CTBE - Unit 5

ITTT Specialized Course

Teaching Business English

BE 005

Unit 5 Teaching themes

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Unit 5 Teaching themes Synopsis In this unit we will consider a number of different teaching themes. These themes can be applied to a range of contexts and situations. Within each section, lesson examples will be given to show the actual usage of the methodology.

Introduction In many courses designed for the teaching of Business English there are sections which deal with particular language lessons, such as the ‘language of telephoning’ and ‘the language of meetings’.

This is all well and good and quite a reasonable thing to do. However it does limit the scale of teaching ideas and also makes things a little too prescriptive and predictable. For example “When starting a telephone conversation you should say ………………?”.

Why? The business of communication is to get your message across and whilst there may be some cultural formalities that have to be followed in any conversation, it seems a little absurd to be learning a sentence to open a conversation with.“What will work” is perhaps more important.

For this reason the ‘Teaching Themes’ unit that follows is not going to look at the microscopic details of particular conversation but rather some macroscopic techniques that can be applied to many, if not all, of the ‘contexts’ you will have to teach to your students. n n n n n n n

The first section looks at the use of case studies as a tool.

The second section considers a process called frameworking.

The third uses a methodology called ‘Problem based learning’.

Section four looks at how games can be used in the classroom.

Section five looks at Computer Aided Language Learning.

Six is the use of Speech Act Theory.

The final section contains number of sample lesson plans with materials.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes Case studies The use of case studies provides for a whole range of language learning opportunities for your students.

The range of contexts and styles are such that you will find material which can not only be used to give your students practice with what you have already taught, but also to introduce them to new vocabulary and language structures.

Choosing which case studies to use is obviously the most important factor and you will find a range of authentic material available. It is perhaps more sensible (until you have some experience of this type of activity) to use the non-authentic resources on the market, as these have been produced with specific language learning in mind. (See Castler, & Palmer, Business Assignments, OUP) Having chosen your case study you should now think about how you are going to use it in the classroom.

There is, by their nature, a lot of information contained within a case study, so your students will need quite a bit of lead in time to the activity. During this time you have to run through the usual techniques that you would apply to any communicative activity, such as: 1. Introduce and give background to the topic.

You cannot expect students to have an innate desire to complete a complicated activity of this type. You will have to ‘build them up’ for the task. They are business people so they will understand the purpose and usefulness of the activity, but they still need to understand the aims and objectives of the exercise.

2. Pre-teach the language of the activity.

This means both the content of the case study and the terminology of the assignment itself. Try to elicit the vocabulary from the students using pictures, mime, descriptions, etc. If you are unable to elicit, then simply write the words on the board and ask for their meaning (reverse elicitation), and explain any words for which the class are unable to provide a reasonable definition.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

3. Set up the mechanics of the activity.

This means arrange your groupings and your roles. It is useful to have assigned roles within your groups as this can give further teaching opportunities to the activities. Typically you will have a chairperson, who will present the group’s findings, someone to take notes (minutes) of the discussion, etc.

4. Demonstrate the process of the activity.

While demonstrating, keep it as visual as possible. Follow this up with a check of understanding on the purpose and process of the activity by asking the students what they are going to do. All of the above will obviously take time. Anything up to half an hour could be expected.

5. Give students a framework to use.

The students will need to take out the relevant information from the study to discuss the issues and then write out their findings. The efficiency of this process can be greatly increased by providing the students with a framework to complete, for example, telling them what the main issues to be addressed in the task are.

6. Let them do it!

It is now time to stand back and let the students complete the activity. Try not to interrupt the flow of the activity and monitor their language usage, noting common errors ready for feedback.

7. Feedback.

Allow each group time to present their findings. Avoid correction here to allow for fluency, but note common errors that you can deal with in the next stage.

8. Debrief and correction.

Praise, praise and more praise. Then deal with corrections.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Case study sample – students’ copy

Company profile: Company name: Company director: Annual turnover: Annual profit: Number of employees Products:

Microhard Electronics Bill Doors $1,000,000 $350,000 22 Computer software systems

Company aims:

To expand through organic growth, following an externally raised injection of $2,000,000.

Your task: Produce a presentation outlining your action plan for: (i) Raising the capital. (ii) How the money should be spent.

Process: In your groups read through the case study several times to identify the main issues.

List the objectives of the exercise.

Come up with at least 3 options to solve the task.

Create a set of criteria for each option.

Discuss the options and decide upon one.

Create a flowchart for the implementation of your option.

Present this information to the class.

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Page 4

Unit 5 Teaching themes Frameworking Theoretical Physics and Economics are two subjects that the general public find difficult to understand.

The reason for this is that quite often it is difficult to visualize what is happening during many strange processes.

Frameworking is a term which has been used in the study of these two subjects for many years and the idea has made its way into the teaching of Business English.

To explain many concepts, many physicists and economists use a model:

Input

Process

Output

Input: Relates to the starting conditions Process: Relates to what happens in the intermediate ‘step’ Output: Relates to what you end up with.

So what does this have to do with teaching Business English?

One of the most immediate applications is to study the language of change. At a company level, this means ‘where we are now (or in the past)’, ‘this is where we want to be later (or in the future)’, ‘so what do we have to do to achieve these aims (process).’

