Market Leader: Intermediate Unit 3 Change p.26-27 Managing Meetings

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks--Market Leader Intermediate)

Useful Language Cards (Use for various card games): drive, docs, pub

Transcript: drive, pub

Starting Okay, let’s get down to business	Starting Right, can we start please?	Setting Objectives The purpose of this meeting is…	Setting Objectives The aims of this meeting are…
Asking for Reactions How do you feel about … ?	Asking for Reactions What do you think?	Dealing with Interruptions Could you let him finish, please?	Dealing with Interruptions Could you just hang on a moment, please?
Keeping to the Point I’m not sure that’s relevant.	Keeping to the Point Perhaps we could get back to the point.	Speeding Up I think we should move on now.	Speeding Up Can we come back to that?
Slowing Down Hold on, we need to look at this in more detail.	Slowing Down I think we should discuss this a bit more.	Summarising OK, let’s go over what we’ve agreed.	Summarising Right, to sum up then …

P=Petro, E=Eduardo, M=Mitsuko, W=William

P: Good morning, everyone, I take it you’ve received the agenda and the minutes of our last meeting.  Does anyone have any comments?

E/M/W: No/Ok

P: Right. (1)_________________________ to discuss our smoking policy.  As you know, people are complaining that our staff have been smoking just outside the door of the building and leaving cigarette ends everywhere on the pavement.  That’s not acceptable. Eduardo, you’re a smoker, (2)_________________________ we should do about it?

E: Well, I think we should be able to smoke outside the restaurant, on the balcony.  It’s big enough for plenty of people to sit there, it’s in the open air, and we smokers would be happy.  We wouldn’t bother to go outside the building.

P: Mmm, interesting.  (3)_________________________, Mitsuko?  Do you agree with Eduardo?

M: Not at all.  Our policy has always been “no smoking on company premises”.  I think we should keep it that way.  Non-smoking staff often go out on the balcony to relax, they don’t want to breathe in a lot of filthy smoke. No, it’s not at all--

W: Come on, Mitsuko, I’m not a smoker, but I do think you should be a little more open-minded, more tolerant …

P: I’m sorry, William.  What you say is very interesting, I’m sure, but (4)_________________________?  You’ll get your turn to give your opinion.

W: Sorry for interrupting you, Mitsuko.  Please, go on.

M: I just wanted to say, I don’t think we should provide places in the building for people to smoke.  It’s setting a bad example, especially to younger staff.

P: William, what do you want to say?

W: I just think we have to try to understand smokers.  They’re addicted to smoking, they find it very hard to give up, so we should provide them with somewhere to enjoy their habit.  Or, if we can’t do that, give them a longer break during the morning, say at 11 o’clock, so they can go to the park near here and have a cigarette.

M: I think that’s a good idea, Petra.  It would show smokers that we want to help them, you know, that we’re a tolerant, open-minded company.

P: Not a bad idea.  It’s definitely worth considering, too.  But (5)_________________________.  Can we come back to the smoking issue at our next meeting?  I want to get the opinion of staff about our smoking policy.  So they’ll be getting a questionaire about it from our HR department sometime in the next few days…

OK everyone, thanks for your comments.  (6)_________________________, on the smoking policy, we’ll consider whether we want to give smokers a longer break in the morning.  And we’ll discuss the matter again at next week’s meeting.  OK, any other business? … Right, thanks everyone for your contributions.  Have a good lunch.

Answers:

P=Petro, E=Eduardo, M=Mitsuko, W=William

P: Good morning, everyone, I take it you’ve received the agenda and the minutes of our last meeting.  Does anyone have any comments?

E/M/W: No/Ok

P: Right. (1)The purpose of this meeting is to discuss our smoking policy.  As you know, people are complaining that our staff have been smoking just outside the door of the building and leaving cigarette ends everywhere on the pavement.  That’s not acceptable. Eduardo, you’re a smoker, (2)what do you think we should do about it?

E: Well, I think we should be able to smoke outside the restaurant, on the balcony.  It’s big enough for plenty of people to sit there, it’s in the open air, and we smokers would be happy.  We wouldn’t bother to go outside the building.

P: Mmm, interesting.  (3)How do you feel about that, Mitsuko?  Do you agree with Eduardo?

M: Not at all.  Our policy has always been “no smoking on company premises”.  I think we should keep it that way.  Non-smoking staff often go out on the balcony to relax, they don’t want to breathe in a lot of filthy smoke. No, it’s not at all--

W: Come on, Mitsuko, I’m not a smoker, but I do think you should be a little more open-minded, more tolerant …

P: I’m sorry, William.  What you say is very interesting, I’m sure, but (4)could you let Mitsuko finish please?  You’ll get your turn to give your opinion.

W: Sorry for interrupting you, Mitsuko.  Please, go on.

M: I just wanted to say, I don’t think we should provide places in the building for people to smoke.  It’s setting a bad example, especially to younger staff.

P: William, what do you want to say?

W: I just think we have to try to understand smokers.  They’re addicted to smoking, they find it very hard to give up, so we should provide them with somewhere to enjoy their habit.  Or, if we can’t do that, give them a longer break during the morning, say at 11 o’clock, so they can go to the park near here and have a cigarette.

