Google for teaching adults how to describe statistics

Google is just so useful, isn't it?  But did you know that you can get your adult Business English students looking for their own data, specifically relevant to their own interests, projects and responsibilities?

 For fun, drag the yearly scroll bar!

This incredible site, Google Public Data Explorer, offers statistics from the World Bank, Eurostat, OECD and also includes several more country-specific-options as well (Australian Bureau of Statistics, US Bureau of Labour Statistics and much, much more).

Most of the charts are completely customizable and although the fun factor, when messing about on the site trying to decide just how to present the data, is high (you can change years, colours, countries and layouts),  the very real potential for pedagogical application is even higher!

Screenshots can be taken of each data set, printed, turned into jpegs and inserted into PowerPoint/GoogleDoc presentations, however, what I like best is that the charts can be easily embedded directly on to your students' own blogs/pages/ wikis, Nings or any other learning platform you're using to teach with.

For fun, hover over the country names!

What can you encourage your students to do?  

• Give them the link to the site or show in class if you have internet access.
• Ask them to review the options and to personally choose a set of statistics that they are interested in knowing more about or that they need to know about for their own work/study.
• Show them the various options for presenting information: globally vs. the country they're in/ doing business with/ countries they're interested in knowing more about.
• Encourage them to then work in teams (comparing their preferred data sets).
• Tell them to create essays, blog posts or presentations researching and exploring the reasons which explain the data they'd found.

What language could you use this website to practice?

• the langauage of describing statistics
• expressions for trends and changes
• numbers and financial English expressions
• comparatives and superlatives
• range of past structures and present tenses
• predictions for the future
• asking and answering critical questions about the world we live in

Previously on Kalinago English, posts related to this posting:
Why use Google?
More lessons tips for ESP:Financial
More lessons tips for Business English Adults

Useful links
Statistics for a changing world
Search Power
Google Docs presentation on ways to use the Public Data Explorer
Blog about stats (lots of great tips)

Best, Karenne
education

Cartoon Videos in Business and Financial English

With all the hullabaloo going on in Europe, Greece first and now Italy plus wherever's next by the time this post is actually published... because according to my students it was always going to be a W recession and now that the Euro is sinking fast, Friedmann-type prophecies threaten, whispers of deflation scatter, so  thought I'd better get on with posting up this interesting video I've done with my own ESP:Financial adult learners.

My own lesson plan with a Pre-intermediate group was based on taking the vocabulary presented in Ian MacKenzie's book, Financial English, and turning it into something a wee bit more exciting & communicative, ensuring that the vocabulary included some stickiness and of course, making it somewhat easier-to-swallow.

So...
a) we watched the video
b) did the exercise 6.10
c) watched the video again and discussed it for merit and content
d) got them to explain inflation and deflation
e) reviewed the questions on 6.10
d) talked through European periods of inflation and deflation
e) they created their own Powerpoint slides of the vocabulary in 6.10 (in exercise and text)

Would you have done this lesson any differently?

What other ways could this video (or the ones below) be used?

Best,Karenne




More Cartoon Videos for Business English (a playlist)










Useful links related to this posting: 
Business English Cartoons (Youtube link to the ones shown above)
The Dilbert channel on Youtube
Business English Pod
More video websites for Business English 
More Financial English tips

Hi English Fans! (Motivation in Adult EFL)

alternative title: UP, DOWN, TOP/BOTTOM, CHANGES & NO CHANGES


There have been some rather hot and heavy discussions recently about whether or not it's a good idea to use technology in teaching.

And if you're a regular visitor to my blog then you pretty much already know what I think.

For those who're new: I drum it in hard and heavy. It's the world we live in, it's the world we better be teaching in.



This time, though, I won't be socking you with my opinions. I'll just show you the result.

For those who don't know any back story, I'm very proudly a dogmeist which is a kind of radical movement in teaching, started up by Scott Thornbury back in 2000 (see his website and articles here).