In order to describe the process of change from past to future we have to use a whole range of language and tenses and this is how frameworking can help in our teaching.

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Page 5

Unit 5 Teaching themes

Here is a simple example of comparing sales at two points in time: 2004

Now

Sales

$5,000

$50,000

Expenditure

$1,500

$25,000

Operating costs

$1,500

$15,000

Profit

$2,000

$10,000

We can present these figures using frameworking:

2004 Sales of $5,000

now Sales of $50,000

We would then create language based on the further past, the process, and the recent past.

Examples:

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Input

1. In 2004 sales were $5,000.

(past simple)

Process

2. Sales have been increasing.

(present perfect continuous)

Output

3. Sales are good this year.

(present simple)

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Page 6

Unit 5 Teaching themes

Problem-based learning This is a teaching methodology which places you as the ‘facilitator’ rather than the ‘teacher’. It follows the same strategies used in ‘task based learning’ and ‘collaborative learning’ where students work in groups to solve problems.

As with case studies, this method requires a chairperson and someone designated to take minutes. There are a series of stages to follow, as shown in the flowchart below: Chair and group read the problem.

Any language not understood should be discovered (dictionary, elicitation, etc)

The group are asked to identify the problem in their own terms

A brainstorming session on the subject takes place

Key issues are listed

The group decide on the tasks needed and these tasks are then appointed to people

Groups/individuals work on their appointed tasks

Students present their research

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

At first sight it may appear that problem based learning and the use of case studies are the same thing and indeed there are many similarities in the 'processes' of both. Case studies usually make the problems overt, whereas problem-based learning allows the students to identify what they feel are the problems to be addressed. It is quite possible that they will decide upon areas that are irrelevant in reality, but does this really matter if the purpose is to communicate in English?

A problem based activity may look something like this:

PGS Marketing Group – a business synopsis PGS has been operating since December 1999. Initially they offered a weekly flyer to customers outside supermarkets. The flyers contained details of local events and some news stories.

These articles were secondary to the real purpose of the flyer which was to offer advertising space to local businesses and companies for a charge.

After one year the success of the flyer allowed PGS to double its staff, invest in new printing machines and upgrade the flyer into a 'mini' magazine.

In their second year more staff were taken on and the area of coverage was increased to five surrounding counties. The magazine now had a new name – "The Trader".

Over the next two years success continued and operating profits were 35% of turnover. The magazine currently employs 25 full time staff and 50 distributors.

Annual turnover for 2014/2015 was $775,000.

PGS have recruited your team to help them increase turnover and profitability in 2016.

No current SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is apparent from the text so the students will have to deal with the information on face value. This is quite realistic. Often we do not have all the information needed to get to the answer.

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Page 8

Unit 5 Teaching themes Games If you make a list of 20 games that you have played and enjoyed in your life and then spend a little time thinking about them, you will find that nearly all of them can be adapted for classroom use.

We will define a game as any activity with a purpose, rules and an element of fun.

Obviously you cannot spend all of your time playing games, but when thinking about your longer communicative activate activities, you should try to use games in some adapted form at least some of the time. Your clients may well spend most of their days being fairly serious, so a bit of educational light relief will probably be appreciated.

Here's the start of our list: ®

®

®

Battleships, Monopoly , Pictionary , Trivial Pursuit , hangman…

Let us see how these can actually be put into practice:

Take hangman first (this is a guessing game for letters and words). This is a useful warmer activity. It can be used to good effect to introduce vocabulary when you are not sure if they know the word. Play hangman with that word – you can give your stickman ears and eyes etc to extend it, until they fill in all the letters and then ask someone to give you a definition of the word. If they can't then you need to tell them. Hangman can also be used for compound words and short phrases.

The game of Monopoly, whilst it has obvious business overtones can be adapted by making each of the chance and property squares into a question. The questions can cover any area or topic and therefore it can be used for general revision. No money needs to be used; instead if you answer a question correctly you get a house, if not you get nothing.

In Pictionary, a word or phrase is guessed by a team from the visual clues drawn by a member of the team on the board.

The vocabulary words can be at any level of difficulty and the harder words could be given more points, the students being given the chance to choose their level of difficulty.

When thinking about the use of games in the classroom a mistake that is often made is that teachers think of a game first and then think about how they can adapt it to a teaching point. This is the wrong way round; a more effective approach is to start with the teaching point and think about which games could be used to cover that point. It is unlikely that any particular game can be used without some form of adaptation.

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Page 9

Unit 5 Teaching themes

Computer-Aided Language Learning (CALL) On the scale of technophobe to technophile our business students are more likely than most to be computer users.

This provides us with an opportunity to use a vast set of resources, not just for classroom use but for assignment and extension work. It is probably fair to say that you will not have a computer suite made available for your classes, but this needn't obviate the use of the computer as a language learning tool.

As a minimum the internet can: n

n n n

Provide a whole range of authentic material for your teaching.

Provide lesson planning outlines.

Provide opportunities for student research topics.

Aid your own professional development.

