Improving your English every day?

[Ralf]

dear roberto,

today we started with commercial correspondence. we wrote enquiries for a company called INTERSYSTEMS. the company provides solutions for language training programmes and other 'training measures'. the enquiry concerned hardware from a supplier in England. students should be familiar with a lot of useful phrases now.

what you could do tomorrow is create a company profile, define an image (i.e. reliable, modern, fast, efficient, unique etc), think of the organisational structure (like in CENTI), assign tasks and departments, and ask groups to take active measures.

on thursday you might want to introduce telephone situations and repeat the conditional types.

have a good one!

ralf

p.s.: i can do the 21st no bother. maybe i should do monday 19th, wednesday 21st and thursday 22nd next week. keep in touch r.

p.p.s.: you should be on time on thursday since fr. folta will be there too
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[Torsten]

Hi Ralf and Roberto,

Please make sure you are on time every morning, you know how much emphasis the organizers of government funded courses place on punctuality as this is something they can measure exactly.

Thanks,
Torsten
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[Roberto]

Hi, Ralf and Torsten,
thank you very much for your updates.
And Ralf, thanks for your suggestion.
Today's class in Leipzig (Wednesday):
-Review of the vocab about doing a presentation; some useful phrases for presenters; writing, designing business letters: a review of the guidelines; exercises.
-introduction of some computer terms regarding letter format: indentation, font, alignment, margin, save, paragrapgh, style, line spacing.
-Adjectives describing a person or a team/a company: reliable, efficient....
-Text: first impressions; importance of creating a good impression at the first meeting; importance of this matter for all companies.
- Analysing an enquiry/an offer; use of important prepositions in a business text: we saw your advertisement for.....in this month's issue of...etc.
-Introducing your business: we are a young a rapidly growing company specialising in a wide range of...

At all events, I'll be on time (not only) tomorrow.
Have a nice evening!
Roberto
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[Roberto]

Hi, Ralf, hi, Torsten,
This is my update for today's class:
-Review of vocab/phrases regarding business letters, inquiries; offers, orders; creating a company
-Organization chart of a company, words related to this topic: CEO, chairman, sole trader, plc, accounts department, finance, purchasing, marketing, production departments etc; functions; book, funding, to head, manage, organize a department, etc...
-Prepositions; their correct use in business letters (inquiries, offers): collocations with certain nouns: information on, details of, be equipped with etc..
-Word chains: inquire, inquiry and other words that are etymologically related such as: inquisitive, inquisition, question, query, request, require, requisites, requirement; acquire, acquisition, acquisitive etc...; submit, submission (other mit-/mis-/miss- words: admit, admission, etc....).
-Use of conditional sentences, specially in business letters: useful phrases: could you please..., I would be grateful for....etc..
-Dictation of ten sentences that were previously translated from German into English: Vocab regarding inquiries; grammar: use of prepositions, conditional, present perfect, simple past, present participles; new vocabulary
-Synonyms and occasionally some opposite words.
Have a nice Thursday and good luck tomorrow, Ralf.
Best regards,
P.S On the table there is an assessment form you or I should fill in and hand in next week to Frau Folta.
Bye,
Roberto
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[Ralf]

dear roberto, dear torsten,

we had a great class on friday.

...though we were writing orders all day. class was quite motivated so it worked a treat. now i'm sure everyone should be familiar with a fair chunk of vocab.

the last unit we used for repeating characteristics. since i don't know roberto, i asked them to describe him. roberto, now i'm rather curious to meet you

roberto is a latino-like man in his early thirties, of medium height, rather slim with long dark curly hair tied up in a pony-tail. he mostly wears a blue shirt, dark woollen trousers and black leather shoes. roberto is a very placid and positive nice guy, a lovely bloke. he likes etymologic plays on words and onomatopoeic inventions. he works for a living, but doesn't live for his work (that's a phrase someone came up with, which is rather impressing).

on thursday this week people want to meet up for a drink in substanz beergarden at 7 pm. hope you can make it!

more tomorrow, have a good one!

ralf

p.s.: i won't have time to submit my personal profile this week, coz i've got visitors over from dublin for a week. i'll do it by the 26th, pomise . r.
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[Ralf]

dear roberto,

today we created a concept for the CENTI supermarket. everybody was quite active, and everybody should be able to explain their activities. i left the departments and participants on the board so you can quiz them. there was quite a bit of disagreement between the groups so you may also ask for differences in opinion. andreas and sigrun of the finance department and sabine and krassimira of the management board should be involved to solve those problems. ralf and stefan of the innovation dep. need to rethink their strategies, and tanja and susanne of the personnal dep. need to fine-tune their staff strategy, whereas achim and lothar of the purchasing dep. just need to come up with more detailed ideas for recources and products. it might be a good idea to start with jana/liz whose dep. i forgot

have a good one!

ralf
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[Roberto]

Hi, Ralf,
thank you very much for calling and for your update.
Tomorrow I will continue what you started today Monday. And then I'll move on to a review of the most important grammar aspects (verb tenses, etc...). As I suggested by phone (sorry, but there was some trouble understanding you over the phone due to the noise in the background....), I would deal with payment methods.
- review of the basic vocab regarding the last business topics: orders, offers; telephone skills.
- It is very kind of you if you can replace me on Wednesday. Thanks a lot.

