• Author / Uploaded
• Ana Franco Quintanilla

Citation preview

H e l e n aG o m m C o l i nB e n n SimonClarke G i n aC u c i n i e l l o Paul Dummett PaulEmmerson Jon Hird Mark Powell NicholasSheard

I n t e r m e ida t e T e a c h e r ' sB o o k

M MAC M ILLN

t:

d.

Oontents $*rtr*si***t{*r* Skills-basedapproach

tv

Why are the units divided into categories?

iv

Languageinput

v

Lexical syllabus

v

Grammarsyllabus

e

V

Class Cassettes and CDs

VI

How can I exploit the dialoguesfurther?

vi

Readingtexts

VI

How can I exploit the texts fudher?

vi

Fluencywork

vl

Teacher'sBook

vi

$t*d*nt's

S**k *cl$t*nt*

$twd*nt's S**k p*6*x wrlth *r:*rv*r* 3*m*h*r'* N***ts

Y.

t

{

i {

xvwil

1 InternationalEnglish

4

2 Making contacts

6

3 Making calls

11

4 Keepingtrack

16

5 Speed of life

20

6 Businesstravel

23

7 Handlingcalls

28

I Making decisions

32

9 Big business 10 Smalltalk

37

11 E-mail

44

12 Presenting

49

13 Technologicalworld

54

14 Beingheard

56

15 Snailmail 16 Solving problems

61

17 Globalvillage

72

18 Eatingout

74

19 Messaging

78

20 Negotiating

83

*vesnsx*s s*d t*xi*

40

67

limks i*s{th**s\ssrs

&ddlti*n*€ *rxet*x'i*{qr*lthmn*w*r*

88 118

ffies*sxr** stt*1l*ris$s Contents Teacher's Notes

T126

Photocopiableworksheets

T136

T128

Introduction They are motivated by topics which directly relate to their own personal experiences. They expect to see an immediate, practical payoff of some kind at the end of each lesson. It is English, not business, they have come to you for help with (but see 7). They want to be able to actually do business with their English rather than just talk about it. They appreciate texts and tasks which reflect what they have to do in their iob. They also appreciate texts and tasks which allow them to escape what they have to do in their job They don't regard having fun as incompatible with 'serious learning' (but see 1. and4).

1 0 They like to see an overall plan and method behind the classesthey attend.

Sktil$s*ra*ee$mppr*a*f'l In Company is a practical course in bout to do business in 'With English target language selectively introduced on a need-to-know basis, each unit is a fast track to competence in a pafticular business skill. Recognising that people need more than just phrase lists and useful language boxes to operate effectively in real-life business situations, each unit provides a substantial amount of guided skills work to give students the chance to fully assimilate the target language and'make it their own', before going on to tackle fluency activities. Target skills developed at this level include: . keeping track in cross-cultural meetings . . . .

creating a favourable impression in e-mails handling unexpected phone calls getting people to do things for you opening, closing and fuelling conversation

.

querying and clarifiiing points under discussion o making and reporting decisions . applylng and resisting pressure in negotiations .

exploiting the power of your voice in talks

Wky mr* the umltsdivided into catego,ries? In Company is Macmillan's skills-based Business English series, aimed at professional, adult learners seeking to realise their full potential as speakers of English at work - both in and out of the office - and in social settings. In Company Intermediate takes students through fwenty progressively more challenging units ranging from basic networking, information-sharing and small talk to higher order skills such as problem-solving, presenting and negotiating. The course reflects the need for students at this level to consolidate their grammatical awareness, increase their lexical range and, above all, boost their communicative power in both professional and social situations. Ten key observations on the teaching of English to professional learners underpin the course: 1 Professionals like to be regularly reminded why they are studying and what's in it for them. 2 They are used to goal-setting and time constraints and tend to welcome a fairly fast pace.