The skills that students can practice using the internet are not limited to reading. There are websites where you can find business letter and e-mail formats, which the students can use for writing practice.

If students are using the internet to research a particular topic or company, then the most useful form of feedback from this research is in the form of a presentation. This provides opportunities for speaking and listening.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Let's now consider some of the ways that we can use the internet.

Business letters, faxes and emails To see quickly what is available first open a search engine such as www.google.com.

1. Type 'business email' in the search box, and take a look the variety of results that will appear.

2. Do the same thing with 'business letters practice'.

As you will have found there are numerous sites that we can visit. Take a little time to research these sites and you will quickly find the ones that are most useful.

Bear in mind that there are copyright issues here, so be careful what you download and how you are going to use the material.

Company reports Should you do a search for company reports as your keywords, you should find a number of websites offering free company reports.

You may find the process a little more efficient by going to a dedicated site such as www.annualreports.com. .

You can then download company information such as the example for ICI shown on the next page. This type of authentic material provides a lot of useful information. (Please note that certain details and links in the ICI information may no longer be current.)

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ADR): Company Report Company Report Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ICI) is a specialty products and paints company that develops products and ingredients for a range of consumer and industrial markets. The Company's specialty products and paints businesses (the International Businesses) consist of National Starch, Quest, Performance Specialties and Paints. These businesses serve diverse consumer and industrial markets through approximately 80 strategic business units, which make up approximately 180 operating units. In addition, ICI has a number of Regional and Industrial businesses in its portfolio, which consist of the Company's operations in India, Pakistan and Argentina.

Quick Facts Location

Website Industry Employees Exchange

Stock Price History

Last 3 months Last 6 months Last 12 months

Financials

Change

Relative strength

18.1%

83

30.3% 19.4%

Last 12 months

Five-year growth

Sales

10.6 bil.

-3.0%

71

Income

378 mil.

NA

70

Dividend rate

0.51

-28.46%

Dividend yield

2.50%

5.7%

All financial data in U.S. dollars

Stock Activity

20 Manchester Square London EN W1U 3AN Phone: (207) 009-5000 www.ici.com Chemicals - Major Diversified 36,210 NYSE

Financial Ratios

Qtr(3/05) EPS estimate FY(12/05) EPS estimate

NA

Last price

20.39

52-week high

20.75

Debt/equity ratio

2.01

52-week low

13.59

Gross margin

NA

Current P/E

12.30

Volume

191,900

Net profit margin

3.60%

FY(12/06) EPS estimate

1.84

298 mil.

Forward P/E

12.9

6.08 bil.

Next earnings release

NA

Average daily volume (13 wk) 50-day moving average 200-day moving average Volatility (beta)

65,900 18.10

Fundamental data

Earnings Estimates

Total shares outstanding Market capitalisation

16.45

Earnings/share

1.66

1.5

StockScouter rating

NA

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1.71

Page 12

Unit 5 Teaching themes

Authentic reading materials For authentic reading materials, you may want to visit some business biography websites. Two good sites are www.infoplease.com and www.woopidoo.com/category/people/.

This is an extract from the Jeff Bezos biography page at www.woopidoo.com/jeff-bezos-biography/: Jeff Bezos Biography Jeffrey Bezos is an American Internet billionaire, aerospace entrepreneur, media owner, and philanthropist. Best known for the wildly successful Amazon.com website, but he also owns the aerospace company Blue Origin and the Washington Post newspaper. Best selling books published by or about Jeff Bezos include “The Jeff Bezos Letters: 14 Principals to Grow your Business like Amazon“, “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon“, and “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos“.

Jeff Bezos is the president, founder, and CEO of Amazon.com where he also acts as chairman of the board.

Jeffrey Preston Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, NM. He and his mother relocated to Houston, Texas, when Bezos was five to live with his new stepfather. Jeff Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston until the sixth grade after which he attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School when the family moved to Miami, Florida.

Bezos spent many summers of his childhood on his grandfather’s 25,000 acre ranch in Cotulla, Texas helping perform various duties necessary for upkeep.

He showed early mechanical aptitude and eventually turned his parents’ garage into his own personal laboratory. He eventually attended Princeton University where he joined the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity and graduated with a major in computer science and electrical engineering. He graduated with a grade point average of 4.2, higher than the “perfect score” of 4.0 due to his overwhelming number of “A-pluses” that earned him 4.3 points each.

With his new degree, Bezos began working with computers on Wall Street. He helped create a computer network for Fitel for use in international trade and later worked for D.E. Shaw & Co. He founded Amazon.com in 1994 and was criticized by many in the industry who projected that his fledgling business would fail. Since Amazon’s original goal was to sell anything, starting with books, many believed that the rival website launched by Barnes and Noble in 1997 would quickly put him out of business. Bezos, however, remained eternally optimistic, even after Amazon shares dropped from $100 to $6 as a result of these criticisms.

Amazon.com flourished and quickly led the market for online retailers. Jeff Bezos has been known to work by numbers and spreadsheets and is well known for his ability to quantify data and statistics into his marketing and business goals.

Amazon.com continued to be profitable and grew to sell a wide range of objects both new and used. Bezos has profited from his venture and made it onto Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people for many years.

