to take this language seriously enough. This means such questions often don’t get mastered, because students focus on the more medical doctor-to-doctor communication. The same applies to counselling a patient, using a very small bank of words to explain a vast array of medical information, while at the same time being able to talk appropriately to other health professionals. Cue recognition and response are other essential techniques which students need to learn. A patient may hint at something indirectly through stress: ‘I don’t take any prescribed drugs’. Doctor: ‘Do you take any other drugs? Like recreational drugs?’ The ‘cue’ may be in the sound of the voice: the patient sounds hesitant. But it may also be non-verbal. Students need to learn to read and use appropriate

Image © iStock

body language, which can be open to misinterpretation. For example, looking away to think may be misunderstood as being unsure about the answer, or as being afraid to tell the patient the outcome of a disease.

Students need to learn to read and use appropriate body language Teaching doctors and nurses to read exactly what the patient is saying is also crucial – for example, when the patient says, ‘I don’t smoke very much’. According to Holt’s Law, people generally like to present themselves in a positive light, so ‘not very much’ might actually be 10 cigarettes a day, which in turn might actually mean 20! Conversely, ‘I’m not feeling very well’

might mean ‘I’m in agony’, as the pain threshold for one person might be very high, or the patient may not have the language to describe the pain. All of this – questioning, cue recognition, acknowledgement, correct interpretation, etc. – shows that there is more to patient-centred consultations than language per se, and that needs to be reflected in what teachers teach. Language alone is not enough. To be effective communicators, students need to learn competence in skills which help them understand what a patient means, rather than simply what a patient says. Sam McCarter is the author of Medicine 1 from the Oxford English for Careers series. He’s a teacher, consultant and freelance writer/ editor with special interests in medical English, communication skills, and IELTS. He has worked with WHO, UNHCR, and Wellcome, and currently teaches at Southwark College, London.

Teaching Focus Communication Dialogue 5 ■

6 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

The truth about case studies by Gareth Davies

Some of my fellow business English teachers claim that setting up case studies is basically an invitation to chaos in the classroom. But is it really?

In my experience, a well set up and well executed case study can be a motivating and stimulating lesson for both students and teacher. Case studies work well because students learn best when they are actively involved in the learning process. Case studies allow students to practise their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in a realistic setting, using authentic materials as sources. There are two levels of satisfaction students can derive from a case study – one is to do with achieving an outcome, and the other is about using English to achieve that outcome. In short, case studies practise language as well as business skills, and this brings learning closer to the students’ work experience. What is perhaps even more motivating for students in the context of business English courses is the fact that using case studies is a proven method of teaching business on management and other related courses. Case studies were first introduced by Harvard Business School in the 1920s, and even today over 80 per cent of classes conducted in HBS use that very same method. They were designed to be ‘slices of business reality’ imported into the classroom ‘in order to breathe life and instil greater meaning into the lessons of management education’ (www.hbs.edu/case). Our business English students are familiar with

the format of case studies and will see them as an essential part of the learning process. So how do we get the benefits and avoid the chaos? I believe there are three keys to ensuring a case study in a business English classroom is successful.

With a little effort, they can become a really useful part of the learning experience

chance. Before the lesson starts, plan the groups and the seating arrangements, and be willing to move the furniture and the students so they have room to discuss freely without being influenced or intimidated by other groups. However, make sure your plans are flexible so the case study will work even if some students do not attend that lesson. Key 3 The teacher’s response In Key 1, I mentioned that the teacher does not have to be a business expert, but that is not to say that the teacher should not be interested in the outcome of the discussions. One of the main principles of correcting students is to respond to the content of the message as well as the accuracy of the language. Students like to believe that they have something interesting to say and that they are not just ‘mistake-making machines’.

Key 1 Don’t expect to be the expert In a good case study there is no particular ‘correct’ answer. The students should be given the freedom to come up with their own solutions or conclusions. As with all business English teaching, the teacher should be the ‘language expert’ not the ‘business guru’. Oxford’s Business Result course helps you with this by providing the Expert View* from the Cranfield School of Management. The students can compare their findings with the insights of professors and recent graduates of MBA courses at Cranfield, one of the leading business schools in Europe.

* The Expert View appears in Business Result at the Intermediate, Upper-intermediate, and Advanced levels.