Dogme has the goal of student-centered learning, conversation-driven lessons and a clear focus on emergent language.

Trouble is, I'm also a technologist and most dogmeists aren't.


Now, although Scott Thornbury is my thought leader (there really isn't anyone else like him or his work in our field) we've had a few, somewhat public, arguments about the tech side of things.

I enjoy these discussions - he makes valid points which force me to up my anty each time: just because I think I'm right, doesn't mean that I am.

Being wrong is a point of growth and opportunity to develop - it's specifically because of these arguments, every time they flare up, that I keep copious notes on what's happening in the classroom, how my students are responding, how much they're retaining, where they're improving and constantly question my teaching practice and its effectiveness.

Today's post is about student motivation in my hybrid dogme meets technology teaching.

This blog mostly contains lessons I've done again and again, things that I have experimented with way before you get to see them ;-) however today... I'm going to go out on a wing and admit I don't know what my students will produce next week.

Today, I'll simply ask you to look at the level of motivation my students are displaying due to the fact that we focus on things that they are interested in learning, work on language they need to learn and reuse this in ways applicable to their lives.

We use technology when it fits to do so, not because it's fancy.

Part 1

Language objective:

Mastery over phrases used in statistical reporting /Financial English.

In class procedure:

• Get each student to draw trend expressions as given onto large sheets of paper then present to the rest of the class. If we had had computers in class with us that day, these could have been done in excel.
  

• Discussion and agreement /disagreement. Building contextual examples.

• Cross checking via BlackBerry for expressions when validity of use uncertain.

The expressions in drawings:





Setting up the pretask activity:
(I dislike the word homework)

Brainstorm potential sources for reports.



Pre Task

Find pre-existing graphs, pie-charts, annual reports and download from the internet, preferably in English but not necessarily.

The task is not to create a graph (they know how to do that) but instead to choose any figures and trends personally interesting and think about how to best describe change.

Next week we'll discuss their findings in English.

Student involvement

See emails from Eva, the self appointed moderator, who decided to make sure that all students (including those missing) are on the same page for next week. I did not request for this email to be written, although I wasn't surprised to see it - she often follows up on the lessons.

We live in a world with email. We live in a world where digital photographs can be taken and shared, where .pdfs can be downloaded and distributed.

We live in a world where our phones are micro-sized computers.

We live in a world where the wheel doesn't have to be reinvented but can instead be analyzed - where the focus in language learning can actually be on the language.

Next week I will show you what happens next In Task - what they produce, if they reused the language, how they present these and anything else.


Best,
Karenne
p.s. Can I just say this cracks me up: Hi English Fans! My German/Polish students in this class are aged 40+ and work in the Financial sector.

Water Words (on using images in ESP: Financial English)

One of the absolute best supplementary books to use when teaching banking or financial types is Financial English by Ian MacKenzie.


However, despite the absolute wealth of vocabulary it contains, the exercises can be a bit difficult for students to do, especially if they've never seen the words before and also the book is, quite frankly, a wee dry.

If you've been reading my blog for a while then you've probably already gleaned by now that I like to have a bit of fun in my lessons... and I've noticed you do too... while still sticking to the core learning objectives.

So in this posting I'm going to hone in on two different approaches to working with lists of words, when presenting a visual lexis.

For this example, we'll look at the language in unit 2.10 of Financial English, Liquid Metaphors.

Step one:
Divide up the following words by the number of students you have:

2.10 includes:
channel, dry up, flood, flow, pour, run out of, swim, trickle down, drain, ebb and flow, pool, source, awash, crest, depth, under(water), fluid, sank, plug.

*To mix things up, I also brainstorm a list of related lexis with my students and provide extras before evenly distributing these amongst the students e.g. (water)fall, drop, river, cross that bridge, laundry, ocean, wave & drown.

Step two (the dogme version)

Hand out the vocabulary and ask your students to draw pictures matching each word.






As great masterpieces aren't expected, you'd be surprised how much 50+ year old bankers enjoy doing this type of activity, LOL!