Jeffrey Bezos was ranked the richest person in the world in 2018 according to several media publications. With an estimated net worth of $112 billion USD he knocked off Bill Gates of Microsoft and stock market investor Warren Buffet to claim the number one position.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Speech Act Theory In this section we will look at a language acquisition theory known as the ‘Speech Act Theory’, usually credited to Austin and later Searle.

The theory itself is still the cause of much debate and has its detractors and proponents in approximately equal number.

Here is a quick outline of the four level Speech Act Model:

The model works from the outside in and each level forms the foundation for the next level. What does each of these levels mean?

Utterance

An utterance is saying a word or short phrase with no particular meaning. It is considered a reflex action. For example if you were about to go to the shop and looked out of the window and noticed that it was about to rain, you might say “Aw no!“ There may well be no-one else there at the time, so obviously you are not trying to communicate with anyone. So why did we speak? It was purely a reflex action.

Propositional utterances

This is an utterance that identifies something and involves interaction, i.e. a speaker and a listener. They don’t have to mean anything. A propositional utterance and an utterance are parts of the same category, but a propositional utterance is a specific kind of utterance. As an example, you might say to someone you’re with “Oh, look at that dog”. You would never expect a response.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Illocutionary utterances

\

Perlocutionary utterances

Illocutionary utterances contain propositional phrases and are used with an intention of communicating with a listener. At this level the meaning of a set of words depends on the speaker’s intention. As such an illocutionary utterance of the same set of words could be a question, a statement, a request etc. For example, “You like two sugars in your coffee, don’t you”, depending on the speaker’s intention and resulting intonation, could be a statement or a question.

The most important aspect of this level of speech act is that they intend to affect the behaviour of the recipient. Each of these acts could be followed by a response, which in turn leads to another speech act and so on. Most normal conversations fall into this category.

So how can we put this theory into practice?

It would appear that the most appropriate settings for this theory in the teaching of Business English would be in the areas of: n n n

Making offers and requests Negotiating Questioning

Speech act theory can be used to help overcome problems created by cross cultural mistakes. Even students with a high standard of a second or foreign language can say things which can appear culturally insensitive. This is often due to the fact that they have directly translated a phrase in L1 into L2, without knowledge that to the recipient it is an illocutionary, or worse still a perlocutionary utterance, when there was no intention (i.e. it was made as a propositional utterance).

As this sounds so complicated, it’s probably easier to give an example. Consider the following (true) interaction: A trainee teacher asked a group of Thai Intermediate students to think of questions to ask her, to which one student replied “Why are you so fat”? The cultural significance of this question to an American female was completely at odds to the culture of the Thai man who asked the question.

So it is useful when teaching the three areas above during a lesson to give the students scenarios and ask them to think of responses in L1 and then translate them directly into L2 to see if there are cross cultural differences in ‘speech act‘ meaning.

This can actually be fun!

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Putting it all together We have now considered a whole range of teaching structures and models, and how to create lesson plans in the ESA format. It’s now time to see how this all fits together in realistic lessons. The following series of lesson plans cover a series of topics and levels.

The first lesson is for Intermediate or Lower Advanced level. The topic is agreeing and disagreeing in a negotiating forum. The vocabulary is based on a scale from total (100%) agreement to zero (0%) agreement.

The second lesson is for Pre-Intermediate level students. The topic is modal verbs. Examples being will, would, might, may, can, etc.

The third lesson is for Intermediate level students.

The topic is transitive and intransitive verb forms.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Lesson plan 1

Intermediate – Negotiating, agreeing and disagreeing This lesson is designed for a one-hour class. It can be adapted for longer sessions incorporating the vocabulary listed at the end of the lesson plan. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to use complex words and phrases to indicate a level of agreement or disagreement, and use the language learned independently.

ENGAGE: (10 minutes) As most of your students will be working adults or young adults, a good way to start introductions is of course, to find out what they each do for a living – where they work, what type of position they hold. As you go around the room, board all their answers so you have some jobs vocabulary. From there, start expanding your list. In pairs, have students come up with a description of who the most important person is in their company and why – what are they in charge of, what do they decide, etc. Then ask students what happens if you disagree with your boss, how do you talk to them, what can you say – give a prompt scenario if students get stuck, such as – what happens when you want a raise? What happens if people aren’t satisfied with working hours, schedules or benefits?

(You will have to do a back-check for the words in italics – when you put these example questions up on the board, see if a student can give you a definition and see if another student can then use the word in their own sentence – hopefully a response to your question) STUDY: (30 minutes) Erase the board and put up disagree and agree on one side and on the other side of the board list the vocabulary words you just elicited a response to – raise, satisfied, benefits. Any other language that fits into these divisions that your students were able to give you in the engage phase should be listed as well. To elicit agreement and disagreement vocabulary put a scale of total agreement to total disagreement on one side of the board:

agree

disagree

See if your students can fill in some words or phrases that fit in between here – what would you say to someone if you agreed, disagree, or weren't quite sure.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

You should end up with the following words – if you cannot elicit them from your students, give them the word or phrase and see if they can place it on the scale: I totally agree/disagree I accept that I fully/completely agree/disagree I agree up to a point I'm in favour of that I would agree, but…

I don't accept that I don't agree you could be right you might be right, but…

I see it differently Now that you have your scale on one side of the board, start to put this together with the other half – the vocabulary. Start by asking students, what are some things we agree or disagree on relating to work: the short list of vocabulary that you have on the board is a good starting point: raise, benefits, what else? Elicit some more things from your students. If they get stuck, ask them about unions in their country – what do they do for the workers? Negotiate – what do they negotiate?

