Develop Your Marketing Vocabulary

For people who want to use English within their profession, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to develop your English within specific work related topics. So in today's activity we are going to look at how you can do that.


Today we will be looking at how you can develop you listening and vocabulary knowledge of marketing and particularly online marketing. We will be using a listening and script from the Double Click website as well as some web based tools to help you learn, record and remember new words.

Task:

• Go to: http://www.doubleclick.com/nervecenter/ Here you will see an image of Carl Hendra. If you click on one of the topic areas on the left hand side menu you will hear her talking about those marketing topics.
• As you listen you will see keywords on the right of the screen. Listen and try to understand what you can.
• Once you have listened once download the tapescript and listen again. This time you can follow with the script as you listen.

• To download the script you will need to click on 'Download Transcript' and then 'Carla Hendra'

• Once you have done this, copy the first section of the script and go to the VocabGrabber website.
• Paste the text from the script into the field and click on 'Grab Vocabulary'.
  

• This will produce a 'word cloud' of the words in the text.

• Now you can click on each of the words to get a definition of the word and some information about related words. You can also see examples of the words in use. If you want to be sure to remember these words you could use Wordie to create a word list. There are some instructions on how to do this in the List Your Favourite Words activity.
• Lastly, listen through to Carla Hendra talking again without the script and see how much you remember. Write a summary of the main parts of the talk using FutureMe and send it to yourself so that you receive it in two weeks time along with the link to the DoubleClick website.
  

• Then you can check your notes and listen again. This will help you to see how much you remember and refresh your memory of the vocabulary.

Hope you enjoy listening and learning more about marketing. Here you can find more Business English activities.

Related links for teachers:

• Multimedia Business Simulation
• Playing the Stock Market
• Advertisement Project
• Using 'How to' videos
• Create an Online CV in English
• News Videos for EFL ESL Materials Design
• Subtitling your video clips
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESLUsing Product Reviews
• Iconic teen video

Best

Nik Peachey

Writing an Essay in English

For many people writing an essay in their first language is a challenge, but writing one in a second language can be even more demanding and stressful. The key to good essay writing though in any language is good planning.


Today's activity looks at a tool called Essay Map to help you effectively plan your essay. It takes you through the processes involved in planning and at the end of the activity you can print up your plan to use it as a basis for you essay.

Task:

• Before you begin you should think about the theme of your essay. You could to write about one of the topics from the lectures in our previous activity Listening to Lectures in English or you could watch a lecture on Academic Earth.
• If you prefer to practice with an easier topic you could write about:
  - : The challenges faced by young people in your country
  - : Technology and the opportunities it offers for the future
  - : The most interesting places in your country
  - : Why you study English
  
  
• When you have chosen a topic go to http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/essaymap/
  

• Type in your name and the topic you are going to write about. Then go to the introduction and add a few sentences. Then click on the arrow to add main points

• You only need to give brief sentences here. Remember this is only the plan and these are only the main areas you will cover when you write the essay.

• Once you have these three main ideas you will be able to move on through the map and add the key points you want to include in each of these sections. Complete the whole of you plan and add a conclusion.
  
• Then print out your plan. next comes the hard part. You need to sit down and actually turn your plan into an essay. Writing the essay though will now be much easier, as you have done the thinking part and now you just have to concentrate on the language and making your thoughts clear.

I hope you find this activity useful. Here can you can find 20+ more activities to improve your writing.

Related links for teachers:

• Simple Tool for Collaborative Writing
• Creating an interactive cloze text
• MS Word tutorial 1: Adding ‘comments’
• Animated EFL ESL Writing Prompts
• Picture phrases
• Using wikis for teacher development

Best

Nik Peachey

I spotted the link to this site on the Micronarratives blog