Language for Presentations

If you're interested, you can look at this collocations exercise related to presentations. Cover the verbs and then try to remember whether each phrase needs MAKE, DO, GIVE, or TAKE to complete it. There is also a handout with useful phrases for opening a presentation here.

A Marketing Project

Four products with potential image problems. We considered their strengths and weaknesses and then came up with a strategy for marketing them through this task. Feedback from the resulting presentations is here.

Advertising Campaigns

We looked at these advertising campaigns and discussed the feasibility of each one. One the same handout we did a branding task courtesy of Lexicon Naming via In Company. Finally we looked at advertising slogans. If you have some free time, why not try this stupid but entertaining random advert generator.

Memos and e-mails

Writing short but effective messages is a true art form. An analysis of these examples followed by some practice will help you take the first steps to perfecting this art form!

Negotiations

The idea was to use some of this useful language for negotiations in a negotiation roleplay about buying and selling digital cameras. A breakdown of the class results is here.

Writing a CV

The class handout for improving on your CV is here.

Funny Stories

I received some fantastic funny (or just strange) stories so rather than just reading them here, why not spend some time doing grammar exercises with them.

Mini Sagas

Read the first two mini sagas here and try to put the third story in order. As a grammar exercise, you can try to put the grammar back into the two stories here (get the answers here).

There are more mini sagas here, but nothing particularly good. I'm sure that you could write something better.

800 Dollars

There are several different grammar exercises you can try with a funny story about 800 dollars.

This website has a host of other jokes and funny stories, but I can't say I'm especially impressed by them. Please let me know if you have any alternative recommendations.

A Dark Dark Story

I think that this story provides a perfect example of the concept at the heart of the article system in English. Pay careful attention to the uses of A and THE

Once upon a time…
There was a dark dark county
And in the dark dark country
There was a dark dark forest
And in the dark dark forest
There was a dark dark tree
And near the dark dark tree
There was a dark dark lake
And by the dark dark lake
There was a dark dark house.
In the dark dark house
There was a dark dark hall
And through the dark dark hall
There was a dark dark room
In the dark dark room
There was a dark dark cupboard
And in the dark dark cupboard
There was a dark dark box
And in the dark dark box there was…

___ Sydney Harbour Bridge - A,The, or Nothing?

Can you put the articles into the following story?

_____ American, _____ Frenchman, and _____ Australian were sitting in _____ bar overlooking _____ Sydney Harbour. “Do you know why _____ America is _____ wealthiest country in _____ world?” asked _____ American. “It’s because _____ we build _____ big and we build fast. We put up _____ Empire State Building in six weeks”. “_____ Six weeks, mon dieu, so long!” snapped _____ Frenchman. “_____ Eiffel Tower we put up in _____ one month exactement. And you,” he continued, turning to _____ Australian, “what has _____ Australia done to match that?” “Ah, nuthin’, mate. Not that I know of.” _____ American pointed to _____ Harbour Bridge. “What about that?” he asked. _____ Australian looked over _____ his shoulder. “Dunno, _____ mate. It wasn’t there yesterday”.

The key is here but don't just check your answers and forget about it. Think carefully about the REASON for every use of A, THE, HE, HIS, THAT, and THERE in this story. Iny my humble opinion, if you can understand why each one has been used, then you are a step closer to producing excellent writing.

Going Down the Tube(s)

A newspaper story about some artistic tubes at the Tate Modern was the launchpad for a text analysis which incorporated this quick investigation of the question What is a clause? Summaries of the Tate Modern article then led to some pain-staking corrections.

Coffee Machine Conversations

What's the difference between English and English for Work? In some ways, nothing, but we sometimes have to use English skills to get what we want (or need) at work. We used a conversation at a coffee machine as a frame in which to try to find out vital information about work-related issues. Feeback on the language used in class conversations can be found here, while some examples of wonderful phrases students used and an exercise in reducing the amount of over-formal grammar that gets used are all here.