– salary; overtime; perks/benefits; earn; minimum wage; tips; commission; bonus; pension; company car; fringe benefits When you have a list up, you can move into your first study practice activity: To introduce your first study, tell students that you are now going to look at how these things fit together in a business environment when people disagree or are trying to come to an agreement… Be sure to review your exercises to see if there will be any vocabulary that is necessary to pre-teach outside of your lesson language.

Study 1: Match the response to the statement according to the level of agreement/disagreement in brackets.

Study 2: Using the words from the vocabulary box, complete the sentences.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

ACTIVATE: (20 minutes) Tell your students that you are now going to a meeting of union representatives and business owners. Brainstorm for a few minutes about what kinds of things you would discuss at such a meeting and board all the ideas they give you. Then let the students choose a company name and what product it is that they produce. Tell your students that the topic of the meeting is: an hourly wage rather than a salary.

Divide the class into two teams. Team A will be union members and Team B will be the company owners. Give each team a few minutes to decide what their position is: have two prompt cards for each side to work from: The Union: n n

The union wants their workers to earn a set salary because hourly wages are too low and don't include overtime pay.

The union wants their workers' hourly wage increased and benefits should include overtime pay.

The Company: n

n

The company feels that if they provide overtime pay in their benefits package that workers will slow production during working hours in order to stay and collect special overtime pay.

The company can't afford to put all workers on salary because of the high numbers of people they employ – rather than single out a few that will earn a salary, it is better to keep everyone equal and everyone on an hourly wage – they are willing to negotiate overtime pay to make up for this.

Your students have five minutes to brainstorm which position they want to negotiate. Then set up the classroom in rows and tell the students you will be moderating – you will be in charge to make sure that negotiations don't get out of control.

Any more advanced students in the class could come up with their own ideas regarding points for negotiation on both sides, and write these ideas in the empty boxes in the course material cards on page 22.

Students can read from their notes if they need to but you also want to encourage a dialogue that flows from ideas each side puts forth.

Make sure you have left the language of agreement and disagreement up on the board so students have prompts to work from.

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Unit 5

l

m es at s er o ial n s

Teaching themes

Additional vocabulary items for extended sessions: Compensation, remuneration, share options, performance-related benefits/bonuses, collective bargaining, tactic, agenda, bargaining position, objectives, fallback position Choose the best response to the statements given. Be sure it matches the level of agreement or disagreement shown in brackets!

1. Traffic fines are bad for promoting tourism. (it could be true) 2. If too many tourists get ticketed, fewer people will rent vehicles and overall the economy will suffer more. (partially agree) 3. Since tourism is the most important business here, we need to find a solution that will keep tourists happy. (you might agree, but you have another idea) 4. We should increase the amount of required insurance tourists must purchase when they rent a vehicle. (agree) 5. People expect to have to pay insurance costs on their vehicles anyway. (agree) 6. This increase in insurance fees should make up for the loss in actual numbers of rented vehicles. (disagree) 7. Tourists will continue to rent vehicles and not worry about being stopped by the traffic police and we will continue to collect extra revenue. (partially disagree) 8. This is the only solution that keeps our economy strong and will keep tourists happy. (disagree). a. You're right. I agree. People do expect to pay insurance costs whenever they rent or buy a vehicle. b. I agree up to a point. I think that the traffic fines are so cheap that the number of people who would choose not to rent just because of a possible fine is very low. c. It's true that we need to continue to promote tourism. I see it a little differently though. We need to focus not only on what the tourists want, but also what is best for the people that live here. They often rent vehicles as well. d. That's a good idea. I'm in favour of that. I think this will help take care of many traffic disputes between tourists and locals, though I'm not sure tourists will appreciate having to pay extra charges. e. I completely disagree. I think we need to spend some more time thinking about our options and research other possibilities before we make a decision. f. That's where I don't agree. I think the insurance fee would have to be very high to take care of the loss to the rental businesses. We have to consider the business owners as well – not just our local city finances. g. You might be right, but traffic stops are necessary to help stop people from driving drunk and having accidents or from bringing illegal items into town. i. I would agree but like I said before, the revenue we would collect would have to be dispersed to local business owners as well, not just go into general city funds.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Two friends are talking about their new jobs. Choose the best word from the vocabulary box to complete the sentence.

salary commission raise

Susan: James:

Susan: James: Susan: James: Susan: James: Susan: James: Susan:

overtime bonus benefits

perks minimum wage pension company car union negotiating

My job pays for my health insurance. I can go to any doctor or hospital that I want.

Health insurance isn't one of the benefits my company offers. I do get ____________________________ to use for running business errands though so I don't have to use my own.

It sounds like they do have some ____________________________ that they offer to keep you happy.

