In this lesson, we’re going to look at some more tips and ideas for making the most of your personal learning. Last week, we looked at setting yourself up with a system of personal learning. Today, we’re going to look at how to maintain your momentum and stay on track.
Discussion Questions
1. Do you have a regular schedule for studying English?
2. How can you know whether you’re improving your English skills?
3. What are your greatest personal motivators for studying English?
We’ve got a great lesson today on making the most of personal learning. We’ll start by looking at setting SMART goals and personalizing your studies with a personal learning plan. We’ll also look at how you can vary your input by using a variety of sources and study what is interesting and relevant to both you and your job.
Discussion Questions
1. What are the different things you do to study or practice English?
2. What aspect of English would you most like to improve?
3. What do you find are the best online resources for studying English?
Meetings in English are a great opportunity to get your ideas across and influence other people. But doing that is no easy task. You need the right combination of tact, frankness, confidence, and humility. And you need some effective language techniques to manage that combination.
In today’s lesson, we’re going to look at several advanced techniques for expressing your ideas and commenting on other people’s opinions. These include leading into opinions, highlighting consequences, and redirecting a discussion. A lot of these techniques revolve around agreeing and disagreeing. We’ve looked at many of these in the first two parts, and today we’ll continue by learning about strongly agreeing and disagreeing with negative questions.
We’ve been listening to a dialog among four managers who have to find ways of reducing travel and transportation benefits by 15%. They are continuing their debate on how best to achieve this goal. Let’s listen as the chairperson Alison leads the discussion with Stewart, Pat, and Nate.
Listening Questions
1. What idea does Pat believe is easier to sell to employees?
2. What is Stewart’s concern about Pat’s idea?
3. What does Alison suggest doing?
Meetings are a great opportunity to present your ideas and become engaged in the decision-making process. Meetings often involve open-ended discussion among different types of people. For this reason, there is no easy formula that will guarantee success. Instead, you need to develop a range of skills and techniques that will help you express your ideas clearly and tactfully.
In our last episode, we looked at giving, supporting, and contradicting opinions. In today’s lesson, we’ll cover more techniques of agreeing and disagreeing. We’ll also learn how to change the scope of a meeting, which is an especially important skill for the chairperson.
Last time, we heard four managers – Alison, Stewart, Pat, and Nate – discussing how to reduce travel and transportation benefits. Today we will continue that dialog. The situation becomes a little more heated as the participants express their ideas with more force.
Listening Questions
1. What does the CEO of the company want to focus on?
2. How does Alison respond to Stewart’s ideas?
3. What does Nate think about Stewart’s ideas?
Meetings are an important part of most people’s jobs. And doing well in meetings requires very effective communication skills. You need to make sure you are getting your ideas across clearly with the right amount of subtlety and tact. If you do this well, then you will be able to influence people and the direction of the organization you work with.
So, how can you get your ideas across with tact and clarity? That’s what we will look at in this lesson. We’ll cover some important ways of giving opinions of differing strength. And we’ll learn about supporting and contradicting other people’s opinions.
In today’s dialogue, four managers are meeting to discuss ways of saving money on travel expenses. The chair of the meeting is Alison. The other participants are Stewart from sales, Pat from HR, and Nate from marketing. We’ll hear the group express a variety of opinions as they discuss how to cut 15% from the travel budget.
Listening Questions
1. What are three things that Pat mentions could be cut?
2. What does Pat think they should focus on?
3. Why does Stewart disagree with Pat?