Key 2 Good classroom management Don’t leave classroom management to

Gareth Davies is a teacher and teacher trainer currently based in the Czech Republic.

These are three keys that will hopefully help you to unlock case studies as a method you and your students will find both enjoyable and effective. With a little effort, they can become a really useful part of the learning experience. Good luck!

Teaching Focus Unlocking case studies Dialogue 7 ■

Resource Bank Here is a case study from the Business Result Upper-intermediate Student’s Book – just photocopy and use in class

The Expert View

Organizing a road show Background Investor relations at Wolters Kluwer to build a relationship of trust. It does this by issuing regular press releases, publishing quarterly financial results and organizing ‘Divisional days’ when investors can learn more about the work of one of WK’s five divisions. It also runs a series of investor ‘road shows’ in cities worldwide. At the road show, WK representatives give presentations to update potential investors on WK’s key activities, financial performance and future developments.

Discussion 1

How does a policy of communicating with investors help big companies to build a relationship of trust?

What do you think is involved in the organization of an investor road show?

Dr Harvey Maylor, Senior Lecturer in Programme & Project Management

Unit 3 On schedule

Wolters Kluwer (WK) is a global company, based in Amsterdam, which provides information products and services for professionals in the health, tax, accounting, corporate, financial services, legal and education sectors. It employs approximately 18,400 people worldwide and has operations across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. WK believes it is important to communicate with current and potential investors to provide up-to-date company information and

There are two fundamental principles of project planning. Firstly, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. The creation of a plan that represents your best guess of what will happen with a particular project is a vital part of project management. The plan includes the tasks that need to be completed, their sequence and the resources required for them. The military have a saying: ‘A plan never survives first engagement with the enemy’. In other words, things never work out quite how you expect. This is the second fundamental principle – you must be flexible, in order to respond to inevitable changes as you try to execute the plan.

Cranfield School of Management

Task 1

Work in groups. You are a project team organizing a series of investor road shows in the Far East (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore) on behalf of WK. 1 Read the road show guidelines provided by WK. 2 Brainstorm the tasks for each item in the guidelines. 3 Make a schedule for the project (you have eight weeks before the first road show). Decide on a timescale for each of the tasks. 4 Allocate the tasks to the different members of your project team. Wolters Kluwer Guidelines for investor road shows • Prepare a timetable (when to visit each city and in what order). • Prepare a target investor list (including key information on the investor and size of possible investment in company). We recommend 30 investors at each road show. • Send out invitations to potential investors and keep a record of acceptances and declines. • Book venues for the presentations and arrange refreshments. • Arrange travel details for WK representatives – flights, car hire, hotel accommodation. • Print a copy of the presentation and prepare a handout for each participant.

You are now four weeks away from the first road show. 1 Decide which of your allocated tasks you have already done (make a note of when you did these) and which you still have to do. 2 Decide on two tasks which have been delayed. Think of reasons for the delay.

Hold a project update meeting to check that the project is on schedule. 1 Discuss progress of your tasks. 2 Make suggestions for dealing with problems. 3 Make a revised schedule for the final month.

Case study 23

03-BUSRES-UI-Unit3.indd 23

Photocopiable © Oxford University Press

23/2/09 20:35:04

8 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

“This is your pilot speaking ...” by Terence Gerighty

We’ve all heard pilots speak to passengers on flights, usually to deliver very routine information in a pleasant, reassuring manner – take-off time, expected arrival time, flight speeds, maybe even what the weather is like at our destination.

Linguistically, it’s all very straightforward and easy for everyone to understand. But if we heard the communication between pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs), we’d hear something very different – something like: “Bellevue Tower Stinson N97962, I say again. Request vectors to base-leg 31 right.” Confusing? To the non-aviation types among us, yes – and that’s because it’s an example of aviation English, used by pilots and ATCs for communicating with each other. Aviation English is a special corpus of language, like legal or medical English, which is full of codes, and technical and meteorological references. This corpus is also packed with numbers regarding time, speed, distance and altitude, and includes unfamiliar call-signs for identifying aircraft – Charlie Whisky Bravo one zero seven, for example.

