Letter of advice to next year's students

In order to manage the process of learning Business English easier, I have some recommendations for next year's students.

1. Make use of the Nestor Weekly Organizer: Scrolling regularly through the tools provided in the Weekly Organizer will remind you of resources that may have helped you.

2. Learn the Academic Word List (AWL) by heart: Do not start to learn these vocabularies too late. They will occur in every course and you will benefit by learning them early enough.

3. Refer to the Business Briefs: If necessary, read through the Business Briefs, they might help you in order to understand specific terms.

4. Read business articles: If you have time and are interested read English business articles. Thereby, you have the possibility to extend your (academic) vocabulary. Below there is one website I would strongly recommend regarding Business articles.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/

5. Always be motivated: If you are disappointed because of a bad grade, do not abandon. Always be optimistically and think in the long run. Set yourself several goals you are willing to achieve. Think about things you are looking forward to, for instance your semester abroad. This will make you energetic and leads to success.

Evaluation of the Assessment Report

The table below again supports me with evaluating my Assessment Report concering Leatty Shanghai, on the evidence of the vocabulary I applied, referred to the AWL.  
I am very proud because this time I improved my use of the AWL upon 4 %. Moreover, I also decreased the number of Off-List words by 2 %.
To conclude, I can say that I am really strong willed to improve my whole English (writing) skills and of course I will work on it over and over again.


Evaluation of my report with : http://conc.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/output.pl

	Families	Types	Tokens	Percent
K1 Words (1-1000):	153	174	482	70.16%
Function:	...	...	(301)	(43.81%)
Content:	...	...	(181)	(26.35%)
>   Anglo-Sax       =Not Greco-Lat/Fr Cog:	...	...	(74)	(10.77%)
K2 Words (1001-2000):	25	31	49	7.13%
>   Anglo-Sax:	...	...	(18)	(2.62%)
1k+2k		...	...	(77.29%)
AWL Words (academic):	42	47	90	13.10%
>   Anglo-Sax:	...	...	(17)	(2.47%)
Off-List Words:	?	39	66	9.61%
	220+?	291	687	100%

Graded Assessment Report

Leatty Shanghai Construction Project Assessment Report

To:                  Board of Directors of Leatty

From:             Alina B. – Project sponsor

Date:              13.12.2011

Subject:         Strategy to rescue the construction project of Leatty Shanghai

Introduction

On 13 December 2011 a meeting was held by Joyce B. and Ziyu X. (Project Managers, Shanghai) and Jeanine O. and Alina B. (Project sponsors, Leatty) to develop a new strategy to rescue the Shanghai construction project. A new strategy needs to be devised in order to improve the construction project making up for a delay in time in prior working sections. Agreements were set on the following plan of action to evade project problems and to avoid obstacles in upcoming future projects.

Findings

Improving information exchange and co-ordination of tasks

Firstly, in order to improve the exchange of information, e-mailing will be the only medium of information flow among employees. To ensure that every worker is well informed about the current situation, secretaries of Leatty are going to collect and note down the latest news and changes within the project creating a newsletter and send it to every employee at the end of each month. At the beginning of every hiring, employees will receive a profound introduction into their spectrum of tasks. However, in the event of uncertainty they can contact the help desk or an additional coordination manager resident in Shanghai. These measures will avoid co-ordination problems of tasks, which arose in the past and will finally create a safe atmosphere so that team members will talk openly about problems and risks.

Creating better communication

Secondly, agreement was set on face to face meetings more frequently. Meetings will take place in Germany every second month due to the fact that it is located in-between Canada and China. Furthermore, in order to evade project problems through improved communication, sponsors from Canada should send an inspection team to Shanghai to examine the progress. This inspection team, in which the project manager also takes part, will give a short but detailed presentation about the movement during the meetings in Germany. Thereby, proposals for potential improvements can be discussed directly.

Establishing team morale

The third point on the action plan deals with the attainment of a strong team morale. For this purpose, employees are going to be divided in teams, each with different tasks in order to achieve special goals. If the employees accomplish their goals in the stated time period they will be rewarded with a financial bonus. Through this reward strategy they might be more enthusiastic and willfully to work together.

Improving working practices

Another point on the action plan which has to be improved are the working practices. At the first meeting in Germany the multinational team of Canadians, Germans and Chinese is going to create a handbook with rules and working conditions. Hence, the working schedule will be bated to a 40 hour week in order to progress the working practices of the staff. Moreover, in summertime working is not allowed from 12 to 2 a.m. because of the potential heat. On the staff’s behalf, there will be a canteen for them to come together so as to communicate about things referring to the project or private issues.

Suggestions to be considered in the future

Finally, in order to learn from the first phase of the project and to rescue the construction project of Leatty Shanghai every employee should read the handbook carefully. In addition to that, they are expected to be conscious about the stipulated rules and working practices and are able to apply to them.