For the words they have difficulty drawing (because they don't know them) either encourage them to help each other out, mime the words or allow them to use a dictionary.

OR

Step two (the techno-teacher version)

Give your students their share of the words and set image searching as their pre-task activity.

They can use Google images (use safe search), any photo based web 2.0 platform and/or my personal favorite, flickr. Remind them to look for images that are creative commons licensed.

Ask them to copy the pictures into Powerpoint, create slides & label if wished.

n.b. if you don't have a computer in the classroom this pre-task can be set as a home based activity.



Step three

Spread the pictures across the table or if you have one, pin them up on a corkboard.

Encourage your students to present their drawings or slides and to share their understanding of the words they've learned with each other.





Step four

Do the exercise provided by the book* - if feasible, get them working in pairs of groups discussing the different solutions applying the words to a financial context, referencing the pictures on the table.

*obviously although I'm using Financial English as the example here, you can do this activity with any vocabulary book.



Step five

Build awareness by highlighting and discussing the common expresssions i.e. trickle down, run out of, riding on the crest of a wave, pulling the plug on something, a huge pool of resources etc - encourage them to come up with alternative sentences using these.

Step six

Now ask your students to write up a short essay reusing the metaphors. For example, in this case, they could describe:

• their company's financial situation
• a project they're currently working on
• their country's economy
• the financial crisis and the global economy
• a current financial news item (e.g. a company heading toward bankruptcy or being listed on the stock exchange)
  

Step seven

Correct their pieces and get them to share what they wrote with each other - encourage further conversation on the opinions stated - reusing the collocative phrases as often as possible.

Best,
Karenne

Side note: I've done both of these methods with my learners and they all reported 1) increased awareness of the vocabulary and 2) a noticing of the lexis in later financial news articles.

For me, these approaches of working with images, while similar probably have different effects on memory.

I've been thinking about it and reckon that they probably trigger different learning processes (one involves some physical learning and discovery of the lexis, the image searching would result in immediate association between the word and image) however, honestly, as I'm not a scientist nor do I have a masters in second language acquisition, I'd really love to know your professional take on this issue.

Do you know of supportive texts that back these ideas up?

Have you/would you also do this type of activity with kids or teens? Why, why not?


Useful links related to this posting:

• Jeremy Day's excellent tips on using Imagery in Financial English
  
• Murder of a Superhero (using drama in the classroom)
• Other teaching tips with a dogme angle added
  
• Other vocabulary teaching tips

• Scott Thornbury on Repetition, great YouTube video!

• The Weboword Ning - for vocabulary enthusiasts, lovers and learners! This is the world's first community dedicated to Visual Vocabulary.

• Jamie Keddie's post: Reasons for buying flowers (grammar + images)
  
• Vicky Saumell on Using Phasr
  

The Business of Twitter - an English for Special Purposes Lesson

Aside from living off the venture capital they've received, nobody knows how Twitter's making cash or even if they're managing to cover their bills, despite the fact that their application is one of the fastest growing in the web 2.0 - especially amongst older, wiser, users.

This issue of how are they going to turn it into the next Google-money-making-machine has got the bloggers all in a twitter, all trying to figure out what on earth the next step might be, (will they be bought out by Apple?) in a semi-voyeuristic thrill of being the first to learn about the killing they'll probably make.

However, no one, really, can come up with a good solid answer of where this cash is going to come from and when it comes, how they'll maintain that income.

So, I took Twitter's potential business model into the language classroom.

After all, my adult students with their investment banking backgrounds or their daily web design responsibilities should have a better inkling than I do (or the so-called the social networking marketing experts) and to boot we'd be able to practice some great language of creating possibilities.

They did quite well.

Massive amounts of brainstorming went into this exercise: Mirko and Volker at the bank were convinced Twitter could make their money combining advertising tweets with google earth and data mining until we decided that, quite probably, too many countries would declare that illegal.

