Business _Pre Intermediate_Unit 1

UNIT 1

What kind of company do you work for?Do you think it's better to work for a small or a large company? What company would you like to work for? Why?

Look at the companies below. What do you know about them? Do you use their products? What do you think of them?

Read the texts. Match the descriptions to the companies in the previous slide.

This company provides many different Internet services, including news, online shopping and email. Most of its revenue comes from advertising on its website. Its head office is in Sunnyvale, California. This company makes tyres for cars and other vehicles. It is based in France, but it has more than 111,000 employees all over the world. It is also well known for Its red and green travel guides. It's a Swedish company and it operates in 37 countries. It specializes in low-price household products, including furniture, bathrooms and kitchens. It's a subsidiary of Unilever. The company makes ice cream and frozen yoghurt, and its main competitor is Haagen-Dazs. This company preduces many different electrical and electronic products, such as TVs, computers and mobile phones. It's South Korea's largest company and exporter.

VOCABULARY

Complete the sentences with the words in bold in the previous slide

1 Some companies make or __________ goods. 2 Other companies __________ or offer services. 3 Ifyou __________ in a product or service, it’s your main activity. 4 If you work for a company, you are an __________ . 5 Your company is __________ in the town or city where it has its head office. 6 If you work in a __________, your company is part of a bigger group. 7 Your company __________ in a country where if sells or makes its products. 8 A company in the same business as you is your __________ 9 A company that sells its products in other countries is an __________ 10 Your __________ is the money you receive for your products or services.

Complete this text with words from 4. Sometimes you need to change the form.

Skoda 1_________ cars and other vehicles. It is a 2____________ of Volkswagen (VW) Group and it is the third oldest car maker in the world. It’s 3__________ in the Czech Republic, but it is a global company. It 4_________________ in 103 markets and has more than 25,0000 5______________ worldwide.

Skoda has the advantages of a central European location and technology from the VW Group. For this reason, its costs are lower than many of its 6__________ and it 7___________ in cars which offer good value for money. When the company started, it produced bicycles. Today, it continues to 8___________ support services to the Tour de France and Tour of Britain cycle races.

LISTENING

Listen and complete the information about the Assa Abloy Group.

Students take it in turns to talk about their companies. Use the key vocabulary in the previous slides. GAME: Each student thinks of a company. They describe it using the key vocabulary, but don't mention its name! The class has to guess it.

Focus on the pronunciation of sibilant sounds: specializes /speʃəlaɪziz/ produces /prəˈdjuːsiz/

PRESENT SIMPLE

We use the Present Simple:

• to talk about facts or or permanent truths.

The company provides insurance services.

• to talk about regular actions.

We have sales meetings every month.

• for descriptions

The office has 4 departments.

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Pronunciation of final "s" sounds

Choose the words in italics to complete the text

You probably know / knows that Nestlé produce / produces Nespresso machines and Nescafe instant coffee. And many people see / sees the Nestlé name on their breakfast cereal packet every morning. But what else do / are you know about the company? What other products do / does it sell ana where? Ánd the food industry isn't / doesn't always green, so what does the company do / are to protect the environment? Our reporter Rosa Manning talk / talks to employees of Nestlé and discovers what they do. She learn / learns why most employees are / be happy to work there and why most of Nestlé's employees aren't/ don't want to leave

Listen and answer the questions about Nestlé.Answer in full sentences.

SPEAKING 1: Take it in turns to ask each student about their company.Use a variety of WH questions and verbs. Students give detailed answers. SPEAKING 2: Each student will think of a company. The rest of the class will ask questions to guess the company.

Use the propmts to make sentences in the Present Simple

1. My company / provide / Internet services 2. We / not have / an office in Manchester 3. What time / Ana / can / be / in the office? 4. She / work / for an engineering company 5. Their head office / not be / in Spain. 6. Your employees / work / at weekends? 7. There / be / enough computers? 8. What / this company / do? 9. Where / you / operate? 10. Your job / involve / travelling? 11. They usually / start / working at 8:30 12. There be / a printer / in the company? 13. Your company / have / subsidiaries in Italy? 14. We / not specilize / in hair products 15. How many / clients / you / provide / support to? 16. The computers / not be / updated

Complete the information about Kati Vargas with the correct form of the verbs below.

work (x2) / enjoy / be (x3) / can / keep / pick up / start / like / drink / finish / there be (x2) / go (x2) / spend / have / check /

Kati Vargas is the director of Commerzbank, a alrge bank located in Budapest. She 1________ working at 7am every day. She usually 2________ a black coffee with her daily meeting. She 3___________ to the office every day, she 4________ remotely twice a week. When she 5_______ to the office, she 6______ always on time. "I always 7__________ my emails first thing in the morning", she says. She 8_________ most of her morning in meetings. "I 9__________ having so many meetings but it 10_______ part of my job", she says. She 11_______ her afternoons free for staff meetings. 12__________ many important issues that we need to discuss daily. Sometimes she 13__________ have lunch because she 14_______ very busy. "Some days I 15_______ many cups of coffee and some snacks", she admits. When 16___________ an emergency, the team and I 17__________ long hours. When she 18___________ work, she 19_________ her children from school and 20__________ being in the open air with them.