Conclusion and recommendation

Due to all discussed issues the whole team of Leatty Shanghai should aspire to implement the improving solutions. Aside from that, the sponsors have to know that the innovations involve some deal of expense but it can be assured that they will be considerably improving the project and that the outcomes will be satisfying. Eventually, there is the opportunism that a good team communication as well as an improved working morale and appropriate working practices can be achieved in the long term.

We look forward to your reaction.

Alina B

Project Sponsor

Graded presentation reflection

Reflection

Since this presentation was not our first one, we tried to apply all our existing knowledge about how to prepare an interesting and professional presentation.  Done this, we received some positive feedback but a not so sufficient grade (6.8).
Firstly, to point out some positive feedback of our presentation, we handled our question and answer part very well. We were able to react spontaneously on questions and came up with good suggestions. Moreover, the interaction between my team memeber and myself was good. 

Finally, I can say that there is still a lot to improve.
According to the feedback of my teacher and my class mates there are several points of improvement.
Following my main findings:

1. Creating the presentation more business like: Unfortunately, we choosed a wrong layout with too shiny colours. Moreover, we could have applied more graphs and charts.

2. Creating pronunciation: I made some mistakes I could have avoided by being not so nervous and probably better prepared.

3. Trying to be more specific and detailed: Since we only had 10-15 minutes for our presentation, we tried to cover the most important facts about our new product. Unfortunately, we forgot to clarify some important questions as for instance, how to advertise the product or how to finance it.

Lastly, I can conclude that this presentation showed me that I moved another step forward regarding my English improvement. This does not mean that I am perfect now, this basically means that I did steps in the right direction. I think that I could only gain improved presentation skills, if I am preparing and giving presentations over and over again


 

Graded Presentation

Vivi final

View more presentations from Alin0r.

Today my team member Ziyu (http://ziyuxu.blogspot.com/) and I held our graded presentation, which again was based on the cosmetic company Hazel. We were members of the senior management team at Hazel. Based on the SWOT analysis we carried out earlier, we presented our proposals for a strategic new vision to the new CEO of Hazel and its board of directors. This presentation will contribute 25% of the final semester grade.
I will post my reflection of this presentation tomorrow. However, I would love to receive some feedback for improvements that can be implemented.

Thanks,
Alina

One of my favourite quotes

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

— Samuel Johnson

Language Learning History – Reflective Report

This report is about how I started learning English and my statement about learning English in class. Moreover I will try to give some advices how students can work more effectively.

I began learning English when I was aged eight. Three courses with different levels were formed and I attended the uppermost education in the so called “A-Course”. In my last two years at Secondary School I have chosen English as an intensive course which means that I wrote my final tests – among others – in English.

English always manifested itself as my absolute favourite subject in school.

Once, during my holidays I travelled to London, which besides is the most beautiful city in the world for me. There I recognized how much I like to speak the language. I especially “fell in love” with the British accent, because of its clear pronunciation.

Thenceforth, in order to improve my skills, I decided to watch more English speaking movies and to buy only books in English. Therefore, I would recommend others to watch English movies. They turn out to be very different from translated ones and in fact they have a different meaning sometimes.

Additionally, I became aware of some explicit difficulties fairly quick after I started studying the English programme “International Business and Management” in Groningen.

In comparison to some of my fellow students, who have been abroad for a certain time, I recognized that I have a limited vocabulary.

Movies and lectures – where I just have to listen – are not the problem at all. Nevertheless, when I have to speak without preparing for it some problems occur. I only occupy my school English vocabulary. However the longer I am studying here in Groningen, where I really have to communicate with my fellow international students in English, I recognize that my own lexicon improves from day to day.

Only through speaking I improve my vocabulary and also the listening ameliorates every day.

But those are obvious things I still have to work on over and over again.

Furthermore, I was surprised about the way of learning during classes and for homework because they were new to me and although the Nestor weeks and home works take a lot of time but they are very useful and help me to improve my language skills.

Other quite helpful things are the negotiations in groups, not only because of the need to speak in English, but also because of the way one has to react immediately on an argument of others. I think that they are very helpful to get a little insight in what I will do later on in my job.

Although I think that the first months in a new country are very hard and that there will be a lot more obstacles, I will continue studying in Groningen because it keeps getting better every day and finally I will earn a lot of experience.

This experience will help me to get a job which hopefully will make me happy, probably in a global operating company, and the opportunity to work together with a lot of people from many different countries with many different cultures.

I also could imagine working abroad for a certain period of time. Even though I would miss my family, I will definitely be happier in a job which offers international tasks.

Therefore, I am aiming in improving my English skills in the area of Academic English, which is absolutely essential in the field of International Business and Management.  

Finally, I have some advice for people who are thinking about studying in English even if it is not their native language.

I think the most important feature is to be open minded. They should accept the traditions and ways of behaviour in that country. Furthermore it would be an advantage always to be up to date with their vocabulary and grammar even if it is a lot of work and not always interesting. A new country is easier to discover if someone is interested in adapting to the countries characteristics.