In Company Intermediate contains four types of unit: Talking points, Nettaorking, Desk work and Meetings Categorising the units in this way means that you can teach the course in: o eitber a linear fashion, starting at Unit 1 and finishing at Unit 20, selecting the most relevant mateial as you go, but knowing that you are varying your skills focus from lesson to lesson and covering the basic gramrrlatical structures in a tried and tested order .

ora modularway, doing all the units in one category before moving on to the next, thereby ensuring that srudents see some real improvement in one area before going on to another.

The approach you choose will partly depend on your needs analysis with your class and pafily on the importance you place on structural sequencing, bearing in mind that intermediate learners are likely to have met most of these structures before.

I n t r o du c t i on \Tithin each category, you may want to consider the following:

&ftu;tgrperxfx

. the use of getas a generative verb in the context of communication (get througb on tbe pbone, get J)our ideas across in a meeting)

***x**s*sb*$Ceh$s

In these units, the emphasis is on using the English students akeady have to discuss a topic of general business interest. These units tend to rotate around a text or texts, usually with accompanying listening work. There is some lexical input but no grarnmar focus in Talkingpoints units Unit 1 assumes you are working with a new class and therefore acts it pafi as a kind of informal needs analysis.

In Company Intermediate devotes a lot of attention to lexis, showing students how to build words, many of which they may akeady know, into larger, multi-word items they do not know. For example: . compounds - searcb engine, belp menu

N*fw*;kdmgr

.

Given the choice, most of us would prefer to do business with people we like. Networking and building business relationships are, therefore, important business skills and the focus of these units. Unless a sffict structural syllabus is being followed, the units in this category can be taken in any order, with the exception of Unit 2, which is best done with a fairly new group.

.

S*s& xr*rk Business people now spend many hours on the phone and online, taking messages and sending e-mail. This places a new impoftance on listening acuify and writing skills. The units in this category can also be studied out of order. However, it is probably better to do Unit 3 before Unit 7, and to leave Unit 19 until last, since it brings together phone and e-mail skills. i.t,{**fingm Meetings are endemic in business, but, of course, a lot will depend on the kind of meetings your students take part in. Unit 4 is the best one to start with as it provides communication techniques your students will certainly need later on in the course. Units 8 and 1,6both address fairly common types of meeting. Unit 12 (Presenting) and Unit 20 (Negotiating) are more specialised, but nonetheless useful to anyone in business, not just presenters and negotiators.

&*mngax*:gc *npx.lt At an intermediate level, students have typically met much more grammar than they have mastered, and recognise far more vocabulary thar' they are as yet able to produce. A certain amount of recycling is, therefore, essential, but the worst thing we, as teachers, can do is simply to go over old ground agan. A better idea is to try to help students apply and begin to integrate their existing knowledge -'noticing' grammatical patterns in lexis, lexical patterns in grammar and the underlying function in a business context of both. For instance, in teaching the expression'I'll get on to our suppliers right away', students' attention 66gld u5ef'rlh' he drawn to any or aIl of the following: . the phrasal verb get on to (contact) and its complement in a Lrusinesscontext get backto . the time expression right away and other time expressions (later toclay, sometime this afternoon, when I'ue got a minute) that could fill the same slot in the sentence o the collocation get on to our suppliers and some collocates for suppliers (negotiate witb, cbeck witb, cbange) . the grammar of will as a modal verb and its use in the first person singular to respond to urgent requests (I'llfind out for you, I'll see uhat I can do, I'll get bach to you on tbat)

.

. .

collocations - sbarp Nse,go out ofproduction noun phrases - cost ofliuing, rate ofexcbange phrasal verbb - sell ou4 buy up, cut back discourse markers - aboue all, by tbe way, to sum up fixed expressions - Leaue it uith me, I'll do my best, I'm

afraid tae'll baue to break off bere c partial frameworks or scripts - ITIME] ago ue tuere bauing dfficulties witb ..., tabicb tuas also affecting ... and ..., not to mention So, wbat was going urong? Well, tbe problem we tuerefacing u,a.snot ... but .. Haue a look at tbis . Pre-constructed lexical chunks, like those above, are a crucial part of native-speaker interaction and, if judiciously selected, can significantly speed up the language processing time of non-native speakers too, allowing them to sound more fluent in situations they can predict they are likely f:".."*i:I, Lexis, therefore, is given a prominent place in the units themselves and, in addition, students are referred to optional Lexis links, which effectively double the lexical input in each unit and can either be set for homework or made the basis of vocabulary-building lessons.