We find English teachers daring to step into this highly-controlled world of communication We can already see that aviation English is a very different language from what we might expect to use on a daily basis. It uses about 1400 words, has hardly any grammatical input, uses very few questions, includes no social chit-chat and makes no attempt to be polite. Not much good for going on a first date or booking a holiday, but ideal for providing pilots and controllers with a bank of set phrases for efficient communication (see opposite page). So, aviation English is a coded language designed to facilitate efficient communication, yet is closed to all but the specially trained. This language is called Standard Phraseology and it is used for the routine situations – from gate to gate through to pushback, taxiing, takeoff and cruise level control. It’s used again for descent and landing.

And yet, we find English teachers daring to step into this highly-controlled world of communication, armed with no more than a layman’s knowledge of aviation operations. It’s a daunting task, but we are encouraged to do this by none other than the aviation industry’s worldwide authority, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Why? Let’s look at the background first. The ICAO recently introduced an English Language Proficiency test for pilots and controllers, and it did so because of some statistical research it carried out. Between 1997 and 2002, for example, the ICAO found that more than 75% of the reported incidents, near misses and actual accidents – some fatal – were due to poor communication and misunderstandings. By introducing the test, the ICAO was acknowledging that the coded Standard Phraseology which formed aviation English was not enough in itself. It was fine for routine situations, but didn’t equip pilots and ATCs for the unexpected or the unfamiliar. The new English Language Proficiency test requires pilots and controllers to use what it calls Plain English to handle such non-routine situations, and that’s where English teachers have a role to play. By helping students to practise key functions, improve pronunciation and increase vocabulary awareness, communicative misunderstandings should, hopefully, be reduced. All of this means it’s time to recognize the need for language teaching which goes beyond standard phraseology. It’s time to go beyond aviation English. It’s time to teach English for aviation. Terence Gerighty is co-author of English for Aviation, part of the Express Series, a series of short specialist courses from Oxford. He is an aviation English specialist consultant working closely with several major airlines and civil aviation authorities to improve English language proficiency according to the newly established standards demanded by ICAO (the International Civil Aviation Organization).

Image © iStock

English at work aviation English Dialogue 9 ■

Examples of aviation English Aircrafts never wait – they’re told to hold

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Controllers don’t give directions, they give vectors

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The number 3 is pronounced tree, the number 9 is pronounced niner – all to minimize the risk of mispronunciation and misunderstanding

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A plane is cleared for take-off – not for departure

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All letters and numbers are coded – for example, CBV is Charlie Bravo Victor. A controller might instruct a pilot to Taxi via Lima to Echo and hold short of Mike November. Expect delay of 10 due traffic. You are No 2.

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Air traffic controllers rarely ask questions – to clarify information or a misunderstanding, they simply use say again

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10 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

ESP – You are not alone by Keith Harding

For many newly qualified teachers – and some very experienced ones – the acronym ESP can be a bit scary.

If general English is a clearly-signposted ramble across open fields, then ESP, with its bewildering terminology, is more like a series of dark paths leading into an unknown forest. The path of ‘specific purpose’ can seem like a very lonely place. Making ESP less scary and bringing it into the fold of mainstream English Language Teaching has been a personal aim of mine for several years. It helped when I first heard the description of general English as ENOP – English for No Obvious Purpose! And the fact that recent trends and studies which show that general English is being taught and learnt at earlier and earlier ages added to the sense that English with a Purpose (EWAP?) was the real future of English. One of the principal practical challenges, it seems to me, is to find the common purpose between the different specialisms in ESP, to find out what they have in common, to make connections, and to build generic approaches and activities. But what, for example, do a nurse, a travel agent, a technician, and a business person really have in common when it comes to the English language? Let’s look to the Oxford English for Careers series for some answers. First, all those learners have specific needs which the teacher will need to identify and build into the course. They all have to: • understand technical, specialized vocabulary and documentation • use graphical, diagrammatic, and number-based information sources • operate in an identifiable working environment • use equipment and train people/be trained in its use • know how to describe equipment and its purpose • interact with the public in some way • operate within health and safety and other legal constraints • reflect on and evaluate their own performance • work with other team members.

