(a.k.a. How to make forceful emails and
complaint letters enjoyable)
One of the classes that I've recently
started teaching is a business writing course. It's a night course
that the students take after they have finished working, and, as
anyone who has ever worked a full day before going to a night class
can attest, energy levels are pretty low at that point.
Unlike some of the material that has
been provided for my other courses with this company, the business
writing material is BORING. Moreover, there is a higher amount of
grammar presentation time and a lower amount of discussion and group
work situations created.
Since I'm taking over this course from
another teacher, there are only two units left—but those two units
are at least 4 weeks of class. My challenge is to find a way to And, from TEFLtastic with AlexCase, I found quite a few resourcesmake
the learning of writing a fun process, or the next 4 weeks will be
torture for all of us.
Last week (when we were talking about
exerting pressure and writing complaints), on the spur of the moment,
I changed their homework assignment. Instead of having them read the
text and answer questions, they were supposed to email me a complaint
about my teaching—fake or real. I've already received one very
funny response, and I am looking forward to the rest.
I'm not sure what else to do, though.
Here are some ideas I found that seemed appropriate for the
situation. I am going to try to incorporate them in my lesson plans,
somehow.
ask students to “metawrite,”
or to reflect on (and write about) writing by researching and
examining mistakes (See this article for more info: “On the Use of Metawriting...”);
use yourself as a model for
writing processes – basically, a think aloud where you show the
students your mental process by clearly outlining it in from of
them;
have the students write to an
audience for real purpose instead for a hypothetical purpose, or,
in other words, create more authentic situations for their practice
writing; and
experiment with sentence length
by instructing students to make the longest run-on sentence
possible, and then, conversely, to fill a page with 4 word
sentences.
Teach about Grice's maxims (this idea was found in the comments of this blog article). Modern business writing is about being
concise and accurate. Keeping in mind the maxims (quantity, manner,
relation, and quality) and giving students the language to achieve
these maxims will be helpful. Flouting the maxims, however, is where
the fun comes in.
Break the rules! Speaking of flouting, this suggestion on the TEFL.net forum seemed like it would be fun, as well.
Sharon said “Something I do with my students is get them to write
the opposite of a good letter. By thinking about everything that's
bad, they become more creative. They do this in groups to share
ideas. then they all look at each others letters.”
I'd love to hear suggestions if anyone reading this has fun or creative ideas for teaching business writing. I'll try to keep you updated on these suggestions when I use them.
I don't want to
say that Germany is behind the times when it comes to wireless
internet access, but, Germany is behind the times when it comes to
wireless internet access.
Most of the
places that I work have extra outlets (which is good,
because I need to plug my old laptop in after 10 minutes). If I'm
lucky, the place will have a projector display hook up, which is
good, because I like to display notes, etc. if I can. However,
nowhere is there a wireless internet connection.
In short, this
lack of wireless internet connection means that I cannot show YouTube
videos in class. Or, that I COULDN'T. However, I
recently discovered MiniTube, a Desktop App that lets you download YouTube
videos on to your computer as .mp4 files and then play them later.
It
is a free program for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems, and you can get it here.
Another benefit of downloading the
videos (for me) is that I like to keep all of my unit and lesson
materials in files for future use. Downloading the videos lets me
save the video if it is a major component of my lesson plan, and that
way, if for some reason it is unavailable in the future, I will still
have it.
In
my last post, I talked about using Task Based Language Teaching
in Business English. Today, I want to share with you an example of a
lesson I did with my German students of Business English (level B1). The lesson was about emailing.
(Yes, Emoticons did come up in the lesson)
Step1:SchemaBuilding:
I started
by
talking
(in
English)
about
German
emails. We discussed issues like
How
are
they
written?
What is
the
format?
What
common
phrases
do you
use?
What
are the
greetings?
etc.
What
is good
etiquette?
What is
polite?
What is
rude?
The idea here
is to elicit
key
vocabulary
about
emails,
including
(but
not
limited
to):
Greeting,
Introduction,
Body,
Conclusion,
Salutation,
Sender,
Recipient,
Reply,
etc.,
as well
as the
translation
of
their
common
forms
for
these
items.
During the discussion, I wrote the
information and the terms
on one
side of
a
digital note
sheet that was projected onto the
wall.
Step2:ControlledPractice
Next, I brought
out a series of emails printed
on
paper. These were
emails
that
were
written
to me
and
emails
that
were
written
by me,
from a
variety
of
settings
(both
business
and
casual)
and
from a
variety
of
people,
including friends,
acquaintances,
coworkers,
and
people
I
didn't
know.
[Side note: It
would
probably
work
better
to
print
the emails it
so that
you can
still
see the
subject
line
and the
email
addresses,
but
that is
not as
important. I
also
shortened
the
emails
to the
relevant
parts
only so
that
the
activity
would
be
quicker, as some of the emails were
quite lengthy.]
I gave each
group
several
(at
least
3) of
the emails.
Their task was to identify
phrases,
formats,
or
things
that
are
different
in the
English
emails
than in
the
German
Emails.
It's a good idea to make
sure that
they
used
English
in the
group
work, because it seems natural to
revert to the NL when tasks are information based rather than
linguistic based. The students wrote on the emails, underlining and
circling items that they found. As we discussed the emails, and I
wrote the
information
on the
other
side of
the note sheet
(for
comparison
with
the
German).
I
also
had
them
arrange
the
emails
from the ones that they thought were the most formal to the ones they
thought were the least formal, and then to explain their choices.
Step3:Authenticlisteningpractice
After
the
discussion,
we watched 2 YouTube videos that I had chosen. Both were intended for
native English speakers (i.e., they weren't English teaching videos).
This is important to me because I want the students to get a feel for
what real English sounds like, not just what teacher language sounds
like.