*r*mxryrmr sV$*eh&*s Of course, Iexical chunks are only useful in so far as our students arc able to produce them in real time, as and when they need them. rilihen, for whatever reason, they are unable to do so, they will fall back on the generative power of grammar and the simplest words in their vocabulary to get the job done The approach irr In Company Intermed,iate ts to highlight target grammar as it naturally emerges in the activities, but there are no long detours in the units themselves into structural matters. The reasoning behind this is that, though some formal errors persist, when it comes to the basic grammar of English, iniermediate students tend to have more problems with use than form - and such problems require more than a short exercise or two to put right. This is where the Grammar links come in. Fifteen Grammar links, crosslinked to the fifteen main skills-based units, systematically address the usual questions of time, tense, aspect, voice, modaliry and conditionality as well as broader areas such as reporting and diplomacy, where gtamfrrat becomes as much a mattet of choice as of rules. In the Grammar links, students are encouraged to explore grammatrcal use and, to some extent, fathom out the rules for themselves Tenses are usually presented contrastively. Practice exercises are mofe commonly text- or diaioguebased (rather than simply sentence-based) to give a feel for the discoursal role of differenr structures.

w

l n tr o du c t i on

*l*sx *mxs*tt*s x*d *llls Throughout the course, substantial use is made of audio recordings both to input business expressions and grammatical structures and to demonstrate subtler communication skills in action Indeed, very little of the language work is not presented or recycled in a recording. As well as the usual dialogues and narrative extracts, uoxpap - ordinary people's views on a particular topic - is a characteristic feature of the recordings. These have been scripted for the sake of clarity, but they do help students in, smal1 classes and one-to-one - it's easier to articulate your views when there are other views to suppoll or differ from. The recordings feature both native and non-native speaker accents, providing the students with extensive exposure to real spoken English There is frequently an element of humour in the recordings which, besides entertaining the students (and teacher!), motivates them to listen again for things they missed the first time round. The target language in the units is printed in bold in the recordings.

.

students read/listen to a texi and complete sentences to reflect their own reaction to it, e.g. I tbougbt tbe point about .. xuasinteresting; I'm surprised tbat . ; I'm not sure I agree u)itb ubat it says about ..; I'm not conuinced. tbat ..; I completely d.isagreeuitb tbe idea that .. . give students the first half of 8-16 collocations and a time limit in which to search for the collocates . give students a set of miscollocates and ask them to coffect them by referring to the text . students find expressions which mean the same as, e.g. incidentally: by tbe uay; TnoreoL)er: in addition; generally: by and large or the opposite of , e.g in practice/in tbeory; in general/in pafiicwlar o give students a set of prepositions and ask them to scan the terl for noun phrases / ptrasal verbs / idioms which include those prepositlons .

read out the text pausing in the middle of collocations / fixed expressions / idioms for students to predict the completions either by shouting out or writing down the answer

Slxsn*v*w*rk Ss*e **:rx* *xpi*$t tih* e$Em**g*x*$ $*$$'thsy? Play some of the diaiogues a second time and: . pause the cassette after questions for students to recall or predict the response (if they write these down as they go, you can ask them to recall the questions as weli at the end) . pause the cassette after responses to questions and ask students to think of other possible responses pause the cassette in the middle of lexical chunks (coilocations, fixed expressions) for students to complete them either orally or by writing them down . ask students to speculate about the personalities ofthe speakers in the dialogue . ask students if they have ever met / done business with anyone like the speakers . ask students if they would have reacted differently to the speakers in the dialogue .

