When somebody comes to visit you at work....

At work we sometimes have visitors, customers or perhaps some suppliers or inspectors and when they're from a different country we very often have to deal with them in English.

Take a look at these pictures and think about the vocabulary involved in these situations;-

I thought about things like:-

• Factory floor
• Shake hands
• "Nice to meet you!"
• Show people around

Let's think about the type of conversation you would have with a visitor. Try to match the beginnings of the sentences with their other halves:-

1. Let me                                         A. taking photographs of our factory floor.

2. Shall I/We.....  B. the forklift trucks / we're walking around the factory floor.

3. I hope you don't mind but                                              C. take your coat.

      4. Feel free to                               D. have a look around the laboratory?
      5. Please take care with / when                                E. ask any questions.
      6. As you can see                           F. you need to read and sign the guidelines
      7. Please refrain from                                          G. placing orders online.
      8. My colleague ______ manages / takes care of          H. this is our meeting room.

Feel free to write other sentences using these starters in the comments below!

Happy Easter! Let's check out some Easter vocabulary.....

Happy Easter Sunday!

Today is the most important Easter day in the UK. People go to church to celebrate resurrection (well, some people do..), give each other chocolate eggs or have an Easter egg hunt with kids.

People often ask me if we have anything similar to a "mona" in UK and we do, in fact. We eat hot cross buns:-

They're similar to a bread bap but they're sweet and normally have raisins. 

Here's a recipe for them:-

  https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2066661/hot-cross-buns

Here's some Easter vocabulary:-

If you have little ones at home, I'm sure they will like this Easter word game:-

https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/word-games/easter

In class we have held some Easter egg hunts, the kids/teenagers hide an egg each and then they told the class where the egg wasn't (they gave clues e.g. my egg isn't behind the bookcase), your kids/nephews/cousins might like them too, here's the general idea:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_hunt


How do you spend Easter? Feel free to leave your comments below!

Business and ethics - a responsibility towards society

Companies, nowadays, are increasingly aware that it's not just about making and selling or buying and selling but also about the environment and society.

Here is a good example, this is a reading activity (B1+/B2 level) about a company who went organic in terms of the raw material they use:-

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-magazine/business-and-ethics

I have worked at companies that donate money and products to charity or local associations. I, myself, also donate money to charity on a regular basis as well as food and clothes when the occasion presents itself. As individuals, donating, I'm sure we have the best of intentions at heart but do your shopping preferences depend on how environmentally friendly or how socially-involved a company is?

Here is some listening work that encompasses three points related to this topic:-

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/podcasts-professionals/business-and-ethics

Feel free to leave your comments on the subject below!

Why on Earth have their profits plunged??? Perfect Modal Verbs / Third Conditional for Speculation

This week we've been using perfect modal verbs again but this time we've been speculating about business and companies.....

Imagine you saw a graph for company profits like this:-

PROFITS

YEAR 1 / YEAR 2 / YEAR 3 /  YEAR 4

Let's try to use the following structures to speculate about what could have caused this plunge / plummet (caída en picado):-

There might have been bad press for the company's products.

The company owner must have had financial problems.

The company would have gone bankrupt in year 5 if the profits had kept plunging.

PERFECT MODAL VERBS:-

SB + MODAL VERB + AUX. HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

e.g. There could have been a problem with company's shares on the stock market. (Impersonal SB)

OR

Mrs Black (the CEO) might have resigned. (Personal SB)

THE THIRD CONDITIONAL

IF + SB + HAD + PAST PART., SB + MODAL VERB + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE

OR

SB + MODAL VERB + HAVE + PAST PARTICIPLE IF SB + HAD + PAST PARTICIPLE

e.g. If the profits had carried on growing like in year two, the company would have been in a fantastic position nowadays.

Feel free to leave your own examples in the comments!

Paranormal.... Or not??? Let's take English beyond the final frontier.....

This week we have started a project in class about "Ghastly ghosts", what's ghastly (you're probably thinking)? Well, the definition of ghastly is:-

ghastly

/ˈɡɑːs(t)li/

adjective

1. 1.

   causing great horror or fear.

   "one of the most ghastly crimes ever committed"

   :	terrible, frightful, horrible, grim, awful, dire;
2. 2.

   extremely unwell.

   "she had sobered up but she felt ghastly" :ill, unwell, washed out, peaky; 

   
   
   
   
   

   

   
   
3. 
   
4. As you can imagine in this case we're going to be using the first context.
5. So, first thing's first, do you believe in ghosts? I must admit that I do, there just seems to be too much evidence to do so, and not enough to say otherwise.

As I said we have been reading about different, possibly, paranormal cases this week and trying to find rational explanations for them, meanwhile we practise our English.

Some of the vocabulary we have been going over is:-

• evil
• demon
• frightening
• to haunt
• haunted house
• spook
• murder
• murderer
• poltergeist
• psychic experts
• parapsychology

One example of a case is that of Queen's House in Greenwich, England.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/queens-house/history

Here is a photo that was taken at Queen's House in 1966 by a tourist, how could we explain that???

Try using modal verbs for speculation:-

It must have been the reflection of somebody in a mirror.

It could have been somebody's shadow.

It can't have been a real person, its clothes are two old-fashioned.

Please leave your own ideas in the comments.