M: I think that’s a good idea, Petra.  It would show smokers that we want to help them, you know, that we’re a tolerant, open-minded company.

P: Not a bad idea.  It’s definitely worth considering, too.  But (5)I think we should move on now.  Can we come back to the smoking issue at our next meeting?  I want to get the opinion of staff about our smoking policy.  So they’ll be getting a questionaire about it from our HR department sometime in the next few days…

OK everyone, thanks for your comments.  (6)To sum up, then, on the smoking policy, we’ll consider whether we want to give smokers a longer break in the morning.  And we’ll discuss the matter again at next week’s meeting.  OK, any other business? … Right, thanks everyone for your contributions.  Have a good lunch.

The Ling Space: How Do We Capture the Truth of Beliefs? Type Theory

(The Ling Space)

Before I get too negative here, let me start with the positives:
God bless the people at The Ling Space for making these videos.  It's really great to have what is essentially a graduate-level course on linguistics available on line completely for free.
Truly, the Internet is helping us live in a golden age of free information.

But that said, a lot of this video was over my head, and I found it frustrating.

Like a lot of The Ling Space videos, this video started out with a list of videos to watch first.  3 in total.
Since I have an anal-retentive personality, I set out to watch all the prerequisite videos first.  I clicked on the first link to watch What Does "Most" Even Mean? Generalized Quantifiers.  But then that video had two more videos I was supposed to watch before it.  So I clicked on another link.  And then that video had two more videos I was supposed to watch before it.  Then that video referenced back to the video in topic two.

I worked my way back through all of the prerequisite videos, and by the time I even got to this week's episode, I had watched like 10 videos as prerequisites.  (I've got a certain personality type.  It would have given me a nagging feeling of incompleteness if I would have skipped one of the prerequisite videos.)

Now, technically, I had watched all of these prerequisite videos before.  Or at least listened to them.  In my first encounter with The Ling Space, I had put all of the videos on a playlist, and had them on in the background of my apartment.
But re-watching them, I realized how complicated a lot of them were, and how little I had absorbed by just playing them in the background.
I tried to watch them now with a focused attention.  I had to pause and rewind the videos frequently to make sure I was understanding everything, but I mostly got it.

Until I got to some of the more technical mathematical videos (here and here), when I started not to understand things, and gradually became more and more lost.

By the time I got to this week's featured video, I was already mentally exhausted, and frustrated.

And I didn't understand all of this week's video either.
I got the general concept of the notations (e= entity, t= truth value) but I never understood why they were nestled the way they were.  And the explanation given "one of them has a closer relationship with the truth" didn't help me at all.  Why does one have a closer relationship with the truth?

From there, the various other formulas and semantic trees just confused me more.

I began to wonder if this was my fault or  the videos fault.  Was the video not explaining it well, or was I just a little bit dense?

I checked the youtube comments to see what the reaction from the rest of the Internet was, and it looks like it's just me.  The other youtubers were making comments like:

* This is a fantastically lucid explanation.
and
* You are amazing!! thanks a lot!!
I had a course on this topic last semester in my masters, and you basically covered and explained almost everything in 10 minutes.

As someone whose true love is history, and has been trying to move into linguistics simply on the basis of my experience teaching English, I sometimes wonder if my brain is really cut out for linguistics.  Videos like this make me doubt my ability.

IELTS Express Upper Intermediate Second Edition Unit 1 Speaking p.15-17

(Supplementary Materials for Specific Textbooks--IELTS Express Upper Intermediate)

Treasure Hunt: drive, docs, pub

Treasure Hunt Feedback on PowerPoint: drive, slides, pub

Sample Speaking Test Answers--good and bad: drive, docs, pub

1. What four criteria will you be evaluated on in the IELTS speaking test?

2. TRUE or FALSE.  If the examiner doesn’t like your answer, he will mark it as wrong.

3. What should you refer to in order to help you provide more information and give a fuller answer in Part 2?

4. How long will you have to prepare your talk in part 2?

5. In part 2, you will be asked to speak continuously for how long?

6. In parts 1 and 2, you will use a variety of speech functions.  What are three examples?

7.  What are 3 things you should do for part 1?  (Your textbook mentions several exam strategies, but you only need to write down 3 to get this question right.)

8. What should you ensure that you pronounce correctly?

9.  TRUE or FALSE: For part 2, you should make your ideas flow together, and try to connect the different points on the card.

10.  How many parts does the speaking test consist of?

Treasure Hunt  

The teacher has hidden 10 questions.  See if you can find and answer the questions.  The first team to finish will get a prize.

All the questions come from pages 15, 16, and 17 of your textbook, so make sure you take your textbooks with you.  The answers to some questions may be the same.