In addition, there is also the fact that these four particular ESP learners will all deal with process systems: the process for admitting a patient, the process for booking a holiday, the process for testing a piece of electrical equipment, and the process for presenting products at a trade fair. Then there are more basic things they have in common: Language ESP learners don’t need to understand the entire language system in isolation. Instead, they need to use language that is relevant to their specialism or vocation – and this may not be the ‘logical’ selection and order of the general English syllabus. For example, as far as the tense system is concerned, the travel agent inhabits and works with a future world; the past isn’t so important. He or she needs practical fluency in future forms and not past tenses. More important still will be functional language like giving information, making recommendations, checking wishes, making a sale, and helping a traveller reach their dream destination. People All specialisms involve people, and the ESP learner can relate to these people. Whereas the general English coursebook might feature some iconic or distant personality, the ESP book can profile real people who are like the learner, who could be them now or in the near future – or in another country. In this way, the ‘It’s my job’ feature in Oxford English for Careers humanizes the language and makes it real. Motivation ESP learners, by definition, haven’t chosen language as their vocation. They may be non-linguists. They may not be very motivated, either by the language or even the subject itself. Making the language activities purposeful and interesting is the common challenge for all ESP teachers.

Image © iStock

Materials need to be relevant, but they also need to be bright and dynamic, snappy and zappy. Of course, having identified the shared features and approaches, it’s then important to be aware of the differences – different needs, different learning styles, different registers, different genres: the different paths through the same forest. So we’ve returned to the country ramble metaphor. A walk through fields and forests is always easier with a map – it helps you to navigate and find your ‘specific purpose’ among the many paths that are out there. Oxford English for Careers is such a map. It’s a series which shows you – the teacher and the learner – where to go, and it reassures you that you’re not alone in the world of ESP. Keith Harding is author of English for Specific Purposes: Resource Books for Teachers, and co-author of Tourism from the Oxford English for Careers series.

Teaching Focus Communication Dialogue 11 ■

Getting the job done by Vicki Hollett

The increased use of English as the international language has had a profound effect on many people working in trade and industry.

People working in production, development, maintenance, planning, purchasing, testing, logistics, and quality who had never needed English before found themselves in need of training. Such a situation was common at all levels of the corporate hierarchy. Many scientists, doctors, engineers, architects, and senior managers had all, for one reason or another, missed out on learning English, yet realized they needed to do it. What were the options for people like these? General English books weren’t appropriate – wrong topics, often too young/juvenile – and the business English books tended to have the wrong topics: things like company structure, strategy, management styles, HR, and marketing. That’s not what technical workers require. They deal with quality control, safety, damages, specifications, and following instructions. They don’t need to know ABOUT their job either, which is what many pre-vocational technical courses cover. They’re in work and know their jobs. They need to know the English. And that’s where idea for Tech Talk came from. We wanted to write a course book for people who work in lots of different jobs – project leaders, help desk workers, supply chain managers, field service engineers, stock controllers, laboratory technicians, health and safety workers, network administrators, clinical research assistants, plant operators, facilities managers, etc. The common denominator here is that these people tend to be the ones who roll up their sleeves and make

Image © OUP

things work – it’s language for getting things done that’s needed. With Tech Talk, we created an alternative to those business English courses which focus on plans, strategy, personal development, and corporate achievement. Tech Talk is practical. It’s less about people, and more about solving problems with things. It’s the course that gets the job done in the workplace.

Vicki Hollett is an experienced teacher and the author of a number of business English coursebooks, including Business Objectives and Business Opportunities, both First Prize winners in the English Speaking Union’s Duke of Edinburgh Book Competition. She is the author of Tech Talk and Quick Work Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate, and currently teaches business English in the USA.

12 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

Illustrations: a forgotten art? by Bruce Wade

When was the last time you used an illustration in class? And how often do you use them throughout a typical course? Though sometimes neglected by business and ESP teachers, illustrations are deceptively useful classroom resources and can have a number of advantages over text, as we shall see. The advantages of using illustrations One of the key advantages of using illustrations is that they have a low cognitive load, which means students don’t need to work through a lot of text, names, or explanations to understand a situation. They’re flexible enough to use for mixedability classes – the lack of text makes illustrations equally accessible to weaker and stronger students – and they convey a lot of information and meaning very efficiently. Illustrations also work as excellent aids to memorization and recall, especially for those students who respond better to visual stimulus. Let’s look at these areas in more detail with reference to two illustrations from International Express. Content-rich illustrations A combination of people and places provides the greatest potential for exploitation because students can speculate about who the people are, what they are doing, why they are there, and so on. Better still are illustrations that depict situations that students can relate to. For example, if the students work in an office then a realistic depiction of people in an office will grab their attention effectively. They can be personalized, dramatized, and be used for a range of linguistic purposes. Finally, a detailed illustration provides great scope for exploitation in a variety of areas. On the right is an example from the Elementary level of the International Express series. As you can see, it gives a bird’s-eye view of the various office spaces and reception area in a company. We can see people doing various things – giving a presentation, talking on the phone, using a laptop, waiting at reception, and so on. But how can we get the most from this illustration?

