Dates: January 12 through February 20
Hours: 9 lesson 45 minutes each, from 8am to 4pm
Location: downtown Cologne, Germany
Purpose: Reviewing the basics, preparation for LCCI Exam
The daily rate depends on your qualification, your experience and the number of students. An important factor is how effectively and successfully you can prepare the group for their LCCI examination. That’s why the rate can vary from EUR 130 (up to 8 students) to EUR 145 (more than 13 students).
This looks interesting. Are you sure that’s not January 18th? The 16th is a Friday. Would this group be using Business Basics? Or would they have other exam-specific prep materials?
Thanks for pointing this out. It’s actually January 12 which is a Monday. As for the materials, Business Basics will be and in addition the group will be using LCCI prep materials.
Would you be available for that period?
Regards,
Torsten[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, photographs: A consultation[YSaerTTEW443543]
Or possibly start the course a week later and have it finish on the 13th instead of the 6th - are they at all flexible? I have a training seminar in Berlin on the 16th and 17th so it would be very convenient just to catch the train from Berlin to Koln on Sunday night and start teaching on the Monday.
I am really interested in this though so if not I will try to find some combination of flights to make it work.
I read through the guidelines and there are some good tips there - especially introducing one’s self in German. I did that in Nordhausen (not sure why, I’ve never done that before) and I am sure it helped a lot.
I’ve been checking around for flights and I did find a combination that worked for Sunday 11th. It is fairly pricey though so if there is any flexibility on their part it would be much appreciated. Before I book though, is this one confirmed 100% - I know how these contracts go sometimes. Also can you give the street name so I can start sourcing accommodation?
Welcome back and Happy New Year to you too! Yes, Richard started this LCCI prep course today and I’m sure he’ll post an update soon. How things with you? Have you moved to Germany yet? There will be more opportunities for you this year so please watch this space.
Hi there,
Yes, I’ve relocated & now transitioning. I’ll take a look at the forum to see how it’s going for Richard & what else comes up. I’d be interested in a sort of ‘job share’ – perhaps 2 of the 4 days (Mon/Tue), if Richard wishes to split it up. For some reason, I had it in my mind that this would begin later in the month.
It has been a very busy week here in cologne. The group is 16 with 9 men and 6 women and the levels range between A1 bordering on A2 to A2 bordering on B2. There may be another joining tomorrow. I think they will all make a fantastic amount progress over the next few months. There are just one or two who seem overly daunted but that’s normal after 9 hours a day!
This week we began using materials from International Express and Talk Time 2 (both A2) and we are just moving beyond the simple present into simple past. Other than that we have been reviewing basic grammar and today I spent a long time reviewing and teaching preposition uses and noun rules. I used a test from English-test.net and I will continue to access them.
I was going a little fast at first but I have since slowed down a bit as that is what WBS prefers and it is a very long course – after my 4 weeks they do another 8 with Bruce. He has asked me to do another two weeks with them and I am considering it. I mentioned that there is another trainer free but they prefer to have only one or two trainers. If I can’t do it then Bruce will. Personally, I think a little more variety is better for everyone but that means there is no chance for any job sharing.
I picked up a netbook Torsten and I am really loving it (other than no dvd drive) it’s perfect – thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks a lot for your update – it’s great to hear you had such a brilliant start with the new Cologne group. How are the learners seated in your classroom – in rows or in a U-shape like in Nordhausen? By the way, I’ll send you a copy of our PDF materials so you can go through them and select those you want to use with the group. Also, which netbook package did you buy, Vodafone or T-Mobile?
Hi Torsten
It’s a U shape. If it weren’t I would try to change it as that’s the best arrangement for language learning I believe. The netbook is an advent – no package however – just bought the day before I left Ireland for Cologne. I got ripped off a little –n it was 349 there and in the UK the same model is about 290.
I read thru the new course guidelines – when I started I introduced myself in German though to make them more relaxed. We then of course spent a lot of time getting to know each other. I used some of my materials for this. I taught them some useful classroom phrases i.e. can you please repeat? I don’t understand, etc, and then they all interviewed each other and told the class about their partners. For fun I had them say one false thing and then guess which statement was true. I did cover just about all of the initial questions you had in your guidelines.
They all seem fairly enthusiastic and there is not too much overuse of German in the class. There are maybe two students who need a lot of instructions translated but I think they just need to try a little harder. That will improve week-by-week.
This week we will learn Present Continuous and Past Simple and study more prepositions and basic grammar rules. I introced the students to English-test and told them they could find more practice tests there if they wanted to review prepositions (which a few did). Many thanks for the PDF file with all the tests – truly an incredible collection!
Sorry for the pause writing in – I had to mark tests all weekend 100 questions each and plan so it’s been pretty busy. It is a fairly demanding course but I am enjoying it and the class is really improving. We moved comfortably through the simple past and present continuous last week as well as prepositions of place and comparatives/superlatives. This week we are continuing with reviewing the three tenses and I may introduce some perfect tenses by the end of the week. We began with reviews today and marking tests. Tomorrow we will start on prepositions of direction.
I have been using International Express (which only has 10 lessons for the four weeks) so I have obviously been supplementing that with a lot of on-line materials – they like your tests and with Talk time and Worldlink 2.
Although the Worldlink DVD I have would not play on the computers there I discovered a site called Mediaconverter which converts any video on the web (including all Youtube) to a Windows media file which can be stored on my computer – incredible!
Other than that I have decided to do the extra 2 weeks and told them to make the contract with you.
Those two weeks will be more business focused and they do hqve some materials for that.
I hope all is well in Leipzig.