Philip thought they might go the route of the romance sites, hooking up people across the world based on like-minded tweets but then decided that would be too cliché.

Marc at the website company also came up with the idea that they could do a deal with a major telephone company as more and more smartphones hit the market, the telecom industries should be able to make a killing off the tweets.

Susanne was convinced that the plan was made right from the beginning to simply sell it to Google, which means Adsense, and that would be their downfall as they'd just piss-off their user base.

But Frank thought, in a separate lesson, that the twitter page should be divided up into blocks (the right column is a problem - too narrow for ads) of 5 - 10 tweets, +1 sponsored ad inserted mid stream directly related to the general themes in each twitters' profile setting.

Gerhard, a bank board member, was pretty convinced that Twitter won't actually ever make any money, reminding the rest of us of how the dot.com bubble burst in '00.

Who knows if any of them have got it right.



Why not find out what your students think?

To do this lesson, which is aimed at students with an applicable interest, you'll need:

• internet access in the classroom

• a twitter account that's been running for a week to ten days minimum.

If you're not already on twitter, (whether or not your students are) sign up for an account and then follow other teachers in your niche (you can find them by searching for #esl, #efl #businessenglish #teachertuesday hashtags) for about a week to 10 days.

Start tracking conversations and participating in them so you've got a fair amount of experience into the hows and whys and wherefores.

Next, look for several people in your students' niches.

If your students are already on twitter, exchange @addresses. If they're not, it doesn't matter, use your own account.


The lesson is basically made up of

1. Showing them your twitter page.

2. Them showing you their twitter profile (if they have one) - discussing choice of avatars and background pictures and talking about if/ why these are important.

3. Following the tweets and links of people in your students' fields of interests/ niches and discussing these.

3. Discussing the conversations you've and your students have been having online - what they've learned.

4. Discussing the pros and cons of using twitter (see this video which you can also take in or set as a pre-task).

5. Brainstorming how Twitter could transform their platform into a successful, financially sound business.


Finally
6. Feedback on their language: the key (and new) vocabulary they would like to learn.

As a follow-up, for extra vocabulary dissection and more discussion on the application and its use, you can also show Evan Williams' short talk on TED.

Useful links related to this posting:

@kalinagoenglish (me)
Twitter blog (from Problogger)
Tweetdeck (helps you organize all your tweets/responses/group people)
The IATEFL tweets (from the Cardiff conference and beyond)
More links, articles, videos etc (things I've saved on delicious)

Best,
Karenne

p.s Funny song, actually first heard on Ronaldo Lima's blog -it's all his fault am on Twitter now!
(lyrics here - quite an interesting viral marketing story too)

p.p.s. To print out a copy of just this page, click on the title first, then move down to the eco-badge buttons and select print.

I dislike the word homework

I was just about to turn off the Kalinago and go on over to write in How-to-Learn-English, about idioms and ballparks but just before I do that I just gotta get something off my chest.

I hate the word homework.

I teach mainly adults these days and you know what happens to their faces when you say '...and your homework is...! Ya, you know. But think about the little ones, the kids, if you've ever taught these. They like homework. It's fun.

Remember when you were a kid?

It was fun! Always something cool to do, drawing or making stuff. Sticking and gluing, putting together projects and talking to Mummy and Daddy. And getting praised by the teacher the next day.

Even math was enjoyable because with a little bit of work, erasing, more work, you could easily get to the solution.

Remember?

Somewhere along the way from childhood to early teens the word homework went and got itself distorted and it just began to signify pain: hard annoying tasks with no tangible value. Your students were teens once too so...

Newsflash: they still feel the same way.

It's not that learning English isn't fun - it really is - it's the word that's the problem. Yuck. Homework.

What am I doing about this? You don't really expect me to twitter on without a suggestion, do you? LOL. You know me, I've been experimenting for over a year now. I've some alternative phrases so don't laugh, they work:

Pre task activity &
Post task activity

Today, in class, I asked my little group of students at an investment bank "So, guys, what would you like to do for your post-task?"

