Learning with Chocolate!

Grammar, listening and vocabulary exercises are not the only ways to improve your English. Far from it! Chocolate can play its part too. In this week's post, one of our trainers Kate talks about her recent Young Business English course.

On a recent Friday morning at the London School of English, representatives from Saufa Brengts, an advertising agency, and a British chocolate manufacturer, had a very important meeting.

They negotiated the launch of their new chocolate bar, Chocciebar. They decided how much work the ad agency would do and how much they would get paid. The chocolate company brought some samples of their chocolate for the ad agency to try. Everyone ate chocolate, used their excellent negotiating skills, and finally shook on a deal.

So why did an advertising agency and a chocolate manufacturer do this at the London School of English? The truth is they weren’t tied up in the business world: they were taking the Young Business English course. They were doing a ‘modular course,’ a series of connected lessons which students follow all week.

Preparations began on Tuesday. We discussed brands and branding. Felipe from Brazil was the logo expert when we did this quiz:  http://www.sporcle.com/games/corplogos2.php. We met the ad agency, Saufa Brengts, and sent REAL emails to a REAL email account to our (fictional) CEO, then we had a meeting.

Having a ‘modular’ course (in which one lesson leads onto the next, and the next, and the next) helps students because:

·  It’s easier to use / re-use the new words they’ve learnt earlier in the week as it’s one big project.

·  Their English has a REAL effect – what they write in their email on Tuesday affects what happens in the meeting on Thursday.

·  It’s a reflection of what happens in real life, so it prepares students for the real world of work.

·  It’s engaging and constantly challenging, as students don’t know what is going to happen next!

Every week we do a different ‘modular’ course: who knows what surprises await Young Business English students next Monday!

By Kate Fisher 

Glossary

far from it - (prep.phr.)  this is not at all true

play its part - (verb phr.) contribute

launch - (n) the  start of a business

sample - (n) an example

shake on it - (idiom) shake hands and agree on a deal

fictional - (adj) unreal