Friday 17 April 2009
Warm-Up 4
Warm-Up 4 doesn't give you any marks (!), but it is, perhaps, a way for you to see the collective wisdom of the group about two key areas in the In-Tray exam: complaining and apologising. Since you don't get any marks for it, you don't have to do it either - but I'm sure that your contributions will be gratefully received by everyone else, if you do!
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Warm-Up 3: General Comment
The task this time was to turn informal, spoken English into formal, written English - and you generally did very well. However, there were a number of points which came up several times, so I've got plenty to write about this time.
To start with, be careful not to include any colloquial language in your reports. 'Colloquial' means 'spoken', and a typical piece of colloquial English is to call the GB pound 'quid' and the US dollar 'buck'. These aren't slang, since everyone knows what they mean (slang can properly only be understood by someone who's in a special group of people), but you don't see the terms used in, say, a contract of employment.
In this task there was plenty of colloquial language in the inspector's comments, such as 'digger' instead of 'excavator' and 'hard hat' instead of 'safety helmet'. 'Dumper truck', on the other hand, is what these small vehicles are called! 'Get' cropped up too a couple of times: you should try to avoid using this verb altogether in formal writing. Use 'obtain', 'receive' or 'become', for example.
One tricky point is that English often uses words which arrived from Romance languages (such as French, Spanish and Latin) for formal purposes, but Germanic words (from Dutch, German and Old Norse) for informal ones. Thus, "we start at 9.00" is informal, whilst "we commence at 9.00" is formal. The Scandinavians in the group thus tended to have greater problems with formality this time than the students from other language backgrounds! It's unfair, but that's life, I'm afraid!!
Short forms (such as 'I'm' and 'they've') were used by a couple of people too. Avoid these in formal writing by writing the abbreviated form in full, e.g. 'I am', 'they have'.
'Rules' and 'regulations' also caused some problems. 'Rules' are made up by members of a particular group or society, whilst 'regulations' have the force of law. Thus a particular practice might be against both union rules and legal regulations. Confusingly, both these words come from the same Latin root - it's just that their meanings have diverged over the centuries, as they've been used in different contexts.
Another group of words which are like this is: 'compulsory', 'obligatory' and 'required'. The Latin roots of the first two amount to more or less the same thing: something forces you to do something. 'Required', on the other hand, originally just meant 'asked for' (any word with '-quire' in it comes from the Latin word 'quaere', which means 'to ask'). However, nowadays 'compulsory' has taken on the connotation of 'necessary according to the rules of an organisation or society' (a bit like 'rules'); 'obligatory' has the connotation of 'morally necessary'; whilst 'required' has the connotation of 'it says so in the law'. Native speakers sometimes mix these up, since, in a particular situation, the difference between things you have to do and things you ought to do can be fairly meaningless - but there's no reason for you to be this sloppy too!
If you think, for example, of the legal requirement to wear a seat belt when you're driving in a car, you are fined if you fail to comply with the legal requirement; you might, however, be disciplined by your company if you fail to observe their compulsory ruling to wear a seat belt whilst driving a company car; and you might feel an obligation to your family to protect your life and health by wearing a seat belt.
'Safe' and 'secure' also caused problems. This is another example of the need to remember the context in which you use a particular word in English. In general, 'safe' refers to physical safety, whilst 'secure' refers to psychological factors. Think of the difference between a 'security officer' and a 'safety officer'. The former is a kind of guard who keeps the bad guys away. The latter makes sure that no-one actually hurts themselves whilst they're on the premises. Sometimes the security officer actually wants to hurt people! If you have Swedish as your first language, ignore the fact that these two words will both be translated as 'säkerhet' in the dictionary, but think of 'safety' as 'trygghet' and 'security' as 'säkerhet'.
Finally, the prepositions 'in-on-at' caused one or two problems. These have 'literal' meanings, but also meanings that have arisen out of usage. I.e. 'in' has a connotation of 'inside', 'on' one of 'on top of' and 'at' one of 'right in front of'. In both time and place, however, they express a range of focus from the very wide to a specific point.
Thus, with expressions of time, you use 'in' for the large unit (in January, in 2010), 'on' for the smaller unit (on Monday), and 'at' for the specific point (at 9.30). When you're talking about space, 'in' is for the large area (in Sweden, in Skåne, in Malmö), 'on' is for a much smaller space (on Nygatan), and 'at' is for the point (at Nygatan 18, at the corner).
The construction site in this exercise is a very ambiguous place! The workers work 'on the construction site' (in the 'literal' sense of the word), whilst visitors arrive 'at the construction site' (the non-literal specific point in space).