We also get a ____________________________ at the end of the year if the company has earned a certain amount of money.

I get a ____________________________ every 10 months if the review of my work is positive. That will help since right now I am only earning ____________________________.

We get paid every month. So our ____________________________ is set from the beginning.

Do you get paid ____________________________ for extra hours that you work?

No. But I think our ____________________________ is ____________________________ for that right now. They have been discussing it for a long time.

Our company has offered to pay us an additional ____________________________ for every 10 products we sell. That way we have a reason to try and sell more.

Our job descriptions sound very different. Good luck to you!

Good luck to you also!

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Activate materials

The Union Our workers need to earn a set salary because hourly wages are too low. They do not receive extra pay to make up for all the overtime hours they put in. Overtime pay should be included in their regular salary contract.

We want the hourly wage increased.

# We are

willing to negotiate an appropriate hourly wage only if the benefits package were to include overtime pay.

The Company

#

We can't afford to put all workers on salary If we provide overtime pay in a benefits package

because of the high number of employees we

our workers will slow production during working

have. Rather than single out a few that will earn a

hours in order to stay and collect special

salary, it is better to keep everyone on an equal

overtime pay.

hourly wage; we are willing to negotiate overtime pay to make up for this.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Lesson plan 2

Pre-intermediate – Modal auxiliary verbs for degrees of formality This lesson is designed for a one-hour pre-intermediate class. Additional items are included at the end for extended sessions. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to use modal auxiliary verbs to indicate varying degrees of formality.

ENGAGE: (10 minutes) Start by asking all of your students who uses social media. Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? What else? Ask what other kinds of things they use to communicate with people – their friends, family, etc. Who do they talk to the most? Does anyone still write physical letters and post them? What did people do to stay in touch before computers and smartphones? What do you think communication will be like in the year 2050? Be sure to board all of the different types of communication devices and activities they give you for use in the first part of your Study phase. Ensure telephones and message/answering machines are included.

STUDY: (20 minutes) Erase everything you have on the board from your communication vocabulary except telephones and message/answering machines. Ask how many of your students have to use these things every day and if they use them for business or mostly just personal reasons.

Most likely, some of your students will be receptionists and some will be business owners. Ask what kinds of things they say when they answer the phone. Board their answers. Ask what kinds of things they say when people ask them questions or want to make an appointment, what happens when the person they want to talk to isn't there. Board their answers. Hopefully you will have some of your phrases like “Can I help you?” “What time would you like to come in?” “The manager might be available next Tuesday.” Etc… Underline words like can, may, would like to, might. See if you can elicit from your students what kinds of words these are: modal verbs. There are several kinds of modal verbs. Start a chart on the board – one column has permission/prohibition, one has possibility and one has polite requests. Make sure your students understand what each words means by eliciting a definition or an example sentence. Put can, may, would like to, might in their appropriate column and then see if you can elicit other phrases from your students to fill in the chart. You want to end up with: will, would, may, might, can, could, must, mustn't, shall, need to.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Now ask your students to use each in a sentence they might hear or say during a telephone conversation. Which words do we use when we need to very formal or polite, like when we talk to a boss or someone important? Which words do we use when we talk to friends? This will get them thinking of the levels of formality and help solidify the business aspect of telephone conversations.

Study1:

Study 2:

Choose the correct modal verb to make the sentence formal or informal depending on the person you are speaking to (in brackets). Bear in mind that there may be cultural differences, so the students' answers may differ to yours.

Put the dialogue in the correct order.

ACTIVATE: (30 minutes) Arrange the class in a semi-circle or U shape if it is not so already and re-arrange the students so that there are no spaces in between. Tell students that we are all going to be part of the same telephone conversation and you will start the phone call. Each person must add one new sentence to the telephone conversation and use a modal verb whenever necessary.

You will keep going around the classroom until the conversation has been resolved.

You can expand the time by using new scenarios – the first being an angry customer, the second, someone trying to schedule an appointment with another person who is out of town, the next being, someone trying to make hotel and plane reservations, etc… After two or three rounds, divide your students into pairs. Give them each a scenario card and five minutes to act out the phone call according to what the card says. Be sure to leave time at the end to feedback and see how each scenario was resolved.

You will need to pre-teach and back-check for understanding the following vocabulary: faulty, previous, complaint, advertising campaign, willing, court case, postpone, finalize, confirm, apologize Note: To expand this lesson for longer sessions, you might want to add some work on sequencing of events such as: a soon as, already, yet, still, immediately, as soon as possible, at your earliest convenience.

s

This material can easily be added into work on telephone dialogue – Please get back to me as soon as possible; I have phoned three times already and am still waiting for a response; I will have her call you back immediately, etc.

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Unit 5

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Teaching themes

Choose the correct modal verb.

Look at the name or situation in brackets ( ) to decide how formal the correct answer needs to be.

1.

(your best friend) a. Call me back right away. b. You must return my call immediately. c. Could you call me back when you have a moment?

2.

(your boss) a. I might be late for work this morning. b. I am going to be late for work this morning. c. I may be late for work this morning and will make up the time next week.

3.

