We can do this, boss!

The practicality of switching production to making badly needed respiratory units for hospitals:

The outbreak of corona virus is the biggest concern on earth. At the same time, this could be a big opportunity for us to keep our factory running, increase our sales and do some good. Our company should consider switching production to make badly needed respiratory units for hospitals.

• Increase the profile of company

The number of patients is becoming larger and larger every day. Some hospitals are already suffering from shortage of respiratory units. It has been reported the current supply of respiratory units are not enough to meet the higher and urgent demand. Fortunately, we are the qualified factory who are allowed to make the medical devices. If we can be the supplier of respiratory units quickly, the reputation of our company in public can be increased.

• Cover shortage with alternative sales

Our factory has been producing the personal care products which sales is dropping sharply due to the uncertain economy. We need to find out the alternative products which can cover shortage immediately. The respiratory units could be the one which can make huge amount of sales.

• Do good for society, staff morale and prevent lay-offs

As mentioned above, the respiratory units are badly needed at every hospital especially in Europe and US. The units can save people's life. Making respiratory units could raise our staff morale as well as prevent lay-offs.

The corona virus spreads around the world quicker than we thought. In order to tackle the difficult situation, we should think what we can do. The decision should be made immediately to start production of respiratory units at our factory.

_________________________________________________________________________________

This was a writing task for an ESP class that we explored as a follow up to writing a memo...we used NoRedInk for the first time to see if we could exploit that resource to improve our writing skills. Here is the link to the task https://www.noredink.com/s/1znccx2 I'd love to know how other teachers teaching English for specific (business) learners feel about the applicability/restrictions of the templates.

I would also love to see other factory floor staff/engineers'/production mangers' responses. Please do not be judgmental, btw. This was a creative writing task within the confines of an English lesson. However, this task is realistic vs the production facilities & current situation of the worldwide situation we are looking at agog.

Using smartphones to learn "Telephone English"

 Photograph courtesy of Joseph A. Carr

I have a dread fear of trying to teach telephone English, especially in business classes. Why?

• The more realistic the set up, the more impossible monitoring
• Students know each other & understand each others' short cuts/linguistic tics
• Students are expecting this call
• There is usually some kind of hierarchy in the group
• Not always possible to use phones 
• Work arounds, such as Skype or Google Hangouts firewalled 
• Odd number of students

Obviously, making phone calls & answering them at the office/on the road are everyday working situations, and vitally important that the user masters the absolute basics very well. There are stock phrases to be used, which to sound professional & proficient just can't be mangled. We need to hear the right phrases to trigger the required responses & manage the conversation forwards in a predictable fashion.

Things learners do that kill a telephone exchange:

• get the giggles
• panic attack & go silent
• start nodding or just make sounds that other cultures do not understand
• use their own language as much as possible
• repeat poor pronunciation more slowly
• lack empathy with the listener's level of English

Whether making the call, or answering it, learners simply have to 'learn their part of the dialogue' - an observation I heard years ago as a complaint about native speakers in Hawaii, who didn't function as expected from an Interchange 1 dialogue! On the phone, we do need to learn our lines.

So how to do this in class? 

Well, this may sound stupid, but use your phones! But no, I don't mean start calling each other - recipe for multiple overlapping snippets & malfunctions which you cannot control. The answer is still BYOD, though. Although slow adopters in Japan, most of my business classes now boast mostly smart phones. 

The preparation:

I created a set of very simple phrases I wanted the receiver of a call to use, on Quizlet (here). In this instance, I took out a key word or words. We had already listened to a short dialogue and filled in the blanks, as you do. I asked students to open up the set in the Quizlet app. A few stunned faces (I have only asked them to install the app every week since May)...mini hiatus while 'expert' users led their less coherent colleagues along the app store, password, install, register, join the class dance. OK, itself a learning moment! 

The set up:

Reassuring nods as they scrolled across the flashcard function. Easy. Race each other in mad screen-tapping game mode (scatter) against the clock...pecking order established?

The Challenge:

I asked students to use the 'Learn' feature. 'Too hard!' - needed to toggle the 'term' button so they only had to write in the key word(s) and not the rest of the phrase!

Realisation:

Typing too slowly/deliberately - copying from books open. And why are we typing a telephone dialogue? USE THE MICROPHONE to fill in the answers/blanks!

Reaction:

'Cool! I don't have to type stuff', shortly followed by 'Oh, stupid phone doesn't understand me. I said "and you" but it reads "Andrew"... the dominant students cockily barking at their phones and reacting indignantly at the jumbled message received, looking around to see more deliberate & gentle pronunciation making better progress.

Relaxation:

 At this point all I needed to do was put my hands in the air and let the penny drop. Talk to the phone nicely! And as the teacher, I am totally absolved of any blame or shame game in picking on students' intonation, enunciation, elision etc. Fine tune your own pronunciation! Students wandered off to find quieter corners, they practiced and practiced more than they ever have done before with any dialogue - and importantly, with phone in hand & an unknown 'partner'.

We didn't get to the other half of the phone call (the caller) which was just fine with me. Nail the most important bits first, then we'll get adventurous!

Development: 

• 'Harder' Quizlet sets (though of the same content/conversation), with caller 'terms' to match with receiver 'definitions'. This would really challenge sentence level pronunciation, with stress & intonation features etc
• Use other apps eg Dragon Dictation to polish pronunciation further, again, without the teacher being involved in critique mode, but enabling/suggesting tweaks

Conclusion:

The students 'got it'. If their phones won't understand them, nobody else is going to! They needed to moderate their output to suit their listener, and not be critical of the listener eg 'He's from China' or something. Now they can see another function for their smart phones - a most excellent phone training device.

