English trainers wanted: Nordhausen January 17 through April 8 2011

ESL Projects English Team Trainers
201

Hello to all of you eager beavers!

I hope you are all still enjoying the experience of learning English

I just want to give you a brief overview of what’s been happening at Eilenburg since the last post.

There has been a lot of revision of the grammar especially the tenses (simple present’, present progressive, simple past, past continuous, and the present perfect)

Yesterday the group were lucky enough to have Shannon as their trainer, she also revised the tenses by getting the group to talk about a lot of different subjects e.g. professions, emotions and shopping. She also did an exercise to highlight the differences between British and American English.

Today I returned and we began with a discussion about my trip to London.
Then we did a couple of crosswords to help with vocab building, the clues were in German but the answers had to be English. One crossword was about occupations and the other was based on items in the home.

We then did some creative writing, I gave the group some prompts, verbs and nouns. I also gave them the first line of the story, then in pairs they wrote there own novel, it was a great activity to show the group they can create their own work using the imagination.

In the afternoon we used a board game, the board game helps to revise the simple past and present perfect, I gave all the participants an English coin, which they flipped, heads 2 moves and tails 1. When they landed on a square the group had to talk about whatever was written in the box. The rest of the group were expected to ask questions to get more information.

As usual a great group who are always full of beans and enjoy the class!

So have fun, and I’ll catch up with you all soon

Regards

Scott

P.S. This is for the Nordhausen group, next week following the BMW tour, I’m going to take the Eilenburg group around Leipzig for a 2 hour city tour. Please let me know if you’re interested

202

Hello Englishbine and the other members of the Magdeburg group,
Today I am writing my short message not at 9 p.m., but a little earlier. It’s a little bit difficult to explain how and in which year I began to learn English. I think the start of my learning process was in the year 1999. I had to prepare a tracking tour through the Southern part and the Eastern part of the Republic of South Africa. I knew I had to understand the English speaking population and so I had to force myself to learn the basics of the English language. In this time I worked as a Senior Consultant for a company in Mannheim. Every day I had to drive by car many kilometers - from my home office to the office in Mannheim, from Mannheim to our customers, from customer to customer. It was a hard job, but I had time to listen. I bought some tapes for my cassette player and tried to listen to the English lessons. After a half year I knew the contents of the tapes by heart, at least the sound of the English language. In this way I had to meet this challenge.
As next step I subscribed to “READ ON” - a newspaper especially for beginners or English learning pupils. In the year 2006 the firm for which I was working was bought by a Finnish global player. From then on I had to cooperate with colleagues from Sweden, India, Finland and many other countries. We all had to speak English, if only a broken English… :-((
I was self-displeased and I looked for a possibility to improve my skills. In the last year I could take part in an English course in Nordhausen and passed the TOEIC test.
Your second question: I know that “daily practice” is the best way to learn a foreign language and so I deal with the English language an hour a day - whenever possible I read newspapers or novels, watch movies, listen to the radio and use other media.
The third question: Yes, I like thrillers - and currently I read the second part of the MILLENIUM trilogy. It’s a real challenge, but I have fun!
Tomorrow more if I have time …
Best wishes to you and the other members of your group
Ta-ta for now
Wolfgang

203

Hello everyone,

Today Lydia has been teaching our group. She asked what we have done after the school.
We did exercises about some(thing) and any(thing). After that we should explain words to the others. Other tasks were to build plurals from words and we learnt new vocabulary about things you can wear. We wrote a dictation and everyone had to write down one sentence on the whiteboard.
We learnt new vocabulary about the office and personal qualities, for example:
neat, patient, thorough and reliable .

At the end of the day we have translated the new song von Lena “Taken by a stranger”. It was funny.

Bye, Bye the ETeam

204

Greetings!

Torsten has requested I post an introduction and brief bio about myself.

I will be teaching the Nordhausen class tomorrow.

As a language learner it will be exciting to exchange useful tips. I have started a beginner German class here in Leipzig. Making learning fun and useful is important to me. So I am looking forward to providing useful insights into my native language for each of you.

I am a native English speaker from the United States of America. Professionally, I worked in a B2B (Business-to-Business) Technical Sales Consulting capacity for one of the largest telecommunications companies in the US.

I have extensive experience presenting technical information to senior leadership, developing technical sales proposals and drafting RFP’s (Request For Proposals).

