It was a very enjoyable and productive fortnight in Mönchengladbach at another WBS centre. As always it was a group with mixed abilities, but they all were very positive and proactive.
I took over for 2 weeks from another trainer, preparing the group for the ICCI level 1 with the exception of two ss who were doing the level 2.
Monday 26th.
I began the first session by introducing myself and telling the ss a little about myself. I then got the ss, in pairs, to interview each other then introduce their partner to the group. Whilst each person gave their introduction I asked the ss to take notes about each person for the next exercise. I then gave clues (in positive and negative forms) like “this person has been to Brazil”, “this person does not live in Mönchengladbach”, and the aim was for the ss to guess who I was talking about.
Due to the course concentrating on Business English, I split the class into groups of 3, and I chose the groups myself. The next task was to design a company, to give something for all future correspondences etc to identify to. We began with a session of ´Brainstorming´ using a web diagram on the board; we talked about different factors, words and phrases used in setting up a new business. Then in their groups they came up with a business idea, I micro-taught with each group giving them suggestions and helping with vocabulary. Once they established their idea I asked them to create a logo and a flyer, which they then presented to the group. It was a very good first day with all taking part without too much persuasion.
Tuesday 27th
I began with a warm up exercise; we had a game of Pictionary on the white board. The ss each took their turn to draw something on the board (office related), the rest of the class had to guess what it was. As well as guessing what it was they had to correctly spell it.
I then checked ss understanding of the question words which I elicited by linking it to their products i.e. Who would buy your product? When will your shop be open? How much will the product cost?
We then looked at market research, starting with customer profile. I explained the things we have to look at when deciding what our target customer will be:
Age Range
Gender
Income
Education
Family status
Luxury or necessary product
How and why will they use it
Benefit of the product
Payment methods
Once they all had an understanding of each of these categories they went into their ´company´ groups and discussed who might be their target customer.
As an entire group we discussed what each company had decided and other students asked questions, it was a very interactive session. With this information I explained how it can assist us with advertising. We spoke about different forms of media from publications and the internet to spam and product placement. The group discussed each company and which media would be most suitable and appropriate. I gave them a market research and advertising ´vocab´ handout which listed words, phrases and abbreviations used in these areas. We went through these words and the ss translated into German.
To finish the day I asked them to plan and design their advertising campaign to launch their product and company. Which again in their groups they presented the ideas they came up with, and again a very interactive session with lots of discussion.
Wednesday 28th
Today we began with a ´warm-up´ which was a crossword which had a mixture of clues in English and German; if the clue was in English then the answer was in German and vice versa.
The first actual exercise of the day was based on Telephone skills in business, which I had prepared a work sheet with exercises based on polite terms, leaving and taking messages and common idioms used on the phone.
I then got the group to work in pairs and write a dialogue of a typical telephone conversation, I then got them to do some role-play. They sat back to back and acted out their dialogue, after each I asked the whole group to point out mistakes and how they thought it would be better.
Next we discussed the process of ordering goods from the point of the first enquiry to the delivery. We then started on our first letter, a letter of enquiry. First I gave them a diagram with boxes just to show the structure of a typical business letter, each box had a title which I explained their meanings. I gave them a handout which listed typical phrases and vocabulary, including the correct salutation/complimentary close. I then gave them a worksheet with a letter which was jumbled and they restructured it. On the handout there was an exercise to write their own letter of enquiry using the given company name, address, product, and introduction. I went round the group one by one, micro teaching and explaining to help them create a perfect letter.
We ended the day with a brainstorming session about travelling.
Thursday 29th
The warm-up today was a word search based on professions; it had 15 different professions hidden which they had to find. We then discussed each job title to make sure everyone understood, because things like chef in English confuse some German people because of its false friend for ´Boss´. Everyone said if and why they would or would not like to do each of the jobs.
The next session began with me showing the group the video by Beyonce, ´If I were a boy´. I then gave them the lyrics on a sheet which I read to them slowly and clearly and explained anything they didn’t understand. I then explained to them the song was based on the second conditional, and explained to them on the board the structure of the If +Main clause. To check their understanding I set them the task to create their own sentences using different subjects and verbs, which was no great problem for most. As they all seemed to grasp this quite well I went through all the other conditionals with them.
For the rest of the day we fell back to their advertising campaign and each company designed a flyer or poster concentrating on the information not the artwork.
Friday 30th
By request we started today with another session of Pictionary, the topic was countries.
The first exercise was to write a CV in English. I explained the basic rules i.e. keep it relevant, short and sweet, structure, headings and useful words and phrases. I handed them an example CV which had a clear format and was a good ways of eliciting phrases and words used to make a dynamic CV. We also talked about the differences between the English and German CV. For instance in Germany you have to supply a photo and add the date of birth, whereas in England this is optional.
Each student then created their own, which I helped with on a 1-to-1 basis, they all were very positive about this as they said it’s actually something they may need in the future.
Next I got them to search an English job website for a job they might like to apply for, based on this they added a covering letter to go with the CV.
We had a very good and productive week, but I could see it was taking its toll on the ss, so with the permission of the management I played them a movie which they voted on which film to watch. They decided on ´Quantum of Solace´, the latest James Bond movie. This actually was a good movie for me to set a small task to, I asked them to write a review of the film. I gave them some questions such as:
Who directed the movie?
Who sung the theme song?
What are the names of the lead actors?
Another reason this movie was good because it’s probably the biggest movie which relies greatly on ´product placement´, so I asked them to list items that were placed and the strength of the placement.