If English were easy, you wouldn't need teachers!
To start with, be careful not to include any colloquial language in your reports. 'Colloquial' means 'spoken', and a typical piece of colloquial English is to call the GB pound 'quid' and the US dollar 'buck'. These aren't slang, since everyone knows what they mean (slang can properly only be understood by someone who's in a special group of people), but you don't see the terms used in, say, a contract of employment.
In this task there was plenty of colloquial language in the inspector's comments, such as 'digger' instead of 'excavator' and 'hard hat' instead of 'safety helmet'. 'Dumper truck', on the other hand, is what these small vehicles are called! 'Get' cropped up too a couple of times: you should try to avoid using this verb altogether in formal writing. Use 'obtain', 'receive' or 'become', for example.
One tricky point is that English often uses words which arrived from Romance languages (such as French, Spanish and Latin) for formal purposes, but Germanic words (from Dutch, German and Old Norse) for informal ones. Thus, "we start at 9.00" is informal, whilst "we commence at 9.00" is formal. The Scandinavians in the group thus tended to have greater problems with formality this time than the students from other language backgrounds! It's unfair, but that's life, I'm afraid!!
Short forms (such as 'I'm' and 'they've') were used by a couple of people too. Avoid these in formal writing by writing the abbreviated form in full, e.g. 'I am', 'they have'.
'Rules' and 'regulations' also caused some problems. 'Rules' are made up by members of a particular group or society, whilst 'regulations' have the force of law. Thus a particular practice might be against both union rules and legal regulations. Confusingly, both these words come from the same Latin root - it's just that their meanings have diverged over the centuries, as they've been used in different contexts.
Another group of words which are like this is: 'compulsory', 'obligatory' and 'required'. The Latin roots of the first two amount to more or less the same thing: something forces you to do something. 'Required', on the other hand, originally just meant 'asked for' (any word with '-quire' in it comes from the Latin word 'quaere', which means 'to ask'). However, nowadays 'compulsory' has taken on the connotation of 'necessary according to the rules of an organisation or society' (a bit like 'rules'); 'obligatory' has the connotation of 'morally necessary'; whilst 'required' has the connotation of 'it says so in the law'. Native speakers sometimes mix these up, since, in a particular situation, the difference between things you have to do and things you ought to do can be fairly meaningless - but there's no reason for you to be this sloppy too!
If you think, for example, of the legal requirement to wear a seat belt when you're driving in a car, you are fined if you fail to comply with the legal requirement; you might, however, be disciplined by your company if you fail to observe their compulsory ruling to wear a seat belt whilst driving a company car; and you might feel an obligation to your family to protect your life and health by wearing a seat belt.
'Safe' and 'secure' also caused problems. This is another example of the need to remember the context in which you use a particular word in English. In general, 'safe' refers to physical safety, whilst 'secure' refers to psychological factors. Think of the difference between a 'security officer' and a 'safety officer'. The former is a kind of guard who keeps the bad guys away. The latter makes sure that no-one actually hurts themselves whilst they're on the premises. Sometimes the security officer actually wants to hurt people! If you have Swedish as your first language, ignore the fact that these two words will both be translated as 'säkerhet' in the dictionary, but think of 'safety' as 'trygghet' and 'security' as 'säkerhet'.
Finally, the prepositions 'in-on-at' caused one or two problems. These have 'literal' meanings, but also meanings that have arisen out of usage. I.e. 'in' has a connotation of 'inside', 'on' one of 'on top of' and 'at' one of 'right in front of'. In both time and place, however, they express a range of focus from the very wide to a specific point.
Thus, with expressions of time, you use 'in' for the large unit (in January, in 2010), 'on' for the smaller unit (on Monday), and 'at' for the specific point (at 9.30). When you're talking about space, 'in' is for the large area (in Sweden, in Skåne, in Malmö), 'on' is for a much smaller space (on Nygatan), and 'at' is for the point (at Nygatan 18, at the corner).
The construction site in this exercise is a very ambiguous place! The workers work 'on the construction site' (in the 'literal' sense of the word), whilst visitors arrive 'at the construction site' (the non-literal specific point in space).
If English were easy, you wouldn't need teachers!
Tuesday 24 March 2009
Warm-Up 3
Warm-Up 3 is all about turning informal, spoken language into formal, written language. The prompt is the kind of thing a health-and-safety officer might say when he's on a site visit, but the written version of his recommendations will use different grammatical structures and different words.
Remember that you've only got FIVE sentences to produce - you don't need to write the entire report.