(doctor's office) a. Would it be possible to reschedule my appointment? b. I cannot make my appointment time and need to reschedule. c. I can't make my appointment tomorrow.

4.

(your mother) a. Would you like to join us for lunch? b. Can you come to lunch tomorrow? c. Is it possible you might join us for lunch tomorrow?

5.

(at a job interview) a. May I have some time to read the contract before I sign it? b. Do I have to agree to the contract now? c. Do I need to sign a contract now?

6.

(your secretary) a. I would like you to file these papers please. b. Can you file these papers? c. I need you to file these right away.

7.

(an important client) a. Shall I get you some coffee? b. Would you like some coffee? c. Can I get you some coffee?

8.

(a co-worker) a. We need to get this report finished. b. Could you help me finish this report please? c. Might we work on the report now?

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Unit 5

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Teaching themes

Write this on the board: An angry customer has called and would like to speak to your boss. Put the dialogue in the correct order.

Cut up the worksheets and give each pair a set.

#

C: Good morning. I have tried to call your office several times and nobody has returned any of my messages.

R: I'm sorry sir, our office has been very busy. Is there something I might be able to help you with?

C: No, I would like to speak to the manager.

R: The manager isn't available right now; I would be glad to give him a message if you'd like.

C: No, I have already tried that. Is there someone else I could speak to please?

R: I can try to connect you to the supervisor sir, but I need to tell you he is very busy and might not be able to answer your call immediately.

C: Is he the only other person who can help me?

R: Yes he is, but I would be glad to give him the message myself, to see that he calls you back as soon as he can.

C: I can wait on the phone while you try.

R1:Alright sir, please wait one moment, I shall try to connect you.

R2:I'm sorry sir, but he is not answering his phone.

C: Thank you. I appreciate your help.

R: No problem sir. I hope that we may be of help. Would you like to leave him a message as well?

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Activate materials

#

Customer: You returned a faulty product to a company expecting to get your money back but have received nothing.

You have tried to call the office several times and left messages. No one has called you back and now you would like to speak to the supervisor in charge of production.

Receptionist: The production supervisor is away at a business meeting and won't be back until next week. There are several people you could direct the customer to speak with, including the department head, the customer service team or the complaint department. You have no record of the customer's previous phone calls.

Department Head Company #1: You would like to schedule a time to meet with Company #2 to discuss how you might work together on a new advertising campaign. Your schedule is very busy (you have meetings Monday and Tuesday all day, Wednesday evening and Thursday and Friday mornings) but you are willing to make changes to suit Company #2.

Department Head Company #2: Company #1 has been calling your office to try and arrange a meeting. You have been out of town and haven't been able to call back. You have all of the following week free and are willing to meet with Company #1 either on Monday or Friday.

Law Firm Client: You have a very big case in court this coming week. Two people have been assigned to help you but no one has called you in the last four days. You are getting very nervous and would like to speak with someone today. If not, you will come in and wait for whoever is available to help you.

Lawyer: Unfortunately, as soon as you decided to help your client, a very big case was given to you by your boss. You haven't had time to prepare your client's case and will not be able to meet with him until next week. You will try to postpone the court date until you are prepared. You do not have time to meet with him if he comes in to the office.

Superstar's Representative: You are trying to book one week at the area's most famous spa for your superstar client.

She is a very famous actress and normally gets very special attention. The spa manager has not been returning your phone calls to finalize the arrangements.

Spa Manager: Many famous people stay at your spa and because it is high season now, your rooms are full. You would like to book the superstar for another month, when she will receive all the special attention she needs. Until then, you cannot ask any of your other important clients to leave early.

Secretary at Doctor's Office: You have been trying to contact Patient A for three days to confirm a very important doctor's visit. The doctor is very good and a lot of people wait a long time for an appointment with her. If Patient A does not want to keep their visit time and date, you would like to give their spot to someone else. If Patient A needs to speak to the doctor before he decides, that can be arranged.

Patient A: You have been very nervous about seeing the doctor and that is why you have not called back to confirm your visit. You will keep the appointment time and date and apologize for not returning the secretary's phone calls. You would like to know if it is possible for the doctor to call you back before your visit date.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Lesson plan 3

Pre-intermediate – Transitive and intransitive verb forms to describe actions This lesson was designed for a one-hour pre-intermediate class. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to use transitive and intransitive verb forms to describe actions in the form of a presentation. Additional vocabulary and activate ideas are included at the end to extend the session.

ENGAGE: (10 minutes) Have students, working in pairs, write down as many words as they can make from the following word by re-arranging the letters: alphabet soup.

Give them a two minute time limit. Then, go around the room and get a few answers from each pair and board their words. From their list of words, have them tell you which are verbs. Erase all but these words. Have them put each verb in a sentence – this will start to target the transitive/intransitive issue of subject/object verb order.

STUDY: (20 minutes) From the sentences you have on the board from the engage phase, elicit from the students the different parts of speech of each sentence so you can start to look at subject/object/verb word order. Today you are going to look at new kinds of verbs: transitive and intransitive verbs.

Start by putting up the verbs, rise, raise, and arise on the board. See if you can elicit from students what each of the words mean. Rise means to grow or go up – tax costs rise every year. Raise means to make something higher or to increase something – raise a salary, for example. Arise means to happen, for something to come up – difficulties in learning arise when students don't study.