Exploiting the illustration The illustration is used in the unit to introduce the grammatical structures there is, there are, and has got. Students can make their own sentences about the picture – There is a telephone or The IT guy has got lots of computers, for example – using simple or complex sentence patterns, and familiar or new vocabulary. The picture has potential for other linguistic uses too. As we have already seen, there are scenes of people doing things, which is ideal for using the present continuous – He’s giving a presentation, She’s writing an email. There are lots of items visible in each room – files, bookcases, computers, etc. – which are useful for vocabulary development, and there are spatial relationships between the offices, reception, and the people. This can be exploited for preposition work, e.g. There are two people waiting at reception, Chris’s room is next to Ana’s.

Speculation and dramatization So far we’ve looked at straightforward uses of the illustration; however, there are other, more adventurous ways of exploiting the material using speculation and dramatization. With speculation and dramatization, the presentation in the Force Architects meeting room has new potential: What is the presentation about? (his latest project); Who’s in the audience? (potential customers), How’s it going? (not too well – one woman isn’t watching the presentation), and so on. The illustration could be dramatized by telling the students that two people are going to have an argument. Who? What about? What clues are there? The potential is almost endless, and illustrations that have such a puzzle or mystery element help to retain students’ attention.

Taken from International Express Elementary p24. Full size version available at www.oup.com/elt/businessenglish

Teaching Focus Using illustrations Dialogue 13 ■

Taken from International Express Elementary p28–29. Full size version available at www.oup.com/elt/businessenglish

In the example above, taken from the same book, the puzzle element is built into the activity. The main linguistic aim is to provide input and practice of prepositions of place – between, next to, opposite, etc. Students look at the illustration and listen to six colleagues calling each other on their mobile phones to try and arrange a suitable meeting place. Of all the people in the picture, only six are talking into a mobile phone. The students have to identify them and who will meet whom at which location. As the illustration has lots of detail, and people and places, the students can then go on to choose other combinations – for example, the man in front of the hotel could be talking to the man outside the café and they could arrange to meet outside the theatre. The students could then roleplay the conversation, but if the teacher feels that they need more practice using prepositions, there are lots of places that have not yet been referred to – the park, the car park, the boat, and so on. As you can see, there isn’t a lot of text on these illustrations but the students still get

lots of input and practice opportunities. This leads to a communicative, heads-up classroom where students can express themselves at a level they feel comfortable with.

Illustrations offer some major advantages in both the learning and pedagogical process Effective and motivating! Illustrations offer some major advantages in both the learning and pedagogical process. They can: ■ give students more direct access to the language and its meanings ■ give teachers a flexible way of teaching and practising lexical and semantic forms ■ improve retention for students – images are memorable, closely tied to concepts, and often stay in the mind longer than texts and audio

enliven classrooms with their potential for heads-up communication ■ offer variety – a single illustration could cover a tense, a vocabulary set, a fluency activity, and practice in all four skills. ■

But perhaps most importantly, illustrations are fun. They grab the students’ attention and make them want to talk – surely a key requirement of any successful class for business English or ESP students. Why not go online and download the fullsize illustrations featured on this page, then take them into class yourself? For more examples, take a look at the new editions of International Express. They provide a variety of illustrations that adult professionals can relate to and will want to talk about. Bruce Wade became a teacher in 1983 and has taught in the UK, Egypt, Sicily, and Japan. From 1995-2000 he was the Manager of Corporate Training at ILC in Tokyo, and is the author of two books: Business Letter Writing and Business Listening and Speaking. He is now Managing Editor in the Business English and ESP Group at Oxford University Press.

14 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

Resource Bank Source: International Express Elementary Teacher’s Resource Book

6.5

C O M M U N I C AT I O N F I L E

Welcoming a visitor Play this game with a partner. Take turns to ask and answer the questions.

eet a You m o your rt visito pany. com uce d Intro elf. s your

Ask

abou for w t travel ork.

Ask the visitor about their journey.

Ask th e somet visitor hing a bout their v is compa it to the ny.

