A code of ethics for CEOs

I was browsing around in youtube last night and came across a video from a Columbian youth.

The question was so poignant I immediately knew it would make a great lesson.

Today in Davos, the World Economic Forum begins. To support their activities, other than their website, the WEF have also created an interactive page on youtube for questions and lectures on a number of topics including economy, ethics, environment and politics.

Pablo's answer to the question Should CEOs have a code of ethics was:

You can download the video from here.
Not sure how to take it into class, come here.

I know I'm 100% for this idea, my feelings are "about time" -but what do our business English students think?

Here's a quick lesson plan - don't hesitate to add to it or suggest other uses for these rich and interesting discussions.

• ask students if they know what a "code of ethics" is
• get them to list professions that have one
  

doctors, psychologists, lawyers, journalists, social workers and more

• write on the board - Should CEOs have a code of ethics? Ask why, why not?

• watch the video (possibly more than once depending on your students' levels)
  
• review some of the more difficult vocabulary* (see below, you could also pre-teach)
  
• hold a discussion on the suggestions he makes, feasible?
  

• provide students with these codes of ethics: doctors and lawyers

Quite long: you can split these up into parts or only use some of it,
do a google search for others if you have a large class. Different codes to different students.

• provide this guideline on creating a code of ethics, c.o.e. (or adapt)
  
• get students to brainstorm a new code specifically for CEOs in groups
• encourage them to use some of the 'legal-speak' they've picked up so far
• monitor slightly, remind them of the modals of obligation
  

• choose a presenter from each group to relay their c.o.e, edit as necessary
  
• discuss the pros and cons of their suggestions
  

Important vocabulary

• to be contingent on, to standardize, to compromise
• unethical liberties, human rights, common characteristics, profit-driven
• an international code, international markets
  

Post-task activity

Let your students choose between watching further videos on youtube, listening to podcasts or reading articles, blog postings etc on the WEF and ask them to report back on their activities next week (or next lesson(s)).

You could also ask them to research the people present or behind the scenes. Alternatively, you can also ask your students to look into the history of the Forum and the location chosen.

Or, if you're lucky enough to be teaching a group with great technology skills, teens /youth perhaps, why not get them to make video responses on their cameras or camera phones and actually participate in the debates - such fun!

Best,
Karenne
p.s don't forget you can .pdf this page or send it to yourself/ a friend. Buttons below.

Obama's big day is finally here!

Yep, that's me.

And yup, that's Obama in the background. Really, it's not photo-shopped.

It was taken in Berlin during the big speech back in July last year... I'd flown up to volunteer with Dems abroad and had a super-super-duper day.

However, as you can imagine, I've got to be around for my boy tomorrow to watch all things, via Facebook this time, so I'm not going to have time to blog about using this mega event in our English lessons.

I'm pretty sure you'll be 'dogme'ing it anyway but just in case you came on over for a tip or two, allow me to point you in the direction of another great teaching blog with lots of great suggestions and cool links!

Jeffrey Hill's The English Blog

Best,
Karenne

Happy! Happy! Day!

p.s. a week later: I used Jeffrey Hill's slideshare of Obama cartoons and got lots of mileage - my students were the ones who spotted the connections (the type of shoes thrown etc.,) that I'd have missed. Provoked much conversation however would recommend doing this only with students who have an interest in Politics, right?!

Flight 1549: disasters as fodder for EFL lessons?

UPDATE 8Mar09 - this lesson plan now has an additional animated video which can you use to discuss process with students -especially good if teaching ESP:Aviation students.


Disasters in the news are great opportunities to get your students talking.

Whenever a major crisis hits the news media, words and facts fly out and students begin embedding statistics about the event in their brains.

If your students are anything like mine, after any major incident, they arrive in the classroom bursting to share what's happened (maybe because I'm constantly reminding them that I want them to small talk).

They're often able to tell us in English- even the lower level students - just how many people were involved, where 'it' occurred and the process: the before, during and aftermath.

They have opinions too.

Sometimes in their passion of finally having a story for me, though, I see clear areas of grammatical weakness and occasionally their sequencing adverbs are a little off.

Does this happen to you too?

If you'd like to test this exercise out, the crash of Flight 1549 into the Hudson River is a great example. It's dramatic, it's almost everyone who fly's greatest fear and it had a happy ending.

A very 'real' way to demonstrate the importance of adverbs of sequence/ adverbials of time.

- first
- then
- next
- after that
- finally

get this picture here

If you'd like to spice things up and get your students stretching their linguistic muscles, add things like:

- initially
- firstly, secondly...
- while

Stick up words/ phrases + adverbial clauses like
- by the time
- during this time
- in the aftermath.