1. A)_____________________________________________________________________________

   B)_____________________________________________________________________________

   C)_____________________________________________________________________________

   D)._____________________________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________________________

3. _____________________________________________________________________________

4. _____________________________________________________________________________

5. _____________________________________________________________________________

6. . A)_____________________________________________________________________________

    B)_____________________________________________________________________________

   C)_____________________________________________________________________________

7. A)_____________________________________________________________________________

   B)_____________________________________________________________________________

   C)_____________________________________________________________________________

8. _____________________________________________________________________________

9. _____________________________________________________________________________

10. _____________________________________________________________________________

Answers:

1.  fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation

2.  False

3.  your notes

4.  1 minute

5.  1-2 minutes

6.  giving personal information, describing and explaining, and expressing preferences

7.  Introduce yourself briefly

Listen to the examiner’s questions carefully

Add extra information to extend your answers

Use a variety of speech functions

Keep the marking criteria in mind

Speak fluently, connecting your ideas together logically

Make longer, more grammatically complex sentences

Use a wide range of vocabulary

Ensure you pronounce keywords correctly

8.  keywords

9. True

10. 3 parts

You are going to watch a sample IELTS Part 1.  Listen to the interview, and try to give the candidate a score based on this criteria.

Band	Fluency and coherence	Lexical resource	Grammatical range and accuracy	Pronunciation
7	Can speak at length without any effort Uses a range of words like ‘and’ ‘but’ ‘therefore’ to link ideas together.	Uses less common and idiomatic vocabulary accurately, has knowledge of collocation. Has enough vocabulary to talk about a wide variety of topics.	May make some errors but frequently produces error free sentences. Uses a range of complex grammatical structures.
6	Is willing to speak at length but finds it difficult sometimes	Has a wide enough vocabulary to talk about a range of topics. May use some inappropriate words.	Uses a mix of simple and complex sentences. Makes frequent mistakes with complex structures but can still be understood.	Uses a range of pronunciation features (individual phoneme sounds, intonation, stress etc) but not always accurately.
5	Produces simple speech fluently but has problems with more complicated language. Uses repetition, self-correction or slow speech to keep going.	Can talk about a range of topics but cannot really adapt their vocabulary to different situations.	Uses simple structures reasonably accurately. Tries to use more complex structures but thee may be difficult to understand.
4	Cannot speak without very long pauses. Links basic sentences but may be very repetitive	Can only talk about familiar topics.	Only uses basic structures.  Some of them are accurate.	Uses a limited range of pronunciation features (individual phoneme sounds, intonation, stress etc) but is difficult to understand.

Example IELTS Test

Examiner: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Examiner: Do you enjoy studying English?

Examiner: Do you do any sport?

Examiner: Have you got a job?

Examiner: What do you plan to do after you finish your studies?

Examiner: Where are you from?

Examiner: What’s your favorite subject?

Example IELTS Test

Examiner: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Candidate: Yes

Examiner: Do you enjoy studying English?

Candidate: Yes

Examiner: Do you do any sport?

Candidate: No

Examiner: Have you got a job?

Candidate: Yes

Examiner: What do you plan to do after you finish your studies?

Candidate: Work

Examiner: Where are you from?

Candidate: France

Examiner: What’s your favorite subject?

Candidate: Math

Example IELTS Test

Examiner: Do you have any brothers or sisters?

Candidate:   Yeah, I just have one brother.  He has two children—sons, Juan and Jose.  That makes me the uncle!  I really like playing with his children, but it’s always good to give them back at the end of the day!  When I’m older, I’d like to have some children myself, maybe two boys and a girl.  I think that having children is a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it.

Examiner: Do you enjoy studying English?

Candidate: I really enjoy speaking it, and I like it when I learn a new word which is pretty useful or is funny in some ways.  But it’s very hard and sometimes I feel like I don’t get better.  I’m not making a lot of progress.  I prefer studying economics, which is a subject I’m hoping to study when I go to University next year.  You know, it’s really interesting to learn about how the economies of all the countries of the world are connected.

Examiner: Do you do any sport?

Candidate: Not really.  I’m not very sporty.  I prefer to spend time playing on my computer.  In fact, I really enjoy video games.  I got a new game recently—it’s really great.  You’re a criminal and you have to drive your car really fast about a city, and then sometimes escape from the police.  It’s very exciting.  Sometimes, I play with my friends, but it’s quite difficult to arrange our schedules, so I often end up just playing alone.

Examiner: Have you got a job?

Candidate: I work in McDonald’s .  It’s a part-time job.  It’s very good because it gives me time to study and I meet people to practice my speaking—you know, talking with my colleagues, and with the customers.

Examiner: What do you plan to do after you finish your studies?

Candidate: I don’t know exactly what I want to do, but when I’m older I’d like to work for an international agency—I think it would be a good job, interesting, with lots of opportunity for travelling—but right now I have to study hard for the IELTS, to go to university, to get my degree.

Examiner: Where are you from?

Candidate: I’m from Sao Paulo in Brazil.  I’ve travelled to different cities with my job.  I once went to Tokyo for a meeting.  That was an amazing experience, so different from Sao Paulo.  The people there were so polite and kind.

Examiner: What’s your favorite subject?

Candidate: I really enjoy science subjects: chemistry, physics, and biology.  My favourite subject was physics at school, but I’m planning to study computer science in the future.