Remember that you've only got FIVE sentences to produce - you don't need to write the entire report.
Friday 13 March 2009
Feedback on Warm-Up 2
I think that I've now marked everyone's Warm-Up 2 - the hire car from hell. If you're still waiting for your feedback, get in touch and I'll get it back to you as soon as I can.
There are four points which I'd like to comment on, having read everyone's Warm-Ups:
1. strategy
2. short forms
3. formal words
4. assure-ensure
1. It's important to get your strategy right when you complain. Firstly, you need to ask yourself what you hope to achieve. It ought to be something concrete, like getting your money back. If, on the other hand, you're just hoping to let off steam and feel better, it's much better to try chocolate, beer - or friends! In other words, don't try to score points in a letter of complaint, or engage the sympathy of the person you're writing to about the awful treatment you've received. Remember that they work for the company you're complaining about, so you could end up making your position worse by alienating them. Being factual and dispassionate is the best strategy - you can always save the threats for the second letter, if 'reasonable' doesn't work!
2. Short forms are forms like "can't", "I'm" and "don't". When you write formal letters, you don't use short forms at all - you have to write the forms out in full: "cannot", "I am" or "do not".
3. There are also some words which just don't fit in formal letters. One of these is "get" and another is "maybe". In my comments I've described these as "colloquial", which means, basically, "spoken". If you think of the difference between "buck" and "dollar", "quid" and "pound", or "spänn" and "krona", you can see the difference between colloquial and formal language. The colloquial words aren't slang, because everyone understands them, but you say them, rather than write them (though you can write them in informal contexts).
4. Finally, the difference between "assure" and "ensure" came up quite a lot in these Warm-Ups. If I assure you that my intentions are honourable, I'm basically making a promise. If I ensure that you get your money, then I see to it that it happens. It's the difference between a promise and a guarantee.
Good luck with Send-In Task 2
There are four points which I'd like to comment on, having read everyone's Warm-Ups:
1. strategy
2. short forms
3. formal words
4. assure-ensure
1. It's important to get your strategy right when you complain. Firstly, you need to ask yourself what you hope to achieve. It ought to be something concrete, like getting your money back. If, on the other hand, you're just hoping to let off steam and feel better, it's much better to try chocolate, beer - or friends! In other words, don't try to score points in a letter of complaint, or engage the sympathy of the person you're writing to about the awful treatment you've received. Remember that they work for the company you're complaining about, so you could end up making your position worse by alienating them. Being factual and dispassionate is the best strategy - you can always save the threats for the second letter, if 'reasonable' doesn't work!
2. Short forms are forms like "can't", "I'm" and "don't". When you write formal letters, you don't use short forms at all - you have to write the forms out in full: "cannot", "I am" or "do not".
3. There are also some words which just don't fit in formal letters. One of these is "get" and another is "maybe". In my comments I've described these as "colloquial", which means, basically, "spoken". If you think of the difference between "buck" and "dollar", "quid" and "pound", or "spänn" and "krona", you can see the difference between colloquial and formal language. The colloquial words aren't slang, because everyone understands them, but you say them, rather than write them (though you can write them in informal contexts).
4. Finally, the difference between "assure" and "ensure" came up quite a lot in these Warm-Ups. If I assure you that my intentions are honourable, I'm basically making a promise. If I ensure that you get your money, then I see to it that it happens. It's the difference between a promise and a guarantee.
Good luck with Send-In Task 2
Wednesday 25 February 2009
Warm-Up 2
Warm-Up 2 is all about complaining. 'The Hire Car from Hell' is all about really bad treatment when renting a car in the USA. The idea for this Warm-Up came from the wonderful film, "Trains and Planes and Automobiles", with Steve Martin and John Candy. The task is set up so that you don't have any other option than to write a well-composed letter to the company in the USA - and hope for the best. The sum of money involved is too small to make it worth your while starting a legal action (at least from this side of the Atlantic - it'd be different if you were living in the USA, where they have Small Claims Courts). There's also a lot of scope for 'he said-she said' situations (which is how they describe situations where one person says one thing, and the other person says something different in American English).
The task itself is quite limited: you only have to write FIVE sentences from the letter you'd write (i.e. NOT the entire letter). The point is to see whether you can calibrate your language, so that you express yourself firmly, but refrain from insults and gratuitous comments that will just result in your letter being filed in the trash can! Once again, there's a link to the Send-In Task which comes next.
You submit your Warm-Up Task 2 by copying your text into a comment. Remember to include FIVE sentences only - and to include your name in the submission.
