CV Writing : Step One

Today we looked at some language for making yourself sound dynamic on a CV.

First we considered a list skills and qualities featured in a textbook called Business Builder. The first task was for students to identify which skills and qualities they have and then to prove it by referring to examples of achievements in their work experience, education, and personal life.

We then looked at the language they used to express them and worked on ways of making it more dynamic. We also used this vocabulary exercise to identify accurate and effective collocations to talk about work experience. A Word file can be downloaded here.

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.

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.

Initiation!

In the new English for Work class we used this exercise to highlight the need for social skills as well as being able to use good English. A feedback sheet from the class, which talks about using conversations as frames as well as Chinese astrology, can be downloaded here.

English for Work

You can access handouts from the course here - just click on English for Work and you should be able to see everything. You can also access files individually from the following links:

Advertising slogan exercise and key.

E-mail task and follow-up roleplay.

Useful language for meetings.

Useful language for presentations.