Mar
31
2008
KY – logistik. Business English.
Course introduction. Course plan, learning objectives and course assessment. Introductory exercise.
Mar
30
2008
Course introduction
Dear student,
Welcome to your course in English. This is the first blog entry for this course. When we meet on Friday I will start the course and we will have an opportunity to discuss the plans for the coming weeks. Your wishes and needs are crucial for a successful and rewarding course, so start thinking about what they are right away.
Without going into specifics I can tell you that the main learning objective of this course is to improve your English, both written and spoken. You should, however, notice that this is not a general language course, but instead a specialized course since it focuses on the English language from the point of view of business and logistics. So there won’t be much poetry or literature. 
Course elements
One part of the course will revolve around the writing of professional texts. We will, during this part of the course, take the opportunity to try our hands at writing a curriculum vitae and a cover letter.
Another part is going to contain the reading and discussion of some texts dealing with business issues like organization, innovation, efficiency and management. At least one text will be fairly advanced and could be characterized as more of an academic text. (Be prepared to put in some work on reading these texts at home. Depending on your language proficiency this can either prove to be quite easy or possibly a real challenge).
During some of the lessons we will do some exercises best characterized as collective problem solving. These exercises are geared at giving you an opportunity to use and improve your oral skills in lifelike situations.
Finally – or rather throughout – we will study and discuss the more formal aspects of language such as grammar, pronunciation and the various rules and conventions of both speech and writing.
For the autumn I’m planning for more case-based activities. Ideally, you should be able to study a case, read different materials and solve a sticky problem using English as your means of communication. I hope that the “finale” could be a seminar where you present your results in an executive summary and where we discuss and evaluate your results. More information about the course will shortly be available here.
Presentation
So who am I? My name is Daniel Wernegren and I am a trained and certified teacher. I have a Masters degree with a major in English and I have spent a decade teaching English, primarily in upper secondary school, but also at university. I have a background in marketing communication and I used to work at a Swedish-American IT company. If you want to read something I have written you can read this. 
Best regards,
Daniel Wernegren
Assignment
If you could write a few words about yourself, I would really appreciate it. Things like name, age and previous experience would be both interesting and helpful. It would also be really great if you could give me your assessment of your level of English on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is very poor fluency, and a 10 is almost native fluency. Also, if you have any suggestions or ideas for the course I would just love to get your thoughts on that. (I won’t publish what you’ve written on the website.)