$Qe*e5{ng t*xts The reading texts in In Company Intermediatehave been chosen to involve, entertain and provoke students into lively discussion, as well as to contextualise key target vocabuiary. Squeezing a text completely dry of all useful language usually demotivates a class, but many of the longer texts in 1n Company Intermecliate are informationally and lexically rich and can usefully be revisited.

*{*wy**n $cx*l*it lth* jl*Nts fwrtl'l*r? Try some of the following: . students set each other questions on a text o students set you questions on a text, and vice versa . give students several figures from a text and ask them to recall the context in which they were mentioned . read the text aloud but slur certain words/phrases and students ask for repetition/clarification

Each unit culminates in at least one fluency activity which draws on both the specific language presented in the unit and the wider linguistic resources of the students. Activity types comprlse: 1 skills workouts, where students practise a specific microskill (such as effective interruption or voice projection) in a semi-guided way 2 roleplays and simulations, where students are given a scenario and perhaps some kind of 'personal agenda' 3 case studies, where students are confronted with an authentic business problem and then compare their solution with that of the actual company concerned 4 'framework' activities, where the students decide on the content for a presentation, e-mail or phone call and the Student's Book provides them with a linguistic framework to help deliver that information Preparation is essential for types 24 and it may sometimes be advisable to carry out the acfual fluency activity in a subsequent lesson, allowing plenty of time for feedback ]b**8**nus S**$q. In this book you'll find comprehensive teacher's notes that give an overwiew of each unit, detailed procedural instructions for all the exercises and an'If you're short of time' section at the end of each unit. These are interleaved with the Student's Book pages and contain the recordings scripts that relate to the Student's Book page opposite The Student's Book pages themselves are faded slightly so that the overprinted answer key stands out clearly, helping teachers to Iocate the answers more easily. Suggested answers for longer tasks are provided in the teacher's notes The Grammar and Lexis links pages may be photocopied and given to students to check their answers The book also features a Resource materials section containing thirty photocopiable worksheets which extend and/or revise elements in the Student's Book These were written by eight practising business English teachers and provide afl exl'ra twenty hours of material to supplement the Student's Book.

1 lnternational Engtishp*

Colrplsting11necdsanalysis

3*l&i*g ;:*in{*

Diselssinqallitudesto Fnglishusingexpressions *- Feopleialkingabouttheir stiiludeg:lolearningEnglish for talkingitbcut langila{,}o neeCs& learnrng preferances

Doinga qulzcn languages

*::gli*l': *s * gir:h*l 1$*$$*Ss

ffi:,

Making contacts

& Adicieabout[nglishdOminating woddcemTnunicalions

peccie Lescr'bing

Extractsi'on a businesstravel pr0gramneon eonfgrencevenues PeopiegcssipinEat a cafilerence

FresentSirnple

!* Fecplesocjalising at a conference

PresentSimple vs Frosent ContinuoLls

Verb + pr€irositions

Telephcne lar exPressions

Discusslngappropriateconveruatiol-rtopics !

Pr€ssnt Conlinilous

N*'h,ti:riti$S

going Koepingthe ccnvera&tion

O$st*|efi*ss

Netr,vcrking

3 Makingcalls pt: n8*[ $$rk *sln$ tl]s t*i*p**$*

l\lakingte{ephonephrases

Planninga telephone6a1l

PastSimplo

Exchenging infdrmetionon the telephone

Voicemailmessages

Timeadverbsfi:r,

Teldphcne conversatlo ns

t t . i t ) r, q . i ) : l , . i erord

oler

4 Keepingtrack !!* ,lt**iirq* &da*llng skiil*

Checklrrg& clari\rirrgiacls & figures

I

Queruingrirlcrmsiron

X Texts:the Sudwejsercompanies

{.. Extfaclsfron l"

$

s Soeedof life ' "r: 'illili::g

p*!r-rt*

pl**$lli{:

D,qcLss:nq I;r.3 naitgp"leni slraeEies

a meeiiiig

A briefinql meeting

Compaiefivg$ & gUpelaltves Comparative & cupeflalve

"le/ ;nC

' :r

.' :j. ll'^ ;r L