Занятие 4. Company structure

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение + интерактивная форма: ролевая игра)

Listening: people talking about working in different departments – matching departments and what their jobs involve, answering the questions.

Listening: two interviews about their jobs – the analysis of showing the interest in the conversation.

Discussion: Think about the company you would like to work for and answer the following questions.

1. How many employees are there in the company?

2. How many branches and subsidiaries are there in the company?

3. Where is its head office?

4. Which departments are there in your company?

5. Do employees have their own offices, or are there open-plan offices? Why?

6. Which department would you like to work in? Why?

7. What does this job involve?

8. What qualities are necessary for this job? Do you have all of them?

9. Which departments do you work closely with? Give specific examples.

10. Would you like to be CEO? Why/ Why not? What personality should you have to make a good CEO?

Speaking (role play): Talking about your work or studies. Initiating and maintaining a conversation. Expressing enthusiasm by using fulfilling, satisfying, challenging, dynamic, it’s good to.., It’s fun to …, It’s interesting to …. Softening negative comments by rather, a bit.

Writing: a cover letter, memos (layout, contents, length). Memos giving information. Memos about smoking. Memos: points to remember (purpose, layout – who it is to, who it is from, date, subject, key phrases). Analyzing the patterns, making up the memos.

Занятие 5. Business travel

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение + интерактивная форма: ролевая игра)

Vocabulary: business traveling by air and train. Adjectives and adverbs connected with business traveling: basic, cramped, luxurious, rapid/ rapidly, etc. active form of studying (filling the gaps, finding synonyms / antonyms, matching, etc).

Reading and Discussion: business travel today (facilities for business travelers, the problems facing business travelers, companies’ attitudes to business travel).

Language in use: comparatives and superlatives (synthetic and analytic forms; constructions as … as, not as … as, using phrases a little, a lot, much more, much less, far more, far less; double comparison; more and more, less and less).

Speaking (role play):

1) making arrangements via email;

2) meeting visitors on arrival;

3) talking about flight, time and the weather, talking about plans (small talk).

Занятие 6. Business travel

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение + интерактивная форма: ролевая игра)

Listening: Choosing a hotel for a meeting.

Speaking (role play): choosing hotel for an international meeting for twenty middle-ranking sales staff (convenience for airports; size and availability of meeting rooms; quality and availability of the rooms for the delegates; hotel amenities, availability of equipment, availability of business support, cost per delegate per day).

Writing: Making request and writing concisely. Finding shorter equivalents (make a telephone call – telephone – phone – call, etc). Requesting a service (different elements). Composing a message. Letter practice.

 

Занятие 7. Communication at work

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение + интерактивная форма: ролевая игра)

Speaking (discussion): Communication channels (face-to-face, written, electronic). The most appropriate in different situations.

Collocations: save, confidential, time, official, final, immediate, urgent.

Speaking (role play): conversation with a partner about his / her use of electronic mail (how often he / she uses it; what he / she finds it useful for; what he / she likes and dislikes about it).

Language in use: countable and uncountable nouns (a, an, the, each, every, a dozen of, a couple of; several various, all sorts of, all kinds of, hundreds of, thousands of, etc).

Listening: likes and dislikes about answering machines and mobile phones.

Speaking: telephoning (phones and numbers: phone, call and ring, numbers, doing things over the phone; getting through: phoning scenario, asking to speak to someone, voicemail; messages: giving and taking messages, spelling names, checking information; arrangements: making arrangements, closing the conversation, changing arrangements).

Writing: E-mail requesting information (layout, prepositions of place, sentence fragments, requests, letter practice).

 

Занятие 8. Health and safety

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение)

Health and safety issues – business vocabulary (repetitive strains and injuries; dangerous machinery; fire hazards; inadequate ventilation; trailing cables etc) - matching, questions, filling the gaps, etc.

Language in use: modals must; can; may; could; have to (ability; possibility; advice; obligation; lack of obligation; permission) - matching; finding the forms.

Reading: dangers from office equipment; health problems; work-related stress; safety legislation and legal requirements - matching, answering the questions; finding the words with similar meaning.

Speaking (discussion): dangers from office equipment; health problems; work-related stress; safety legislation and legal requirements.

Writing: a note on smoking policy using modals.

Speaking (role play – personnel department, CEO, lawyer): safety features, improving health and safety environment at work.

Writing: a safety notice (memo). Replacing phrases with shorter ones.

 

Занятие 9. Emotional health and safety

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение)

Business vocabulary: emotional health and safety issues – (bully, sexual harassment, glass ceiling, be under stress, burn out, downshifting, etc) - matching, synonyms, filling the gaps, replacing, etc.

Speaking (discussion):

1. What are the main health and safety issue in your profession?

2. Have you ever heard of any cases of harassment / discrimination / bullying in the workplace? What happened?

3. Have you ever heard of any cases of glass ceiling in the workplace? What happened?

4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of equality between men and women at work?

5. What factors make the equality hard to achieve?

6. Have you heard of anyone ever suing a company? Why? Did they win?

7. Do you think workers have too many rights or too few?

8. Do you sometimes get stressed? What do you do about it?

9. Is stress-related illness common in our country?

10. Have you ever heard of any cases of downshifting? What happened?

Speaking (comments):

1. Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top. (R. Browning)

2. One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. (B. Russell)

Занятие 10. Recruitment and training

(активная форма проведения: групповая работа; обсуждение + интерактивная форма: ролевая игра)

Business vocabulary: recruitment and selection (recruit, hiring, headhunt, applying for a job; selection procedures); skills and qualifications (education and training; highly skilled, skilled, semi-skilled, unskilled; the right person); people and workplaces (employees and management, management and administration, labour, personnel and human resources) - matching; filling the gaps: finding equivalents, etc

Language in use: connectors of contrast and addition (also, although, however, in contrast, not only … but also, what’s more, while). Contrasting two aspects of the same subjects; contrasting two different subjects; linking two similar aspects.

Speaking (discussion): advantages and disadvantages of each recruitment method. On-line recruitment agency.

Speaking (discussion): the best way of finding well-qualified worker; the best and most cost-effective way of finding the new office staff.

Speaking (role play):

1. If you work, tell your partner how you got your job. Was it advertised? Were you interviewed for it? Was the selection process long?

If your don’t work, tell your partner how you are going to look for a job after graduation.