Teacher Discussion Forums

Just starting to teach a very high flying MD - he wants to work on his presentation skills and his emailing.

He can express himself reasonably well but still makes some pretty basic grammar mistakes - he has never had formal English lessons. He also complains of having a rich vocabulary but isn't able to activate it in conversation.

I need some advice on the sort of things to do with him and also any resource available on the net or great books that I could order.

Thanks

J

Hi justinonthemove,

He sounds like an interesting guy!

Remember it is ten times harder to unlearn something than to learn it. Maybe it's better to focus on words or grammar mistakes that could cause confusion, and leave the other details for later. For example, in French, business people often make a mistake with the word 'delay' because the word in French means something like 'delivery time'. Obviously, a manager who speaks about his company's delays isn't going to impress anyone!

About resources, I don't know of any specific books but maybe it's easier to search for books for presentations skills in English rather than specific ESL books on presentation skills.

Presenting in English by Mark Powell is pretty good.

he has never had formal English lessons. He also complains of having a rich vocabulary but isn't able to activate it in conversation.

Cambridge has a book called English in Medicine, if that is what he has to work on. I agree that "unlearning" and "relearning" are more difficult than learning; but not impossible.

Here's a suggestion for his writing skills. Get him to write a typical email message--or better still, a real one that he sent--go through it and identify where the errors are, but do not actually correct anything. He has to figure out the corrections himself. You guide him as much as you can without actually telling him the correct answers. After 4 or 5 rewrites, it should be error-free.

As for speaking, you have just got to correct everything he says wrong in class, and really get after him about repeat errors.

I've got a couple of things to help:

1. PowerPoint and presentation guide
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/bus/PowerPoint.html

2. Some business writing guides at:
http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/bus/guidedwriting.html

Hope these are useful.

James