Adverbs and expressions of frequency

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ADVERBS OF FREQUENCY We are always at the office > BE + ADVERB We always work at the office > ADVERB + VERB EXPRESSIONS OF FREQUENCY We are at the office every day. > AT THE END OF THE SENTENCE We work at the office every day. > AT THE END OF THE SENTENCE

Write the words in the correct order to make sentences.

1. I / have / with / lunch / colleagues / usually 2. How / Steve / often / does / visit / clients / his ? 3. Damian / a / works / twice / late / week 4. morning / hold / in / we / usually / the / meeting / a 5. isn't / office / the / CEO / at / the / Fridays / on 6. day / she / deals / every / issues / with / communication 7. meetings / start / do / time / normally / on? 8. at / closes / the / sometimes / office / 4pm 9. busy / midday I / really / at / am / generally 10. challenging / projects / sometimes / are ?

Write a text about your routine similar to the one of Kati Varga's.Include adverbs and expressions of frequency. Include verbs in the third person singular, too.

Form questions and then answer them orally with the class.

1.- When / you / be / busy / during the day? 2.- Which days of the week / you / have / more work to do? 3.- When / be / the quiet moments? 4.- Which moments of the year / you / enjoy? Why? 5.- What / your typical day / be / like? 6.- What / you / like / best about your job? 7.- you / meet / colleagues after work? 8.- your company / have / policies about uniform?

PRACTICALLY SPEAKING: How to ask somebody to repeat

Somebody speak to you in a coference but you don't hear them. What do you do?

Listen to a conversation. Write information about the company. Number of countries: Number of factories: Number of employees: Annual sales:

Listen again and complete the expressions for asking somebody to repeat the information:1. Sorry, can you ______________? 2. Sorry, can you __________ a bit ___________? 3. Sorry, _____________ do you have? 4. And ___________ your annual sales _______?

sb = somebody

Write 5 facts about yourself and your company. Decide what piece of the information you want the class to ask you repeat. You can either just move your lips in that part saying nothing or make some white noise for the class to know what the missing information is.

Examples: I take ***** lessons twice a week. Sorry, what lessons do you take?

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION: Making introductions

What do you talk about when you meet people for the first time? the office, a meet, a conference

Complete what Gianluca says. 1. Excuse me. _______ this seat free? 2. Thanks very much. Can I __________ myself? I'm Gianlucca Donatelli. 3. Nice to meet you ______, Carmen. Where are you ________? 4. And ________ do you work _____? 5. Oh really! And what do you ________? 6. So, ______ _______ you at this conference? 7. That's interesting. A _______ of mine works for an Italian service provider- Can I introduce ______ to ______? 8. Roberto. Can you come here a minute. This is... Sorry, what's your name ____________? 9. Roberto, _______ Carmen. She's writing an article on Internet service providers.

Listen to Gianluca introducing himself to Carmen at a conference. Make notes about: Carmen's nationality: her job: why she's at the conference:

Match the questions 1-8 in the previous slide to the answers below.

1. __C___ 2. _____ 3. _____ 4. _____ 5. _____ 6. _____ 7. _____ 8. _____

Work in groups of three if possible. You are having a videocall for the first time with someone. Introduce yourself, introduce another person who's with you. Speak briefly about yourselves.

Write a brief introduction about you.

Example: Hello, I’m Sam. I’m a Technical Leader at BestCompany. I have many years of experience in IT. I provide services to Online Bank Solutions in four projects. One of them is a web site and the other one is a mobile application in Android and IOS technologies.

Watch the video up to minute 1.50 and answer the questions:

1. What’s her name?
2. What company does she work for?
3. What does it do?
4. What does a software engineer do?
5. What’s her job at Homejoy?
6. What technologies do they use for back-end and front-end?
7. Who else in her family was a software engineer?
8. What did science and math at secondary school teach her?
9. Where and what did she study?

Extra links for explanation and practice

Exercise 3

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Exercise 4

If you are unsure about any corrections or mistakes when working with the links, take a screenshot and ask your teacher in class. These links may include other uses of the present simple that you are not familiar with or simply have errors.

Thank you!

Answers 1 over 150 years old 2 baby products, food and drink products, chocolate and confectionery, bottled water, breakfast cereals, ice cream 3 90 billion Swiss francs 4 Vevey in Switzerland 5 447 6 over 300,000 7 Yes, it is (80% of employees do training courses). 8 Yes, it does (it gives money and other help). 9 Yes, it is (it uses less water, energy and packaging).