Jim was teaching from International Express Elementary (OUP) 3rd Ed. when this hallelujah moment struck. Check out "LunaTeacher" on Quizlet for plenty more creative uses of the site.

I can't remember my part of the conversation if I stand up

So I asked my students if they took their English notebooks with them when they travel on business (the reason we are studying in-house)...a lot of blank faces at first, then shaking of heads as if it were a really stupid thing to ask!

OK then, you take take your textbooks..."Eh?"

Or the interactive DVD/workbook with your laptop...insane suggestion?

Thing is, I'm the native speaker/teacher operative, and I can't remember the right way to do stuff all the time in a business context (introducing colleagues, asking for assistance, making small talk etc) and need to double-check. It really is OK if my students do too!

Everyone comfortable sitting down? When was the last time you greeted a customer to your factory with a rug on your knees? If it's cold in the lobby, you'd better make sure you get this role play sorted out quickly and properly - no giggling please! In front of everyone walking past? Absolutely...can't perform now, imagine what you'll be like if an actual foreign visitor turns up. And if the conversation breaks down or turns left...deal with it professionally, or get help. Meantime, stay calm; name, rank, & number.

Business English - telephoning

Chinasa checks an order

 Using the telephone can be one of the hardest ways to interact, but it is also a common feature of a working day. It is therefore vital that language students get practical practice if they are studying for business/work. The the number one piece of advice I give all my students is "check, then double-check" ...imagine you forget to ask for the surname of your customer, get the company name wrong or the order/phone number/bank account numbers mixed up. Could be your last day at work!

An important hurdle to overcome is the fear factor. Whatever you are trying to do on the phone, plan it out. If you are making the call, know who you need to talk to, how to start the conversation and what you need from it. Likewise,, get into the routine of always answering the phone in the same way. We always warm up before sport; need to do the same thing with the phone.

I think the fear comes from several angles - these we have no way of knowing before we call:

Aya listens attentively

• The other person might speak too fast
• The other person might have a strong accent
• The other person might think I am stupid
• The other person might be 'better' than me (at English)
• The other person might be 'worse' than me (at English)
• The other person might not be 'there'
• Something might go wrong!

Practice makes perfect, and practicing in a realistic way makes a big difference. Sitting next to your partner is a good way to become familiar with the pattern/turn taking routine, work out pronunciation etc, but after that, we really need some separation!

One aspect of 'fear' I didn't mention was colleagues listening in or being critical. I am lucky with my class here, as they all work in the same section. We went back to our desks and called the partner who was furthest away, and practiced checking an order for various parts, nuts, and bolts. A nice noisy environment, just as it is in a regular working day, with other conversations to compete against to be heard. And the boss was watching!

Noisy environment - focus!

Another way you can achieve this practice (teachers) is Skype; mobile phones also good if the students don't mind paying for their own calls. For teachers trying to monitor this, don't jump in and correct - see what is happening & if any of your advice needs repeating. You'll probably find the students will give each other the best feedback like 'speak up' or 'you forgot xyz'. Try to position yourself where you can hear 'both ends' of the conversation - if it breaks down, huddle the participants, identify the breakdown (eg "You didn't say blah blah blah to signal you had finished")

The best feedback I got from my class was that the practice we had just done was exactly what they were trying to do on the phone the previous day with a Chinese customer, who they needed to 'manage'. Next time, they have the toolkit to take care of business better.

Final tip (for teachers), is aim low. As with graded readers, students need to be competent in general English above the work you are trying to achieve. You are teaching new tricks and specialised vocabulary/communication situations, and you need good foundations to house this on. Be consistent - same pattern over & over. Yes, the phone is scary. Better the enemy you know!

Cardboard boxes

As goodbyes go, today sucked.

I've been teaching at a major IT company for last six years, sub-contracting for a recently bankrupted nationwide chain's "business" division. They hired me originally online, no interview. I was told their local eikaiwa teachers were "not good enough/trained well enough" (true).


I was told on Apr 21 not to teach on the 22nd...and have not been able to go back since. Nor be paid for April. Nor get money back for all the textbooks I supplied. Nor continue my personal obligations for the remainder of the six-month contract. Nor meet my students to say goodbye. Nor collect my stuff from my locker.) Felt like a leper being shown out of the place this morning with my stuff heaped into cardboard boxes like I had done something wrong. Felt dirty.

Overnight, Jimbo lost 55 students, some of whom I have been teaching for six years. My instructions were simply to 'teach Business English'. Can you do that to total beginners? Is it appropriate for someone who never goes to meeting or business trips but is forever reading & writing email? Can students ever really learn anything at 8.30am on a Monday?!

Anyway, in six years my students helped me figure out the importance of needs analysis, prioritising goals, negotiating workloads and setting long-term objectives. Likewise, with students, identifying the most appropriate style of assignments & out of class extensions and the most useful ways for them to submit work & get feedback (or not). What kind of classroom did we want - how, with a concrete firewall & no LAN network, could we get technology into the classroom? How could we reduce our photocopying needs? How could students take more responsibility for their learning careers & prove they were making progress, reading the books they were claiming, putting good learning habits to use?

I need to thank my students very sincerely for being generous with THEIR limited time in a stressed schedule to come along regularly and be submitted to new ideas & challenges; not always going to plan and sometimes at complete tangents...but in the fullness of time very much achieving our aims and managing to do so co-operatively and with a good deal of humour. Thank you, all of you, for your friendship, kindness, and long hard work. You deserve tons of praise for your industry, which I don't think your company is going to recognise. I hope I am wrong, but any time you accept the cheapest contractor you can pretty much guarantee the quality of the service you are going to get. My students deserve ever so much more than that, and we all know it.


I have removed personal info from the comments I have received spontaneously from my suddenly ex-students.I have been extremely touched by everyone's sincerity. Thank you.