What exactly do stewardesses say?

To really hone in on the point, once you've finished discussing the story as it occurred in the news, why not go through in-flight safety instructions.

And for my TwIT teachers, I really don't have to remind you that you can grab videos of flight 1549's crash (here) to turn this into a great multi-media lesson. You can also use this tracking map from the New York Times.

SimplyConversations lesson:
Business Travel (freelancers, institutions)

Any more tips, tricks? Related links? Don't hesitate to add them below in the comments box. Ta!

Best,
Karenne

New:March8,2009

Animation Video



Recommended book: Aviation English
USA + world
UK
Germany

Noticing the news

Do you occasionally use news articles with your English language students?



Do your prefer using newspapers or do you like searching for articles on-line?

I used to use the articles from the Guardian Weekly (about once a month there's a lesson or two enclosed) however, these days I tend to prefer the stuff that's on-line.

The BBC's Learning English site has lessons bundled together with vocabulary activities. Often the topics they've chosen aren't that interesting or, surprisingly, not that topical either!

There are also a couple of sites which utilize news stories to springboard more in-depth discussions and active conversations.

I recommend:

• Breaking News English Lessons
  

• Languages Out There - materials which go way beyond just reading and looking at vocabulary. Challenging speaking activities - much different from the norm.
  

*if you'd like to recommend a site related to this theme, don't hesitate to add it below.

However if you've checked through these and unfortunately haven't found what you're looking for or you're simply in the mood for putting together your own news lesson, then here's a quick techie-sort-of-tip for you below.

PREP (10-15mins):

• Go to Google, look at the top bar and click NEWS.
  

Make sure your computer is set for Google.com (in English).

• Look at the left-hand side of the screen where it reads Top Stories >World >US >Business >Entertainment etc.

• Click on one or all of these and choose one article for each student you have. Choose stories you know are currently in the popular papers of their countries, if possible, or articles related to their professional fields. Print.
  

PRE-DISCUSSION

• Hand out a news story to each member of your class.

• Ask them to scan the article for content and also to highlight INTERESTING words and phrases. Make sure they understand that
  

they don't have to understand every word, they should focus on the story.

• Stop them after a reasonable amount of time has passed.

DISCUSSION

• Break your students up into small groups and get them to share each others' stories.
  

• Encourage them to use the words and phrases they highlighted when paraphrasing.
  

POST-DISCUSSION

• Ask students to transfer the highlighted words and phrases that are useful to their lives/professions or interests into their notebooks.

• Ask them to write new sentences using these.

Also read my blog posting on using
CNN student news


Useful links related to this posting:

GoogleNews

NewYorkTimes -LearningNetwork

Simple English News

Voice of America (listening)

A real-techie-TwIT-tip
Manga (good for lower levels, not really for business classes, not really news but you may find a cartoon or two that'll fit).


Useful book
on using newspapers and articles in the classroom

via Amazon, links

• Germany
• UK
• USA + world

If you've got any other top tips, please do feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

Best,
Karenne

Free Conversation Lesson, New Year 2009

Back to classes so soon?

Back to energizing, inspiring and motivating, getting our students talking in English...

Did you just sigh?

Tsk, tsk. ;-)

Here's a nice freebie for you, a speaking skills lesson, it should provide at least enough material for the first two classes this year!

New Year 2009


Enjoy - some of the answers to the questions in the SimplyQuestTM will be quite surprising!

Best,
Karenne

p.s. You can also pick up a song activity based on Abba's Happy New Year ballad, that's the previous posting, (here.)

Happy New Year, by Abba

Have you realized how poignant that old favorite, sung by Abba way back when, is?

Ideal for taking into class with you at the beginning of term.

Here's a quick little exercise that you can print off and drag in as an ice-breaker or warmer.

Instructions

• distribute sheet
  
• tell class to fill in as much of the blanks as they can, then
  
• play song, first time straight through without stopping
• get them to check with each other and compare answers
• play song, second time stopping after each sentence
• compare answers
• discuss key vocabulary
• discuss meaning of the song and 'the time' it was sung in

SimplyConversations Extension

• the gap fill basically works on a 'lexical chunk' system in order for you (your students) to pay particular attention to the way words group together. If you're working with a group of fairly fluent and motivated students you can also use this activity as a philosophical discussion tool. ABBA sung this pre-internet, pre-a lot of other things and older students who were around when this was a hit will have much to add to the pot.
  