The first video
was a email guide, probably for people who didn't know how to use
email at all.
My students are proficient in email, but the task here was for them
to
write
down
new
words,
interesting
ideas,
or
things
that
they
learned.
It would be better to have some more focused questions for the
discussion, but I didn't.
During the video, I
paused
to let
them
discuss and write down notes.
I also
skipped
a big
chunk
in the
middle
about
revising
emails because it was really boring
and not relevant. We discussed their
responses at the end of this video.
The second
video was about email etiquette. It was shorter and funnier, and the
person in the video also spoke a lot faster.
After,
we
talked
about
the
questions they had (i.e., “What is
Snail Mail?”), and
then
about
the
interesting
content.
They
didn't
remember
some of
the content,
but when I
mentioned
how I
learned
something
from
the
video,
too, it
reminded
them and sparked a little more
conversation.
Step4:Focusonlinguisticelements
The linguistic
focus for the lesson was a review of the uses of the various present
tenses (simple present, present progressive, present perfect) but we
also ended up reviewing the simple past. The rationale behind this
choice is that, not only do the tenses need to be reviewed, but that
emails generally feature a lot of these tenses. This section didn't
connect as well as another grammar point could have, but you have to
work with your students' specific needs.
I wrote the
three present tense forms (I work, I am working, I have worked) on
the board and at the beginning, I mentioned their technical grammar
tense names once in the beginning, but after that, I focused on their
use. We discussed by comparing two forms at a time (i.e., what is the
difference between “I work” and “I am working”). After that,
we did a go-around-the-room exercise conjugating different verbs for
different circumstances.
Step5:Providefreerpractice
I
split
the
class
into
two
groups,
and
each
group
got a
prompt.
Prompt1:You
work at
company
that
makes
advertisements.
You
want to
make an
advertisement
for a
big toy
company.
Email
the
marketing
director
(you
don't
know
his
name)
and see
if he
is
interested
in
working
with
your
company.
Prompt
2: Yesterday,
there was a meeting in your company. You went to the meeting, but you
are a little confused. You have some questions about what happened in
the meeting. Email your co-worker (the meeting leader) to ask for
more information.
Each
group
wrote
an
email
based
on the
prompt.
I gave
them
about
5-10
minutes,
and
then
they
“emailed” their paper to the other team. The other team then
responded to the “email”.
I saw
that
they
were a
little
confused
in the
response,
so I
also
had
them
switch
prompts
so that
they
knew
why the
original
email
was
written.
This
activity
probably needs
more
time and it also
needs
very
simple
prompts.
Step6:Introducethepedagogicaltask(Homework)
The last step
was homework for the week. I split the group into partners, and I
handed each person an A or B task, and then briefly
explained
what
was
going
to
happen. Basically, there
must be
at
least 4
emails
total (2 from each person).
Person
A must
initiate
a
meeting,
person
B must
reply
and ask
for a
copy of
the
meeting
agenda.
The students are supposed to print
out the entire email chain and then we
will
review
them in
class
next
week.
Here are the
task assignments: (2 people, 1
group AB; 3 people, 1 group ABC; 4 people, 2 groups AB AB; 5 people,
2 groups AB ABC; 6 people 2 groups ABC ABC OR 3 groups AB AB AB,
etc.)
PersonA:
-
Initiate
a
Meeting.
Try to
find a
a
time,
date,
and
place.
Provide
any
information
that
the
other
person
needs.
PersonB:
Wait
for the
email
from
Person
A.
Agree
on a
good
meeting
time
and
place.
Also,
ask for
the
meeting
agenda.
PersonC: Wait for person A and Person B to email you. You can't
meet on the day that they suggest, but you are free almost every
other day.
I hope you like the lesson. My students told me that they enjoyed it because it was so "interactive." Feel free to use or modify it, and let me know if you have any questions!
Recently, my teaching schedule has
picked up a bit, and I have started 3 new courses. One of the courses
is with an English school that provides a curriculum and materials,
and one is a private tutoring gig, but the other course is, for the
most part, completely open as far as content goes. Currently, I am facing the challenge of
creating a course plan that will satisfy everyone: the participants
(adult, business people), their company (that is sponsoring the
course), and my company (that claims to have a creative, unique
approach to English instruction).
As I was looking through my textbooks for ideas, I came across David Nunan's Task Based Language Teaching (Click here for the Amazon page).
At the time we studied this book in my degree program, I remember thinking that the system Nunan sets out in
the book was great, but still less appealing than the standard
Effective Instructional Sequence that we typically used for lesson
planning in the program (even though, in reality, they can both go together).
However, in my current situation, faced
with the simultaneous needs to teach concrete skills in English, to
teach English grammar (without taking a traditional grammar teaching
approach) AND to foster a discussion-like environment in the course,
Nunan's task based language teaching model seems to be a perfect
solution.
In the model, each unit is based around
a pedagogical task – a real world activity performed in the safety
of the classroom. Building up to that task, the teacher scaffolds
activities and lessons that will develop the skills needed for the
students to successfully complete the task.
Here is the outline of the unit model:
Step 1: Schema Building
Step 2: Controlled Practice
Step 3: Authentic listening practice
Step 4: Focus on linguistic elements
Step 5: Provide freer practice
Step 6: Introduce the pedagogical task
Obviously, there is a lot more to this
book that just the model outline, but I can't do it justice in a blog
post. I recommend looking into the book if you are teaching business
English without a pre-set curriculum, because it allows you to focus
on the specific language tasks (sending email, having a meeting,
interviewing, etc.) that they will encounter.
If you want to see the Table of
Contents and a little of this first chapter, here is a link. Also, I found this blog that focuses on Task Based Language Teaching. It has
not been updated recently, but the posts that are there already have some good ideas.