See you tomorrow,
Kevin Bell

205

Hello friends in Nordhausen/Magdeburg

What we have done today:
We have been talking about what we have done after school. Afterwards we repeated the vocabulary about “personal qualities”. Everyone described a word of the qualities.
After breakfast we learnt more terms about “job”, for example: employer, full-time-job, application, to get salary and to get a rise. We did some grammar exercises.
We built the degrees of adjectives and in addition to this we have done some other tasks. Before lunch we translated another song called “You’ve got the love” from Florence and the machine.
In the end we worked in groups and discussed the topic “Giving directions”.

Best regards ETeam

206

Hello Antje, Jenny, Martina, Guenther and Wolfgang!

It is Sunday evening and I just want to share with you my first impressions about this great little town called Havelberg. The school is very close to the river and from my window I can see the shipyard. I took a short walk this afternoon and I saw the monastery Wolfgang told me about last time we met. I saw a ‘lucky angler’ catching a very nice bream. I wish I had my rod with me…
I look forward to meeting the new group in the morning. Are you ready for the Tuesday trip? I wish you all a great week ahead and a nice trip to Leipzig. Give my best regards to Frau Thomas and to the whole Nordhausen staff, please.

Best regards,

Georgeta

207

Hi dear trainers,

here is a summary of my last Friday’s lessons:

  • brainstorming (weather, city, class-room etc…), warm-up activities in the morning
  • memory power training, of course in connection with English vocabulary: tricks, brainstorming, mind-mapping etc…
  • job-related vocabulary (review): job, position, application, apply for, complete, fulfil(l), goal/target, experience, skill(s), salary, wages, pay raise/rise, earn money, employ, employment, dismiss, etc…
  • homophones: way/weigh, write/right etc…
  • a short introduction of phrasal verbs with the all-round verb " to get": get up, get off, get on, get in(to), get away etc…German:get = kriegen, bekommen, werden, holen, machen, gelangen, kommen, steigen…etc…
  • review of the essential grammar structures covered during the week: past tenses; continuous and simple tenses. Exercises in class. Signal words. Practical exercises in class: How long have you been -ing…? Use of the prep. for with this kind of sentences. Focus on the activity/action (-ing), focus on the result (simple past/present perfect, mostly expressed by a number: I have written two books, for example).
    Translation of the new words.
  • the positive meaning of the prefix “con-” : constructive, competitive, consistent, concentration etc…
  • more exercises on the past tense (usual verbs:sell, buy, read, write, pay, order, drink, eat etc…) with job-related vocab.
  • a short review of the indefinite pronouns: any/some
  • a review of the comparative forms: the use of more and the use of the suffix- er (bigger, larger), the conjunction than. Practical exercises in class.
  • spelling and pronunciation exercises (NATO-alphabet).

More information after next Friday’s session…

Have a nice week!

Roberto

208

Hello all English team groups,

Tomorrow is one of the most celebrated dates of the Irish calendar.
In fact due to the popularity of this day all over the world, it is said that it’s the day when everybody is Irish! Even here in Germany, walk into any Irish bar tomorrow and you’ll see.

So I thought it might be interesting to swap knowledge, views and facts about St.Patricks day.

I’m looking forward to read you posts

Have a great day

Scott

209

Hi Scott!

I’ve planned a St. Patrick’s Day activity for tomorrow. I hope my group will enjoy it. It’s a great opportunity to learn new things about another culture.

I wish you a grand day and ‘Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!’
Georgeta

210

Hi Georgeta

Sounds like a great idea, I’m taking my group in Zwickau to the Irish bar in the evening. We will have a bit of a chin-wag, drink some Irish beer and who knows maybe even finish with a bit of a Jig!

I look forward to read the posts

Have fun

Scott

211

Hello everyone!

We did some review about comparative, superlative and adjective.

  • The rules: 1 syllable you take –er, -est
    2 syllables and ending in y you take – ier, -iest
    2 and more syllables you take more and most
    And sometimes you have an exception

After the breakfast we learnt 2 types of the future tense.
“Will” – We use this future, if we give promises, offers requests, spontaneous things and predictions. You never change “will”.
“am going to …” we use, if we have a plan. “am” it’s a form of be and you must change this, but only this.

Furthermore we did exercises about the future tense and we played a game.

Bye, Bye the ETeam

212

Hallo Georgetta,
I read just that you work this week in Havelberg. The little Town on the river is very nice. I was there a few month ago, but only a short moment, because we were on the transit Rostock. Rostock is a nice seaport on the Baltic Sea.
We (that is: Conny, Rosi, Ute, Sabine) wish you a very nice week in Havelberg and a great day with your group tomorrow.
Sorry for mistakes. I don’t know that better yet.