V told me he is going to watch part 3 of the Taleb interview on CNBC because he didn't get around to doing this yet and M is going to continue developing his map of collocations from our dissection of a Nokia investor relations speech (er, a future blog post, coming soon)

No grumbling. No fuss.

'So what's the plan for this week's PTA?' I ask.

MA at the other bank is going to make a poster of linking words - she's having a bit of trouble keeping them straight and P is going to write up a short email about Chinese investments; G is very busy this week but she might listen to the Business Spotlight podcast while running. H is going to learn about RFID technology via slideshare as he's got a client in this field.

They choose. They do. It's really as simple as that.

Best,
Karenne

p.s - What do you think? Want to give it a go? (You'll feel a bit strange at first, getting that yucky word out of your active vocabulary - actually I still smirk when I've got a brand new group and I have to explain to them that we're not using the word homework - they do look at me like I'm nuts - but it's working!) Or perhaps you've got an alternative phrase to PTA/ post and pre-task activity?

Or do you just think I've been teaching way too long and finally flipped out? Whichever it is, do let me know your thoughts as I love sharing and learning from you guys too... xK

Where does the buick stop?

The news are currently a-buzz with corporations lining up to hold out their begging bowls in the hope that something, anything will rescue them from the worsening financial crisis.

One of the most ridiculous of these is quite probably the BIG THREE, the CEOs of the giant US automakers (Chrysler, Ford and GM) who somehow did not have the vision to implement a change to smaller, high mileage, 'greener' vehicles and who now need a bailing out to the tune of $25bn.

I say 'vision' somewhat sarcastically.

The last few years have seen an outpouring of commercials advertising their so-called greenness which suggests that they did indeed recognize the trends in the market yet hesitated about doing anything about it other than launch propaganda machines.

Instead they dined like kings, sipped Cristal champagne, earned upwards of 40k A DAY and now, surprise, surprise, they must go to PapaUSA (i.e. the American taxpayers) for a little cash injection.

How long will it be before other global car-makers, except Toyota LOL, rock on up with the same plan?

It's not their fault? Pah!

But their errors, if left unsolved, will cost the world's employees in jobs, be the end(!?) of a stable global economy - opinions range and are as hot as they are indifferent - yet can you imagine what will happen when hundreds of thousands worldwide (millions if you count semi-related industries, especially in the US) lose their jobs?

Can you imagine the knock-on effects?

The US government and our governments will probably have no choice but to rescue the car-mega-corporations and their factory workers.

How very, very careless you have been Mr Mullaly, Mr Nardelli and Mr Wagoner (yes, even if you just recently took on your jobs). Shame on you.

Do you really expect the man on main street to pour yet more capital into your extravagant business models with narry a word on how you will effectively restructure and clean up your shops?

Lordy B, I can't help but muse on whether or not big OIL will need bailing out next!

Anyhoo, my rant's over...

Just stirring up the pot to show you how highly controversial and topical this subject matter is and how you can use it to make an exciting ESP lesson: be it with your financial students or those in the automotive industries.

As usual I'll just provide you with tips & some sources, so go on ahead, browse around and use what's useful then construct the lesson the way you'd usually do it...

Articles on the big 3

(3 levels given especially for your mixed ability groups-different articles to different students)

• 'Simpler' English (int: B1-B2)
  

Bloomberg
International Herald Tribune

• A little harder (upper int: B2-C1)
  

LA times (full of good idioms)
US News:6 myths debunked
NewsOK

• Tough going but really worth reading (upper int/adv: C1-C2)

Editorial, truth about cars

• Your audio learners (radio)

4 interesting, short segments from the BBC

Videos

Note: Most of these vids are made up of various car ads and a report on the 'SEXYgreenCARshow'. You can not make this stuff up - if you teach ESP:automotive students you'll have a whale of a time with this video, the language is generally slow and clear.