Bye for now
Richard
Thanks a lot for keeping us updated and posted – I know how demanding a full time 9 hour course is so I really appreciate your efforts. Can you please tell me what test you used and how you marked it? Did the test consist multiple-choice questions only or where there open questions as well?
For the two additional business English weeks you might want to use supplemental listening materials such as VOA English or our new TOEIC listening comprehension tests.
I understand your group gets access to the Internet in a similar fashion we did in Nordhausen?
It’s been another busy week here in Cologne; after 9 hours a day and the preparartion I don;t have too much time or energy left over. ut I really enjoy it anyway and i am quite happy with WBS and the students. They are improving greatly however two students who are getting a little lazy as the rest of the class moves forward. When this happens I call on them more frequently and gently tell them that we must move forward (and I find a good strategy is to give them a challenge just before a break) and then, before you know it, they have the language I am after. This week we have covered Present Continuous for future plan, Prepositions of Place and Direction, Comparatives and superlatives, countable and Uncountable Nouns. Contrasting Present Simple with Past Simple and Present Continuous and lots of new vocabulary covering food and drink, clothes and shopping, city places with location and direction, music and entertainment, crime and the law and some medical English. We practiced the language of messages, hosting visitors, offers and request and expressing feelings.
Regarding the test, I made the tests up from the test I have covering the different units we have covered. The questions format was 40 % listen and choose and 60 % read and choose using multiple choice, gap fill, sentence arrangement and sentence completion and numbering choices in the correct order. I also made up and test of 20 prepositions we had covered in class and that was the most challenging test for them but nevertheless the average score was 85 – 90 % so the students were happy with that and encouraged. Next week I will be continuing with lots of daily quizzes and unit tests and using the final exam test from the workbook so it should be a little harder on them. I will prepare them for that though.
It is not set up like the class in Nordhausen at all. There is just one computer at my desk which I can use a beamer to project exercises on the wall. It does not function with DVDs or with streamed internet files but as I mentioned last time I found a way around that with Mediaconverter.com. I use my netbook to convert the files to windows media player and thenput in of a usb and that works very well. The students did have a challenge way above their level this week. ‘I was reluctant to do it but they were really keen so I converted a broadcast of the Obama inauguration speech and then we slowly went thru each paragraph of the text and then watched it in class. Afterwards I had the student paraphrase 3-4 specific points. It was hard and, as I said, way above their level, but once we finished they really felt like they accomplished something special and a few said they would not be so afraid to tackle articles in an English newspaper – not just the headlines.
I think I’m the last one to view this post for the opening somewhere in Germany. It’s quite interesting using this forum and reading from more experienced teachers, authors or trainers. I am not so experienced one though I would be one day, as I have been doing everything to be the one .
I am really surprised reading from Torsten, He has that in him to express in terms of diction and grammar rules.
Hi Torsten
I hope you would be having enough time to just have a look at my lines. If you do so i would be thankful to you. I would be even more thankful if you just can drop two three lines for me.
I am new to this forum and want to make the best of this site in terms of new new friends and more knowledge.
All is going on schedule here in Cologne. This week we are finishing with the general English basic course and moving to a more business centered focus. We began the week reviewing Stative Verbs and practicing Prepositions of Direction using Talk Time 2 with plenty of geographical vocabulary.
We then moved on to contrast comparatives with superlative forms of adjectives while giving opinions about food and trends. We also did a lot or work with modal verbs this week giving advice with ‘should’, ‘ought to’, ‘had better’ and the variable importance of should, must and have to.
I didn’t introduce the perfect tenses as we had to spend a lot longer on the future with ‘going to’ and ‘will’ but I will do that first thing on Monday.
Tomorrow we will cover more modals and introduce ‘do you mind’ for the extra important or very polite requests and then review what we have covered the last two weeks.
World link has proved quite popular and two of the students requested copies of the book and video files.
They have their bi-weekly test tomorrow afternoon and this one has 190 questions covering material from the last two weeks. It will be the format as before but with more writing. When Bruce takes over his main area is to develop the writing skills so he told me to continue with what I have been doing and to ‘’keep them animated’.
I am still doing a lot of daily listening tests and as far as my speech goes, I no longer grade it as they are comfortable with my natural speed.
Hi Sachin - yes I agree, I think everyone who knows Torsten is surprised at the time he puts into this venture!
Well this week we’ve delved into the Present Perfect finally and it seems to be going OK. As a Canadian we do use the Present Perfect more than Americans but in Ireland it is not used at all. Only the Germanic languages have it and only the English have arrangements like ‘have + ‘had’ so the students fo question it’s relevance. I tell them that in American English it is normally reserved for a completed past action which portrays a period of time but that in British it tends to be used for that and for actions closely connected to the present. In either case I explained that the two tenses are so close that many present perfect statements are usually followed by a past simple statement. We will be doing more today and next week and I am confident they will be able to use it properly very soon.
We finished with our first book International Express and have begun using Start Up – a pre-intermediate level business English book. Many of the themes and grammar have already been covered so I am skipping forward a little to use new these and introduce new areas of grammar such as reported speech and prepositions of movement.
I also saved a few business related World Link units to liven things up a bit and they focus on Present Perfect using ‘for’ and ‘since’ for interviews and ‘used to’ to describe computer technology and telecommunications.
I discussed all this with Bruce and he outlined the grammatical areas he wants covered before he takes over so everything is on track
One new woman joined the course this week as another dropped out to work which is always good news! She is not quite up to speed but In have given her extra Murphy’s assignments and she is a very quick learner so I am sure she will do fine.
Thanks a lot for your great work and your detailed updates. Can you please give me some information about your current accommodation? I’m asking because we’ll need a room from March 9 through May 29.