Video of this song


The official ABBA site has a gorgeous video with lyrics on screen. That's here.
More songs related to the new year on youtube here.


Useful links related to this posting:

• Song meanings here, Song facts here.
• Download video on to your laptop, blog about that here.
• Netbooks, blog about that here.

Do you have any suggestions or comments? Don't hesitate to add your thoughts below.

Best,
Karenne

Happy Holidays!

Dear English Teachers




Just a little note to wish you all the very best for the holidays - see you next year!


Best,
Karenne

Most visited postings:

CNN student news
Personally, speaking
BESIG conference
Politics, power and the media
Toys for teachers
Company secrets

Using slideshare for teaching business English

My student Markus called in the early afternoon.

'I didn't have time to do my presentation' he gushed.

Markus is a part of a 3hr, once-a-month evening presentations course I run. Part of the requirements are to bring in their real presentations for "hands-on" practice, powerpoint slides - which we review, discuss and dissect for standard lexical chunks and language specific to Business English.

'Markus,' I said 'Go on over to Slideshare, find a presentation in your field, download that and bring it in. I need your English, not specifically your slides.'

He did.

The presentation he chose was from by Bach, Abraham, Fisher and Dupree of the Moore School of Business and was about Hydrogen Fuel Cells.

Hydrogen Fuel Cells

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: hydrogen fuel)

As this topic is directly related to his industry and key responsibilities, he was able to follow the original authors' work and successfully add his own specialized knowledge and input.

What slideshare offers are presentations: on each slide there are only key words and/or images so the success of the exercise is entirely dependent on the student's ability to elaborate on the information and statistics.

In our case, a quick, less than 5 minute download led to a half hour presentation which we then could turn into a dynamic pedagogical exercise. As a group, we discussed his lack of 'signposting' (language indicators of where one is within a presentation), worked on his introduction and summary language, reviewed phrases they'd been taught previously from Business Builder, 7.2b and Macmillan's Presentations English, unit 1.

What was also interesting was the territorial aspect Markus to on to the work - he didn't agree with all of the statistics or the slant on each slide and didn't hesitate to let us know what he thought they should be or what Germany is doing in these ventures.

Try this type of exercise with your students -low prep on both your parts, maximum speaking practice on your student's - and, of course,

do let me know how it goes!

Useful links related to this posting:

www.slideshare.net
More lesson tips using slideshare

Some links to sets for Business English and ESP (English for specific purposes) included below but not limited to:

• English for Automotive
• English for Business and Management
• English for Finance
• English for Health
• English for Marketing
• English for Real Estate
• English for Technology

Related textbooks/supplementary:

Business builder - Germany, UK, USA +world
Presentations in English - Germany, UK, USA +world

Authentic books related to teaching presentations:

Harvard School of Business - Germany, UK, USA+world
Beyond bullet points - Germany, UK, USA+world


Best,
Karenne

Nothing more important than your family and friends

Teaching English to speakers of other languages usually means living far from home and we don't often get the chance to see our families at this time of year. Once you've been doing it for a while, traveling around the world, friendships become stretched across the continents (but thank g, for Facebook, right!).

Are you in this situation too?

Me, I always dread Christmas - it's the most prohibitively expensive time to go on home and most of the time I can't afford to do this. Too much competition from the tourists ;-).

However two years ago my sister and I plotted to return just before my Dad's 70th birthday.

We spent Christmas day together in London and then flew on over to Grenada on the 26th. We'd set it up with my uncle to go directly to his house from the airport and then hid there on the 27th. My mother was in on the secret as was my little brother.

It sure was murder looking out at the beautiful Grenadian sea, watching the sun slip into the ocean, realizing what both of us had been missing out on by living in Europe and knowing that we still had to stay hidden for yet another day.

Of course, Marty came on over to visit us - to give us a big hug, check that we'd really made it and to find out what we'd got him for Chrimbo. It was wonderful seeing him but we quickly sent him off with pleas not to give the game away.

Our greatest fear was that Dad would pop 'round to see our Uncle so our eyes were peeled out for his car all day.

On Dad's birthday we sneaked over just before breakfast, giggling the whole way, laden down with chocolates, sweets and gifts.

When we arrived, around 7.30am, we knocked forcibly on the door and heard my mother calling out "Now who could that be, bothering us at this hour?"

When she opened the door up wide we burst into the room singing "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" - my father just about had a heart attack!

His girls were home.

Aah...

Do you have a great memory like this? Do your students? I'm pretty sure that you do and isn't it lovely to talk about these.

This month, registered users of the Kalinago English website can download a free set of conversation cards all about family and friendships.