Have a nice evening and more details tomorrow evening,
bye,
Roberto
P.S Hi, Torsten, I would like you to wait a bit longer for my profile too.
I have already prepared some lines but it is not finished yet.
I hope you can agree on a short postponement of the deadline.
Best regards,
Roberto
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[Roberto]

Hi, Ralf, hi Torsten
today's update:
- review of some business vocab: money, finance, order, offer, etc...
-organizational structure of a company: the different departments; opinions;
- Text: types of companies in UK, USA and Germany: sole traders, (general....) parterships, Plc., Private limited company, holding company, subsidiaries, limited liability...Exercises. Vocab. Grammar: either....or; neither....nor; both .....and; relative clauses vs. present participle (-ing);
- Review of all main tenses: a test; synoptic table of the tenses and its signal words.
-character traits: outspoken, outgoing, honest (we chose a sign of the Zodiac: Leo), dignified, natural leader, arrogant, inspiring loyalty in others etc...

Have a nice Tuesday,
Roberto
Good luck tomorrow, Ralf.
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[Ralf]

apart from analysing a newspaper article about leipzig (washington post) i did commercial correspondence today. we wrote orders and further enquiries.

tomorrow i will start writing complaints. roberto, on friday (the last day of the program), i suggest you could do a sum-up discussion, evaluation of the course and something fun.

more tomorrow, have a good night!

viva argentina, ralf
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[Roberto]

Ho, Ralf, hi Tosten,
as suggested we didi a sum-up discussion on the last day off the program.
- Review of the basics og grammar, specially all verb tenses;this/that; these/those;
- Review and enhancement of computer vocab.; the structure of business letters; effec tive business correspondence
- Joachim celebrated his birthday; lyrics of tow beautiful songs: Stevie Wonder: Happy Birthday; Armstrong: What a Beautiful World!
- Some grammar jokes (specially referring to verb tenses: word puns; blend words (Chunnel, bannoffee, netizen, indutainment etc...)
- every one seems to be satisfied with the course (at the end of the course every participant got his/her certificate; the participants want to meet up once a month in the next future and continue learning English;

Have a nice weekend,
Roberto

P.S Sorry, Ralf, that i could not come yesterday; I didn't feel
well due to my hay fever.

Bye, and i hope to meet you too in the next future.
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[Ralf]

the course consists of 10 people, most of them are high beginners and two absolute beginners. that's why i started with the basics:

- alphabet + abbreviations

- general introduction

- asking for personal details

- numbers

- telling the time

- simple present: "to be" + 3rd singular in other verbs

- asking questions + short answers

- regular activities

- the genitive 's'
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[Torsten]

Hi Ralf,

Many thanks for keeping us up to date. What about the professional background of your group? Why are they learning English?

Have a good Tuesday,
Torsten
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[Ralf]

the group consists of arbeitsamt shop assistants. their motivation is rather low since this english training is part of their programme. out of 10 people probably only 2 of them participate actively. everything but a walk in the park. today i was repeating everything i did yesterday, only making gradual progress. tomorrow i will do more group activities and will be 'tougher' on individuals. next week i will start involving activities related to their possible future job. i've also ordered "in company - beginners" to have proper material to work with. however, the photo copier at the bildungszentrum is broken, that doesn't particularly make things easier. more tomorrow.
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[Torsten]

Hi Ralf,

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. Maybe you can incorporate some writing activities into your program? For example, you can have the group create an essay on the question 'Why I want to improve my English'. Try and make your group analyze their own situation. Have them come up with possible benefits of learning English.

As a matter of fact, you can even tell them they have to write down at least 5 reasons why they should learn English. I'm sure that the two active learners will be able to come with even more ideas as why learning English is good for them. Then, focus on those two and have them interact with the rest of the group.

Also, it might be a good idea for you to think of alternatives to the current system which we are more or less a part of. What do you think should be changed? Why is that so many people are sitting in those classes not knowing why?

Regards,
Torsten
PS: Please speak to Mrs. K or anyone in the organization about the photocopier situation. They have at least 2 very modern and fast machines, one of which most definitely works!
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[Ralf]

to get a better picture of the group, just imagine 2 absolutely unmotivated women in their fourties worrying about their houshold, having no prior knowledge of the language and 7 adolescent 19-22 year olds who are interested in computer and video games, boys/girls, shopping, tv, hip-hop, cigarettes, clubs, alcohol, bild zeitung, chocolate, and, first of all, looking very very cool. i'm doing my best to consider all afore-mentioned areas. and i must admit that the scorching heat in the classroom helps taming those youngsters. i'll keep you posted.
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