Thursday, 15 December 2016

Benchmark Advanced

Progress Test 2 (Units 5-8) will be on Thursday 22nd December.

Thursday, 8 December 2016

Benchmark Advanced HW

Please do the writing proposal on page 39.

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

Tuesday's CAE Group : Video

Here is a TED Talk on leadership for today's lesson:

Monday, 28 November 2016

Benchmark Advanced Unit 5 Words

Here is a link to a short exercise for unit 5 words.

Saturday, 26 November 2016

BEC Advanced Video (Monday 28th)

Here is a Ted Talk Video on The key to growth? Race with the machines By Erik Brynjolfsson.

Monday, 21 November 2016

Sunday, 20 November 2016

CAE Writing

Here is a handy video explaing what the Writing paper consists of:

Benchmark Higher Test

I am happy to say that everyone passed Thursday's test with a minimum of 60% (C). Many people in fact got grades A & B. I'll give the papers back on Monday.

Monday, 14 November 2016

Thursday, 10 November 2016

Benchmark Higher - Units 3 & 4

As promised, here are the Unit 3 & 4 summary exercises:

BEC Business Wordlist

I have put the same word list on Google Drive; hopefully you will be able to download it now. Here is the link.

Please write in the comments if you have any problems.

business ff

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Benchmark Higher - Wordlist

Here is a link to an excel document I've put on Scribd which I downloaded from the Cambridge site. Let me know if you have any problems accessing it.

Monday, 7 November 2016

Benchmark Advanced

On Monday 14th we will have a review of units 1-4 followed by extra material.

On Thursday 17th we will have a test of units 1-4 followed by an overview of the BEC exams.

While versus During

The words "while" and "during" are very similar and often can be used to talk about the same event.

However, they are used differently.

While is used when we think of two actions at the same time. e.g.

While I was having a lesson we did a writing task.

N.b. In the fist example we think of the lesson as a noun similar to a film, or football match. In the second example we concentrate on the action.

Benchmark Higher - Monday 7th - Ted Talk

Friday, 4 November 2016

Tuesday's CAE Group - Speaking

Here is an example of the CAE Speaking Exam (2015)

Thursday, 3 November 2016

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Here is a link to a useful guide to the use of acronyms and abbreviations.

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

Benchmark Advanced - Writing skills

Here is a link to a very good website providing downloadable pdfs on writing skills. I will be using some in class on Thursday but I recommend that you take a look at this website.

Dynamic versus Stative verbs

Stative verbs describe the state of something (condition). They answer a simple yes/no question. They do not describe any action and so can not be used in the continuous form.

Dynamic Verbs describe an action and so can be both in the simple and continuous form.

Here is a link to a webiste where you will find further explanations and online exercises.

Monday, 31 October 2016

A kind request

To all my students,

If you have a Linkedin account then please connect to me here.

Also please like my Converse English Facebook page.

Thank you

:)

Jeremy

Benchmark Advanced Ted Talk

Here is the video from Monday 31st's lesson:

Benchmark Advanced Reading

Here are the answers to the reading exercises from units 1 & 2:

Unit 1

1. 1 The board of directors
1.2 It can affect ethics, risk-taking and bottom-line performance.
1.3 Board members often lack an understanding of corporate culture,

3.
1 G
2. F
3. D
4. C
5. A
6. E

Unit 2

3
1. D (para 1)
2, B (para 2)
3. C (para 4)
4. D (para 5)
5. A (para 6)
6. B (para 7)

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

Benchmark Adavnced Grammar HW

Benchmark Advanced

A second link worth looking at :)

Benchmark Advanced - Personal Study

Here is a link worth checking out :)

Tuesday CAE Group - Steve Jobs

Here is a video from today's lesson:

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Benchmark Advanced Monday 24th October

Why good leaders make you feel safe

Here is the TED Talk for Monday's lesson

Thursday, 20 October 2016

Benchmark Higher - Relative Clauses

Please read the summary of relative clauses and do the exercises bellow.

Grammar Workshop 1

Benchmark Higher - Compassion at Google

Watch the video to complete the exercises from today's lesson: exercises 4 & 6.

Comprehension

4 Watch Chade-Meng Tan’s talk on TED.com. Are the sentences true (T) or false (F) according to the speaker?

1 Matthieu Ricard is the happiest man on the planet because he is very rich. _____

2 More people would be compassionate if compassion was fun and profitable. _____

3 Three members of Google managed to raise enough money to build a school for 200,000 people in India. _____

4 The social responsibility team at Google was formed as part of Google business strategy. _____

5 There are two components of compassion: affective and motivational. _____

6 Compassion can help grow very successful business leaders. _____

7 Leadership training in Google focuses on personal growth. _____

8 ‘Search Inside Yourself’ is a Google course which develops attention, self-knowledge and self-mastery, and creates new mental habits. _____

Language focus – corporate social responsibility

6 Watch a part (3.10−5.40) of the TED Talk again. Complete the collocations in bold with these words.

action donate initiative medical money pattern responsibility

1 ‘In Google, expressions of corporate compassion almost always follow the same _______________ .’

2 ‘It starts with a small group of Googlers taking the _______________ to do something.’

3 ‘The first example is the largest annual community event – where Googlers from around the world _______________ their labour to their local communities ...’

4 ‘… they learned about a region in India where 200,000 people live without a single _______________ facility.

5 ‘And they raise enough _______________ to build this hospital …’

6 ‘In China for example, one mid-level employee initiated the largest social _______________ competition in China ...’

7 ‘… the company decided to form a social _______________ team just to support these efforts.’

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Benchmark Advanced - Key

The key you need assign yourself to my classes on the ELC portal is Nor4

Tuesday, 18 October 2016

Benchmark Advanced Student Book and registration

Just to remind you,

the book you need to get is Business Benchmark Advanced

Also please remember to register on the School's portal:

http://elc.vot.pl/moodle/login/index.php

Wednesday, 12 October 2016

Advanced Speaking Wed 12th October

Here is the Steve Jobs video we watched:

Monday, 10 October 2016

Benchmark Advanced Reading Homework

Please read the following article and be prepared to discuss it in class on Monday 24th October.

Stupified

Benchmark Higher Writing Assignment

For your first writing assignment I would like you to think about procrastination.

What is it, why do we do it and can it ever be helpful?

Please watch the TED Talk bellow and write a review using the instructions at the bottom of this post.

Good Luck :)

Writing Task

Write a 200-250 word review of Tim Urban's talk. Describe his main idea as well as presenting your views of both his talk and the wider topic of procrastination. Ensure that you critically assess both his presentation and and his ideas, providing arguments to support your assessment.