The "Ripple Effect" video at the end is well, seriously scary - a nice finish to a lesson on this theme (it's fast though so have a finger ready for the pause button).


Sidebar:
In 3 of my classes today, the craziest thing occurred while showing the GM never-seen-before ad - the men (one banking class, one insurance, one automotive) all talked back in English, involuntarily, to the projected screen and text/images.

Some just named the models as they whizzed by - all mentioned Opel, others 'hmphed' and made fun of the philosophy underlying the video. Most interesting -definitely a keeper.

To download the entire playlist or to simply choose which you'd like to use in your class(es), go here.

Karenne's lesson ideas

• divide up and set the various articles as homework by sending on the links to your students (if you can't do this, get them to skim for gist in class).
  

If by the time you read this blog entry, decisions have already been made you might want to look for new articles. A pre-search link to googlenews is set here - as a general rule (in my experience) bloomberg and reuters tend to have shorter and easier business articles, iht is a good link for students because it has translate-a-word functionality, BBC and Guardian Weekly often have topical worksheets for language learners prepared; financial press and blogs tend to be harder - full of lower frequency words. As much as possible try to vary the "slant" if you want your students to really discuss!

• review the vocabulary students had difficulties with, especially concentrating on chunks of text and idioms used in a business context.

• show one or two of the videos as a pre-task, intro and/or to review vocabulary (not sure how to download video? go here) If unable to do this, send your students the playlist and let them choose what they'd like to watch.
  

• discuss the articles for comprehension or simply get them to summarize their articles' slant or positions introduced - encourage students to agree, disagree and generally opine.
  

• ask how this issue is being reported in their own media - should the automakers get bailed out? Why, why not? Are car makers in their own countries turning up with hat in hand?
  

• Roleplays:

Big class - split up your students and ask them to play the role of Nardelli, Wagoner, Mullaly; other students play the role of the government (Pelosi, Obama, Bush, governmental economic advisers etc) and yet others play the role of the union bosses. The rest of your learners can play the man on the street: factory workers and normal joes (themselves).

Ask your students to design the focus of the roleplay themselves, getting them to spend some time thinking of what they will say - then hold the debate.
Small class - with 3 students or less, ask students to play the role of the President's economic advisers who will be interviewing the CEOs. Their task is to prepare hard-hitting questions (regarding future plans, how the bailout money would be spent and on what).

Advanced levels - with your higher students control (!) their language, encourage them to flex their grammatical muscles: to use the future continuous, perfects, passives and perhaps even use some 3rd conditional in natural context! ;-).

Another video, from Sabine- thanks, worked like a charm- but man, rough stuff!
Here are the lyrics.


Purchase conversation lessons:

SimplyConversations prompt cards plus SimplyQuests:

• finance & investment
• auto industry

€1.49 individuals
€4.99 institutes

More lesson-tips blog postings for teachers of ESP-Financial English:

• fatally financial
• company secrets

If you've got a top tip related to this theme, don't hesitate to share - simply click on the green line that says Comments and add your opinions, lesson ideas or any relevant links to websites, blogs on the same topic - I don't mind!

Best,
Karenne

Fatally Financial

The messages of doom and gloom slither out of every corner of the newspapers.

Your students cautiously mention that their companies aren't doing so well this year.

How did it happen? How'd we get in this mess?

| Get your Presentation Pack

Did you know that you can use professionally made presentations in your classes? I got these above from SlideShare - a great site with many, many seriously good presentations which can be downloaded for free.

My favorite of these is Credit Cruncher (3rd one in the righthand bar) - although if you don't have a fast computer and can't see these, it might be a good idea to travel on over here.

The presentation is full of metaphor and meaning; the images used are simple, dynamic, straightforward and although the author uses few words, what's there creates a good lexical set.

Slideshares make excellent teaching aids, it's a good idea to spend a little time on their site although of course, I'll be dipping back in and showing you my faves. They're especially good for pre-teaching vocabulary, providing support to conversation activities and generally, they work well when blended-learning supplementing textbooks or other materials.