Click here to get your students telling their stories - laugh and cry through their memories and impressions.

And for the teachers who teach with technology, looking around for a great pre-teaching/vocabulary review activity, what about using this video from the Boston Globe, on America's first-grandma:

If you're uncertain how to download video on to your laptop come here - if you're interested in getting a mini-computer, come here.

And, as it's coming up for Christmas, all teachers can also download a set of excellent Christmas conversation prompts.

Supportive materials related to Christmas

• Youtube
• Delicious

For more lesson tips and ideas about Christmas, check out these blogs and sites:

• Alex Case
• Larry Ferlazzo
• Fun cartoon on Jeffrey Hill's
• Isabel Perez's list of songs, quizzes word searches and more
  
• Randall's listening lab
  

Best,
Karenne

Toys for Teachers

All I want for Christmas is...

some really great teaching equipment.

Have you been a good English language teacher this year? Have you been learning and growing, communicating, aiding, facilitating, coaching and generally imparting your knowledge of this wonderful language?

Good, you deserve a treat and so you can have a quick chat with Santa, I'm gonna tell you about the most important thing I bought this year.

As I've mentioned often, he's the number one love of my life.

Actually, I confess, when I hit the "create a new post" button I thought I'd begin this with a poem, an ode in fact, but realized that

The Little Blue Guy

I traveled from shore to shore
visiting each and every store
wasn't sure what to do
I needed to find you.

My back was killing me -
my laptop, you see
weighs a ton!
But
teaching with technology's
so much fun.

Had a quick look
you're the size of a book
I fell in love:
you fit in my bag like a glove.

Oh!
You're shiny and new
you're beautiful 'n blue
I immediately knew
what to do -
I bought you.

well, Puh! That's simply just too corny.

You'd probably prefer to just read the statistics, get the hard facts and data and get told how to go find your own.

Rightie, then.

The Little Blue Guy's real name is an Acer Aspire One.

He's one of a genre of netbooks currently on the market. Mine cost €399 a couple of months ago however shortly after purchasing, noticed that Amazon had him at €50 less. Hmmm... you live, you learn. I never reckoned that buying electronic equipment would be cheaper online but there you go. (Links below.)

In general, Netbooks range from €299 to €699.

At the lower end of the price range they are pre-installed with the operating system Linux. Unfortunately, despite what all the techie geeks say I'm going to tell you that if you're not a SuperTechie and don't have a SuperTechie spouse, in the house, then don't go there.

It's simply too time-consuming to figure out how to make the video functions work or utilize some of the great free downloads available. I know, I tried and ended up going back to the shop to get the Acer.

If you're a regular ELT (English language teacher) currently in the process of moving over to TwIT (Teaching with Technology) and you'd like to have your own little guy, you'd be better off going for a model with XP.

And don't worry, those abound. Here are two good, short videos, one's cute marketing propaganda and one's a review of four models .

The Acer shown by the guy in this video uses Linux, again: look for one with XP pre-installed. The main reasons, as you probably gleaned from my poem and the vid, for using netbooks to teach English in the classroom/ in-company are:

they are portable and practical

• light (1.8kg - 3.1kg)
• small (7" - 10")

and in many cases they

• come with more memory than a normal laptop (120-160GB compared to 80GB of most models).* -be careful, some only have 8GB: not useful if you want to download and save videos.

• are often more powerful than a normal laptop

Do note that these machines aren't meant to replace your laptop or your desktop computer at home. If you spend hours typing on one of these your fingers and wrists will end up hurting!

It's a mini computer, made specifically for infrequent and internet usage - perfect for taking into class, to training conferences if you're a teacher trainer, for showing videos, playing mp3s & podcasts, recording your students and sharing presentations you've made or grabbed from slideshare.

Some downsides you should also consider:

• no DVD or CD slot
  
• you will need to purchase or download free software separately.
• the touchpads are small (best to get an extra mouse to go with and if you want to walk around the classroom while controlling what's going on the screen, get a 'presenter' mouse.)
  

Want Santa to come on down the chimney? Get the banker of your household (if you have one) to have a general browse around at what's available in your city. It's a good idea to compare prices - also come on over and take a look at my Amazon "toys for teachers" pages where I've presaved some good models

Germany

UK

USA and rest of the world

p.s. if you want your operating system to be in English and your country allows importation of computer goods, best to go with a purchase from UK or US.

On The Little Blue Guy, I've put the following useful freeware:

• internet browser: firefox

• recording students: audacity
• mp3s/podcasts: i-tunes
• virus protection: avira
• download/play videos: media converter
• photo management: gimp

• documents, presentation tools, pdf, spreadsheets: open office

NB: Most free software comes with options to set the language of preference.