Tell the visitor three things the about your Ask or t visi ut their home town. abo job.

A lon sk how g th her ey ar e fo e r.

Ask the visit about th or e home to ir wn.

Ask abou t their hote l.

Ask the visitor about their holidays.

Int vis roduc ito r et co to yo he llea ur gu e Fie Helen , ldin g .

Say to goodbye r. o it the vis Ask about their hobbies.

Ask about the languages they speak.

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Resource Bank Dialogue 15

Resource Bank Source: International Express Intermediate Teacher’s Resource Book

12.4

FUNCTIONS FILE

Functions review Play this game with a partner. Toss a coin. Tails – move one square. Heads – move two squares. Role-play the situations. START 1

A colleague has to visit a client whose office is near your house. Offer him/her a lift.

A friend thanks you for looking after their pet while they were on holiday. What do you say?

A colleague is having problems with their mobile phone. Offer them yours.

You have to leave a client’s office because you are late for another meeting. What do you say?

You want to give an opinion in a conversation without being asked. What do you say?

A client invites you to attend a conference, but you can’t go. What do you say?

At a party, someone offers you some food. Accept.

A colleague says,‘I hope we get the contract’. What do you say?

A friend tells you they have been promoted. What do you say?

In a conversation, you want to introduce a new topic that is connected with the present one. What do you say?

You have visited another branch for two days and are now leaving. What do you say to your colleagues?

You are the host at a party. Offer a guest a drink.

A client tells you their Marketing Manager has had to leave for personal reasons. What do you say?

In a conversation, a topic reminds you of something you want to mention. What do you say?

Say goodbye to a foreign visitor who is returning to their country.

You are going to the cinema with some friends. Invite another friend to join you.

You want to go back to a previous topic in the conversation. What do you say?

A friend tells you they have not been accepted for the job they wanted. What do you say?

In a conversation, you agree with what someone has said previously. What do you say?

A client invites you to visit their factory. Accept.

A friend invites you to lunch, but you can’t make it. Decline politely.

Thank your host for the party as you are leaving.

A colleague says,‘By the way, Javier sends his regards’. What do you say?

Say goodbye to a client after a working lunch.

FINISH

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16 Dialogue Business English news from Oxford

Resource Bank Source: International Express Pre-Intermediate Teacher’s Resource Book

7.4

VO C A B U L A RY F I L E

Trends 1

Use the information in the graphs to complete the article The global economy below. Sometimes more than one answer is possible. Growth in exports

Growth in imports

–5

– 10

1999

2000

2001

– 10

1999

2001

2000

US exports

World trade

EU exports

US imports

Africa exports

Africa imports

The global economy Exports In recent years, the global economy has become much more dependent on the US, and since 1999 the US has been the main influence on economic growth in the world. For example, in1999 and 2000, US exports __________ 1 (increased/ decreased) __________ 2 (slightly/ sharply), with a growth rate of approximately 12% by the end of 2000. However, after this growth they __________ 3 (fell/rose) during the following year __________ 4 (to/by) –5% at the end of 2001. This trend was even more marked in

Africa, where exports reached a peak of over 25% in 2000 but then fell __________ 5 (steadily/ dramatically) the following year. The EU is the exception. Growth remained relatively steady from 1999 to 2001, with an overall change __________ 6 (by/of) only 3%.

Imports Imports have followed a similar pattern. __________ 7 (From/In) 1999, US imports grew _________ 8 (of/by) 7% and then __________ 9 (rose/fell) to nearly 20% in 2000. However, the next year there was a

dramatic __________ 10 (rise/fall) of 25% __________ 11(of/to) a negative growth rate of –6%. World trade followed a similar pattern and growth increased __________ 12 (by/from) nearly 5% in 1999, _________ 13 (to/by) 13% in 2000, followed by a sharp __________ 14 (rise/fall) in 2001 __________ 15 (from/to) –5%. The exception to this trend was Africa, where growth in imports __________ 16 (increased/ decreased) from –4% at the end of 1999 _________ 17(by/to) nearly 5% in 2000 and then fell __________ 18 (slightly/dramatically) in 2001.

Sources: World Trade Organization, The New Internationalist

Discuss the question in groups. Give reasons for your opinions. 1 Do you think the world economy is too dependent on the US economy? 2 What are the alternatives? Photocopiable © Oxford University Press

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