You can also discuss the visuals, stylistic cues and how well /accurate the slides are.

Karenne,


p.s. To buy a copy of my SimplyC:finance & investment €1.49 individuals, €4.99 institutes go here. To find articles, videos etc related to this theme, go here.

Company secrets

Following on from my post about Facebook vs Twitter, the privacy or lack thereof when one chooses to place one's photo albums, private thoughts and messages to friends in a public space, I somehow got around to thinking about secrets in general.

In today's modern world, via the internet, we can easily access just about anyone's dirty laundry.

I teach a lot of bankers and financial staff in general and we're in, it would seem the beginnings of a major financial crisis, so I ended up musing about financial reporting. Okay, okay, I had nothing else to think about. But

company reports are great materials for the language classroom.

They are authentic, relevant and often topical and believe it or not, interesting(!) , in short, if you teach financial English and want to get away from the textbook they make the perfect tool.

All the language your students could possibly need if they have to write their own reports in English, is contained within.

When discussing them - what is involved and included, the introductions written by the CEOs, the format and style of language, the pie-charts and statistics - you will be able to cover a lot of very useful vocabulary and believe me, it's very realistic and relevant English speaking practice.

I've got some notes below on what you can do with them in class, however, please feel free to add your own tips and tricks in the comment box as I'd love for you to share with me too.

But first,

where to find company reports?

A lot of corporate websites actually have links on their pages which lead to their published reports.

First, visit the website of the company you're interested in, then look for a heading that reads financial reports or investor info or annual report.

You are often given the options of downloading (.pdf), or printing (watch out, they can be very long) and, if you're lucky, there will also be an emailing option. Emailing is a good idea if you have your students' addresses, let them decide if they want to print it out or read on-line.

There is also a great site, called AnnualReports.com which offers a huge variety of freely downloadable reports on listed companies.

The site is easy to use: simply state what company you're looking for in the box, click and you reach a pdf which you can download/read on-line. You can also search by industry or sector.

Top Tip:
Merrill Lynch have also published a guide to understanding financial reports, available on Scribd.

This .pdf brochure explains the major components within a financial report and a lot of the "jargon" is broken down into layman's terms (perfect as a teaching material - or a training tool for the non-financial Business English teacher who find him/herself having to teach these types of students!).

What to do with financial reports in the language classroom?

Lesson plan idea 1:

• Ask your students for a list of 3 - 5 of their top competitors. If you're teaching at a bank or investment company, then ask them for a list of their clients. (This may be confidential information so treat it thus).
  

• Find the company reports. Bring in the most relevant pages (or let your students do this task and make this decision). Some may be interested in only the balance sheet, some may like to concentrate on other specific areas.

• Ask your students to make a comparative chart using either a flip-chart size piece of paper or an excel spreadsheet.

Lesson plan idea 2:

• Provide students with the link to AnnualReports.com and then get them to choose a company they would like to do research on. They can do this at home or if you have a classroom with internet access and laptops they can do it in-class.

• Ask them to create presentations of what they've learned. Multi-media it! (i.e. grab logos, link to videos and advertisements etc.,)
  

Lesson plan idea 3:

• Choose a large international company that is currently undergoing a financial crisis (based on the news of the day).
  

• Print out their report for the previous year(s) - focus on the balance sheet - get your students to analyze it and make opinions on why they think the company went bust/ is experiencing difficulties.

• Ask students to become detectives and follow up on their opinions. They can check googlenews, wikipedia and other sources (including news published in their own language).
  

• Ask them to go in-depth and find out the steps that ocurred before the company went under.
  

• Hold an interesting discussion on what they found out.
  

Lesson plan idea 4

• Get students to pick a major international company and ask them to read the financial report. Look specifically at their plans for the future.
  

• Ask your group to think about what the future really holds - are the company's expectations realistic, why - why not?
  

Take care, enjoy the weekend!

Karenne


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