Contactanos! +54 3416656696 (María)+54 3413140865 (Romina)

Answers 1 locks 2 security systems 3 Eastern Company 4 Swedish 5 43 6 5 7 70 8 150 9 Besam

Example for the teacher: It's a food company. it is based in the USA but it has subsidiaries in many countries. It makes junk food. It specializes in burguers but it also sells sodas, salads and desserts. It has a lot of employees. It operates all over the world, inlcuding India. It's main competitors are Mostaza and Fuve Guys.

Example for the teacher: It's a food company. it is based in the USA but it has subsidiaries in many countries. It makes junk food. It specializes in burguers but it also sells sodas, salads and desserts. It has a lot of employees. It operates all over the world, inlcuding India. It's main competitors are Mostaza and Fuve Guys.

13. can't 14. is 15. drink 16. there is 17. work 18. finishes 19. picks up 20. enjoys

1. starts 2. has 3. doesn't go 4. works 5. goes 6. is 7. check 8. spends 9. don't like 10. is 11. keeps 12. there are

Encourage students to get as much detail as possible from the listening. If necessary, do the "shadowing" technique. It's really helpful for students do shadowing every now and then since they can grasp more precice info, check pronunciation and get how linking is done. LINK TO TIPS ON SHADOWING: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1srgd4bHMnfZqS-TtcuVBzh2KrqEfAXOs4tcD7t4T1qc/edit#slide=id.ga073618e60_0_31

1. Vicrtoria Sun
2. Home Joy
3. Technlogy company that focuses on home service, eg: pluming, handy man, home cleaning
4. Software engineer, website developer
5. anyone who touches code and programs things for your computer
6. back-end is python, front-end is html, dat scrypt, css
7. her dad
8. help her learn different ways to apporach problems and think through things
9. she went to MIT in Boston, she studied electric engineering and computer science

TRY DOING SHADOWING TO GET Ss UNDERSTAND MORE DETAIL AND EXPRESSIONS

Answers Number of countries: 165 Number of factories: 89 Number of employees: 305,000 Annual sales: $17.8 billion Answers 1 say that again 2 speak, more slowly 3 how many 4 what are, again

Answers 1 Yahoo! 2 Michelin 3 Ikea 4 Ben and Jerry’s 5 Samsung

TIP: Suggest students not to always ask "can you repeat, please?" or "can you speak more slowly?" since sometimes the issues they might have is the words the speaker is using. In that case, they can say "can you use other words please?", "can you rephrase that please?" And if they understood part of the information, don't ask the speaker to repeat everything, 'cause chances are they will get lost in the same part again. They can say sth like, "It operates in a hundred and....? how many countries?" If Ss are confused about big numbers, they can always repeat it back at the speaker saying each digit individually.

For students ho work in software, a common situation is to introduce themsekves to the client or the client's team and to introduce the people in their team. Another option is for students to meet for the first time in a Team Building meeting. They can introduce themslves, talk about the project they are working on. For other job profiles in the class, students can think of a general meet (online or in the company), introducing themselves to a new collegues from the same or different department.

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SPELLING RULES

• verbs ending in "consonant+y" > "ies"

study > studies try > tries

• verbs ending in "sh / ch / x / s" > "es"

!! pronunciation changes !!pass > passes finish > finishes teach > teaches

• verbs ending in "o" > "es"

go > goes do > does

• irregular verbs

have > hasbe > as / is / are

Ideas to discuss with students: communication in large companies can be more bureaucratic, takes longer people may not know who you are bonuses, perks, methodologies and procedures may be more interesting in large companies growth opportunities

Answers 1 Argentinian 2 (self-employed) journalist 3 She’s here to research an article (on Internet service providers). Answers 1 Is 6 why, are 2 introduce 7 friend, you, him 3 too, from 8 again 4 who , for 9 This 5 do

Example for the teacher: It's a food company. it is based in the USA but it has subsidiaries in many countries. It makes junk food. It specializes in burguers but it also sells sodas, salads and desserts. It has a lot of employees. It operates all over the world, inlcuding India. It's main competitors are Mostaza and Fuve Guys.

Answers 1 produce 6 subsidiary 2 provide 7 operates 3 specialize 8 competitor 4 employee 9 exporter 5 based 10 revenue

INTRODUCE: to make one person known to another person PRESENT: to formally introduce another person, particularly in a presentation or award ceremony. Examples: I'm sorry! I haven't introduced myself. My name's Neil Harte Thank you for coming to the lecture. It gives me great pleasure to present our speaker, Dr. Amanda White

Answers 1 produces 2 subsidiary 3 based 4 operates 5 employees 6 competitors 7 specializes 8 provide