Put one example sentence on the board for each of your three verbs and elicit from the students what the subject, object and verb is in each sentence. Then, tell the students that these verbs have special names: transitive and intransitive.

Elicit the difference: Transitive verbs, such as raise, need a direct object after the verb. For example, The city raised traffic fines to bring in more money, where traffic fines is the direct object. The city raised on its own could never work, for that reason. Intransitive verbs (arise, rise) aren't followed by a direct object – A problem arose at the meeting. Here, arise has to be intransitive because you can't “arise” something!

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Give them the new verbs and have them use each in a new present simple tense sentence until you have got all the present tenses out. This will also be a back-check to test that everyone understands the new verbs. You want to try and keep them to present tenses because you are now going to look at these words as they relate to business growth.

Before you begin combining this first part of your study with the business aspect, you want to elicit from your students the following vocabulary, or pre-teach what each of these words mean. Vocabulary: flow chart, figures, growth, revenue, target, turnover, forecast, restructuring, bankrupt, peak, boom, demand Go around the room and ask your students if they have heard or used these words in their daily business environments.

If not, see if you can elicit sentences from them combining the new verbs they learned with some of the vocabulary in present tense form. Your first study activity will be on the vocabulary itself and the second will combine the two so it is helpful if you can spend a few minutes to see what the students are capable of to begin with.

Study 1: Match the word to the correct definition. Note that there are two different words with the same definition.

Study 2: Choose the present tense to make the sentence correct

ACTIVATE: (20 minutes) Two teams have been hired to help a company whose profits have been decreasing for the last year. Each team has to design a presentation of their plan to research and attack the problems. Whichever team has the most thorough presentation of ideas, wins a bonus for helping to solve the problems.

Pre-teach: vitamins, alertness, target group, accommodate the growth of, supplier Tell the students that the Energize Company produces all natural vitamins. They have been mostly marketing to university age students. They claim that their vitamins aid memory and alertness. For the last five years, they have had the same advertising campaign for this same target group. Last year's profit report showed that the company has steadily lost money in profits and are no longer the number one supplier of vitamins to the university age group. While the cost of their advertising has increased to accommodate the growth of the university-age market, new technological advances in the production of vitamins has been ignored because it has been too expensive. Your team is assigned one chance to help solve the problem and save the company.

You need to design a flowchart of your ideas on how you plan to restructure the company and its spending in order to raise the company's profitability once again.

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Unit 5

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Teaching themes

Choose the correct present tense form to make the sentence correct.

1. Company turnover rates have risen/rise to a new level since our last meeting.

2. A problem is arising/has arisen between employees who are not happy with the restructuring plans.

3. We raise/have raised our target for next year due to a new market report.

4. As you can see from our flowchart, if we lower taxes, we raise/are raising demand for our product.

5. Our chances of going bankrupt rise/are rising every time we invest in more equipment without any use for it.

6. Our new television commercial is helping to have raised/raise revenues from product sales.

7. A new opportunity has arisen/arise and we should take advantage of it.

8. The boom we are experiencing in sales now, arises/has arisen from the continued efforts of all of our employees.

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Unit 5

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Teaching themes

Match the word to the correct definition: flow chart

how much sales have increased

figures

numbers, information, data about sales

growth

profit earned from sales

net revenue

a sequential outline of a (company) plan

target

reorganization of a company or departments within a company to maximize profit

turnover

a huge growth in profits

forecast

money raised from sales

restructuring

amount a company hopes to sell OR a specific group a company is trying to sell to

bankrupt

the amount of product people want to or will buy

boom

prediction on amount that will be sold/made

demand

when a company has no money – what they spend is more than what they earn

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Unit 5 Teaching themes Task sheet Check your knowledge before attempting the unit test.

Please note that this task sheet is solely for checking that you have understood the course unit content. You do not need to submit this task sheet – just use it to check you have understood the major points.

Note: not all the information needed for the answers can be found in the unit, so you may need to do further research from other sources.

Task 1 – Think about five games you've played in the past and explain, in detail, how you would adapt them to five different teaching points (e.g. present simple for routines): 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Task 2 – Using a biography of a well-known business person sourced from the internet, create a study phase worksheet for reading comprehension (8 questions): 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Task 3 – Based around the same biography, describe an appropriate information-gap activity for the Activate phase of the lesson:

Task 4 – Give the website and URL for the biography you used:

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Task 5 – Choose a theme that you would typically present in a business English setting, and construct a full ESA lesson plan as per the model on pages 7 to 8 of unit 4.

Lesson Plan Teacher:

Observer:

Date and time:

Class level:

Room:

Expected number of students:

Language point: Teaching aids: Learner objectives: For the students to be able to

Personal aims:

Anticipated problems for students:

Anticipated problems for teacher:

Solutions:

Solutions: Procedure

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Phase

Timing

Interaction

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Procedure (continued)

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Phase

Timing

Interaction

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Unit 5 Teaching themes

Task 6 – Explain the theory of the teaching methodology 'Total Physical Response', and how it could be used in a business English classroom.

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