Business & Commercial English – Self-study 1

Follow these instructions for your student consulting assignment:

1. Form a group of three to prepare and deliver your presentation.

2. As a group, decide on a business issue or topic in accordance with the following criteria:

• The topic should be of interest to each of the presentation group members and should be of benefit to the class as a whole when you make the presentation.
• The topic should be business or work related and have some practical value so that theory and practice are combined to some extent.
• If the topic relates to an area covered in your other FOM studies, the content should not only repeat what was done in class before, but rather bring something additional or new to the topic.

3. As a group, prepare a short text (maximum 100 words) describing your student consulting presentation topic and the reason(s) why you have chosen the topic. If it's possible at this early stage, add a title for your project.

4. One group member should do the following:

• Download and complete the student consulting topic proposal form (see below). Add the names of the group members.
• Return the form to your tutor in class or leave it for him or her to pick up at your study centre.
• Please DO NOT send it by email.

Your tutor will give you feedback on your choice of topic and once he or she has given you their approval you can continue your preparations. Dates for the class presentations will be agreed with your tutor.

One of the most important aspects of the course will be the acquisition of new business and general vocabulary. To help you do this, do the following:

1. You can download a complete word list for the Simply Business B1+ course here below. This will be helpful in our lessons, but can also be used to learn the vocabulary in the coursebook as part of your self-study.

2. Go to page 3 of your coursebook Simply Business B1+ and read about the Cornelsen Vokabeltrainer app. If you like the idea of using an app on your smartphone, install the app. The app is free but downloading the Simply Business B1+ vocabulary from inside the app costs €6.99.

3. As an alternative, you can install the Quizlet app on your mobile device to create your own vocabulary sets for you to study. You can use the abovementioned word list to help you. Make each set about 10 - 12 words or phrases as this is a manageable number.

4. Use this page to read about and practise a key area of vocabulary: Business collocations.

5. Use this page to learn about some of the differences between American and British English spelling: American or British English?

Use your coursebook - Simply Business B1+ - to do the following:

1. Go to page 3 and read about the PagePlayer app.

2. Install the PagePlayer app and set it up for your coursebook Simply Business B1+

3. Experiment with scanning pages that have the audio and film icons so that you can play the recordings (e.g page 6 for audio and page 18 for video).

4. Now you're ready to do the following listening homework:

• Page 11, Section 18, Activities A & B.

You can check your answers using the transcript on pages 86-87 of the coursebook and with the answer key provided in the next Self-study page.

Use this page to revise some key areas of grammar Basic grammar review.

Use this link - Online exercises - to do the following Simply Business B1+ online exercises:

• Unit 2: Exercises 1: passive and active verbs
• Unit 2: Exercises 2: telephone language
• Unit 2: Exercises 3: the supply chain