To grab stuff from my stored resources:

• youtube
• slideshare
• delicious
• photos
  
• posts with my tips on teaching with technology
  

Any questions?

Do you have observations or experiences you'd like to share with us about the model you chose and how it works? Don't hesitate to click on the green comments at the bottom and type in your message there.

Best,
Karenne

p.s. Lindsay Clandfield's new blog is up and he's got a list of six more gift ideas for teachers, they're over here.

Sights & Sounds: BESIG conference 2008

A quick scan of my micro-sized office will reveal the remnants of a business English conference: brochures and catalogs on the floor, my ticket stubs tucked beneath the scanner, business cards propped up by a six-day old coffee cup -but drat, where's the American guy's card, what was his name again?

Is it in my purse? Hmmm...

Oh and of course, my ultra handy netbook is resting precariously on top of my filing tray - the mini computer looks like a cute toy even though it's actually more powerful than my laptop - he's (his full name is The Little Blue Guy and we're in love) just FULL of draft versions on the different sessions I attended at BESIG.

Ya, my work's cut out for me!

I'll be posting reports of these sessions up bit by bit, in between other lesson tips, ideas and reflections on teaching business and ESP English but in the meantime thought I'd quickly share some of the videos and photos I shot during the conference: made a little compilation which I hope you'll enjoy:

BESIG 2008- video by Karenne Sylvester is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. You have my full permission to download a copy or embed it into your own blog/website. To do so, go here. To learn more about creative commons, come here.

The BESIG organizers organized a very, very efficient event.

As soon as one entered the door, it was clear what to do, where to go and how. Coffee abounded, there was lots of space and most of the presenters were highly professional, prepared and interesting with much knowledge to pass on.

My feedback would include:

To the BESIG coordinators:

Timing - 40 minute sessions are too short.

Most of the presenters could not stay within the time frame, understandably. My personal recommendation would be to provide one hour sessions instead, asking trainers to present for 45 and leave 15mins room for questions and discussion.

Trainers:

Know your audience.

While the great majority of the sessions I attended were fantastic and I'll report on those, some weren't. Some were an utter waste of time.

The main problem seemed to lie in the fact that the trainer didn't know who he/she was presenting to.

Sometimes I felt like I was in someone's very tiny personal institute rather than at an important BE conference - sort of like being with a bunch of unqualified trainers who were being taught the first round of basics or being given information best saved for an in-company group meeting.

However, the reality is that in most sessions I was surrounded by at least one or two

• Authors

• Directors of Studies or Assistant Directors of Studies

• Entrepreneurs and freelancers

• Teacher-trainers
  

and in all the sessions:

seriously committed BE teachers.

It costs time, money and energy to make it to a conference - we're not on holiday, so

1) be prepared
2) involve your audience
3) finish your research before presenting it - we're not interested in what if
4) spend a little time with powerpoint* and get to know it, it can be your friend
*obviously it's not always necessary to use new media, when it's not used the presentation should still be commanding.
5) practice your presentation


Publishers' Panel:

This needs to be a double session (or at least 1.5hrs).

There was only time for 2, max 3 questions(?). The room was jam-packed: we had stuff to hear and stuff to discuss, we are your community: your purchasers, your reviewers, your critics - there wasn't enough time to do this in.

That said, great stuff the rest of you:

John Allison, aside from your fantastic materials, you're a clear and dynamic presenter and I am actually going to cave in and buy yet another Business English coursebook, if you're involved in The Business, I'll check it out. Emery, I may never ever fly again but I will pass on your details if I meet teachers who want to specialize in aviation English. Schofield, my students are currently reading/listening to your readers, enjoying them so far and I've asked them to write up the reviews themselves! We'll post the results up soon. Prof. Azennoud I really enjoyed learning about Morocco - it snows in Morocco!!!- and your developments there, thanks for coming to Germany to share.

Useful links related to the video:
BESIG

New Business English teaching certificate
Skylight, CTLC-C
Training in Aviation English for teachers and learners
Emery-Roberts

Macmillan Education
Aviation English Student's Book and DVD Pack
Business Upper-intermediate: Student's Book DVD ROM Pack

Langescheidt readers by James Schofield
Room Service (Summertown Readers)
Peril in Venice (Summertown Readers)
Summertown Readers: Ekaterina

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge English for...series
Cambridge English for Job-Hunting Student's Book with Audio CDs (2) with CD (Audio) (Cambridge English for)

Best,
Karenne

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