Best regards
Your english group from Magdeburg

213

Hello Magdeburg Team!

Yes, I am in Havelberg and the more I walk around this little town the more I like it. The weather is really bad today (windy and cold). A very nice gentleman from the school showed me the Elbe today. It was a great experience. I took some pictures of the river and the ferry. I hope you are doing fine and enjoy the classes. Don’t forget about the 30/30 challenge and keep listening to the audio material. How was the trip to Leipzig? Please post a brief summary.

Best wishes and lots of fun.

Georgeta

214

Hallo Georgetta,
Thank you very much for your answer. Fine that your days in Havelberg there are so happy.
But this is an error that our group were in Leipzig. It was another group. I thing it was the E-Team from Eilenburg. No we will not forget about the 30/30 challenge.
Our time is almost over, pity it was a nice time.

Best regards
Your english group from Magdeburg

215

Hello Goergeta,
I’m very glad that you like this little town in the German region named “Altmark”. And it’s a pity that you don’t have a car because the surroundings are very worth seeing. In the 80s my wife, our children and me were on holiday in this region a few years. Old towns, pretty villages, wonderful pine woods, bike ways everywhere. I really like this landscape and I often remember these relaxing days 30 years ago. The last time me and my wife were in Bad Wilsnack - a town near to Havelberg - seven years ago. We rented two bikes and enjoyed the colourful woods in the autumn. Maybe you have time to get to know this part of Middle Germany and can explore some sights by bus.
I often think about you and your stay in Havelberg and I hope you can enjoy this time. The weather is getting better, the best condition for some trips in and around Havelberg.
We - the winner group in Nordhausen - wish you all the best and we hope to see you as soon as possible.
A good start in the next week and as always
Bye-bye for now
Wolfgang

216

Hi Wolfgang!

Thanks a lot for your post. You are absolutely right: this place is fantastic. Although I have no car, I managed to visit a few places. After 20 years, I rode a bike again. The Havel and the Elbe simply fascinate me. Maybe it doesn’t really make sense semantically, but I love listening to the silence by the river. In the afternoon, after I finished preparing the material for tomorrow, I went fishing. Guess what? I caught quite a few fish, but, of course, I released them.
How are things in Nordhausen? I hope your wife is feeling much better. I am sure that the winner group is making great progress and the final test will be a piece of cake. Please give my best regards to Antje, Jenny, Martina and Günther.

Wish you all a great week ahead and please keep in touch.

Bye for now,

Georgeta

217

Here is an article utilizing a great deal of American Business English idioms:

Read the article and note phrases that need explanation!

dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/21/ … elekom/?hp

218

A very good and sunny afternoon to all trainers and trainees,
I just want to give you all a brief update about what’s been going on here in Eilenburg

Last week we went to the BMW factory near Leipzig, all of the participants found it very interesting.

Yesterday we revised the tenses that we have covered so far.

We played a game to highlight countable and uncountable nouns and the use of a, an, some and any.

We then discussed different ways of learning English after the course

As a great way of practicing all of the tenses, the group had a question round but before they asked the question I told them which tense to use and of course the answers could be positive or negative

We finished the day with a round of ‘I spy’

This morning we had a very interesting small talk session, I asked all of the group random questions in various tenses.

I then handed out pieces of paper with single words written on them. The groups task was to explain the word without any hand gestures

219

Hello Georgeta,
thanks a lot for your message. Nice to hear that you are a 'fisher woman" in Havelberg. I hope you are able to catch many fish and I’m pleased that you release them in the Havel river again. And now my question: Are you already scheduled for next week? Our “girls” and of course me want to see you again in Nordhausen. At this moment we have a nice weather and so we could take you over some highlights of this old town. Perhaps after lunch or in the late morning as “English on the lanes and the older parts”. Is this a good idea?
So, I know this was only a short message, but I have to do several tasks. You know hospital supporting, travel organising, and other very interesting doings.
Best regards for now
Wolfgang

220

Hello Wolfgang!

Thank you for your message. I have 2 more days here in Havelberg, then on Friday the group will take the TOEIC test. I don’t know yet if I can go to Nordhausen next week. On Friday, I need to see a doctor and hopefully everything will be OK. We will keep in touch and I’ll let you know about next week’s plan.

Wishing you all a great day.

Best regards,

Georgeta