By the way, if you don't know what the 'redeye' is, take a look at the first comment on this post.
The task itself is quite limited: you only have to write FIVE sentences from the letter you'd write (i.e. NOT the entire letter). The point is to see whether you can calibrate your language, so that you express yourself firmly, but refrain from insults and gratuitous comments that will just result in your letter being filed in the trash can! Once again, there's a link to the Send-In Task which comes next.
You submit your Warm-Up Task 2 by copying your text into a comment. Remember to include FIVE sentences only - and to include your name in the submission.
By the way, if you don't know what the 'redeye' is, take a look at the first comment on this post.
Friday 20 February 2009
General Feedback on Warm-Up 1
I've just finished marking your Warm-Up 1s - and very well you all did too! The task was to write a presentation of yourself for your new employer's web site and everyone did a very good job. The trick was to concentrate on your professional qualities, but to include enough personal information for you to come across as a real person. Nowadays successful companies want to be recognised for what they are, as well as what they do, and it's important for their senior managers to be personal as well as professional.
The most frequently-made mistakes (!) were with capital letters. There's an exercise about these in Module 1, by the way.
There are lots of uses for capital letters in English, but perhaps the trickiest ones are in titles and for academic subjects. I've made the comment "… on the information words in titles …" a few times. 'Information words' are the words which actually tell you something, rather than just being their to help the grammar along. If, for example, you're the person in charge of computer networks in your organisations, you'll be the "Head of IT Systems". Notice that 'Head', 'IT' and 'Systems' take capital letters (because they're part of a title), but 'of' doesn't (because it's not an information word, but a grammar word).
A word of warning, though: quite often companies create a graphic profile for themselves which excludes capital letters (particularly if they're trying to create an image they feel is non-traditional). In cases of companies like these, the rules don't apply! Native speakers also have great problems with capital letters, so don't be surprised if you see us making mistakes.
Here's another tricky case:
"She'd studied Psychology at university, so she used psychology on her boss to get herself a hefty raise."
Why is one 'Psychology' capitalised, but the other not?
Well … in the first case, 'Psychology' is an academic subject at university, whilst in the second it's a general phenomenon …
If you want some extra help with capital letters, remember that the Internet tutors and I are here for you!
Have a nice weekend (writing your Send-In 1s)!
David
The most frequently-made mistakes (!) were with capital letters. There's an exercise about these in Module 1, by the way.
There are lots of uses for capital letters in English, but perhaps the trickiest ones are in titles and for academic subjects. I've made the comment "… on the information words in titles …" a few times. 'Information words' are the words which actually tell you something, rather than just being their to help the grammar along. If, for example, you're the person in charge of computer networks in your organisations, you'll be the "Head of IT Systems". Notice that 'Head', 'IT' and 'Systems' take capital letters (because they're part of a title), but 'of' doesn't (because it's not an information word, but a grammar word).
A word of warning, though: quite often companies create a graphic profile for themselves which excludes capital letters (particularly if they're trying to create an image they feel is non-traditional). In cases of companies like these, the rules don't apply! Native speakers also have great problems with capital letters, so don't be surprised if you see us making mistakes.
Here's another tricky case:
"She'd studied Psychology at university, so she used psychology on her boss to get herself a hefty raise."
Why is one 'Psychology' capitalised, but the other not?
Well … in the first case, 'Psychology' is an academic subject at university, whilst in the second it's a general phenomenon …
If you want some extra help with capital letters, remember that the Internet tutors and I are here for you!
Have a nice weekend (writing your Send-In 1s)!
David
Thursday 5 February 2009
Podcasts
I've just published the podcast which describes what happened at the Course Launch yesterday evening. I'll be trying to produce a new podcast more or less every time we progress from one block to the next - with some extras for special events, such as the Course Launch and the publication of the In-Tray Examination at the end of the course.
If you want to listen to the podcasts, there are basically two ways to do it:
1. You click on the Podcasts link on the course home page, and a new page opens with the podcast links on it. If you click on any of these links, you'll come to that podcast page, where there's a Quicktime file for you to listen to. Click on the 'Play' button and the podcast should start playing.
2. On the podcast main page (the one you come to first), there's a button marked 'Subscribe'. If you've got iTunes on your computer, this button will establish a link between the podcasts and iTunes. Then you can get new podcasts directly, by clicking on the 'Refresh' button in iTunes (in the Podcasts section of iTunes). From there you can either listen to them in iTunes, download them to an iPod or burn them on a CD.
You can download iTunes free of charge from: http://www.apple.com/se/itunes
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