English Conversations 2

Do you enjoy telling stories? What kinds?   How important is storytelling in your culture?   Are storytelling traditions a thing of the past or should they be preserved for future generations?   Watch Daveed Diggs acceptance speech in Tony Awards. What do you notice about his use of a story?   Read  the article on business storytelling here . FOCUS ON OWN IT! Now, using the tips from the article, turn your childhood story into an inspirational one to promote your company's message.

 Look at the lyra bird from Australia. What can it do from 1-5? 1. Shake 70% off its feathers in one day. 2. It can eat up to 10 times its mass in food in a meal. 3. Its skin releases a natural sunscreen that prevents it from getting sunburned. 4. It can reproduce almost any sound in its environment.    Practice prepositions https://create.kahoot.it/share/prepositions-advanced/20ca120f-311c-4ae7-a6f9-30c426e8afb5 Circle all the /dj/, /tj/ and /sh/ sounds in the tongue twisters (1-8).  Practise saying the tongue twisters in pairs.  1. I'm= sure 1 saw Sheila selling seashells on the seashore, but I can't be sure she sold seashore shells.  2. Julia, George, Jean and Joan joyfully jumped down the jagged hill.  3. Chester the Cheetah chewed a chunk of cheap cheddar cheese.  4. Fresh fried fish,  Fish fresh fried,  Fried fish fresh,  Fish fried fresh.  5. If a dog chooses to chew shoes, whose shoes does he choose to chew?  6. Je...

 Work in pairs Do you sometimes not get to say what you want to a group conversation? Why? Think of someone who often holds the floor, i.e. talks for a long time without letting anyone else talk. How do they do this? Look at the Quiz. Do it twice, once for conversations in your own language and one for the ones in English. Look at Communication Skills below. Work in pairs to discuss potential strategies for you Listen to four different examples of people managing group conversations.  Match them with the descriptions. What strategies can you discern? a. interrupting someone  b. holding the floor so others don't interrupt c. dealing with an interrupton d. bringing the conversation back to the previous topic How to do it! OWN IT!

 Do you engage in writing for work? What genre - if any- do you use most?  Let's discover formal and informal expressions Business English Writing: Formal or Informal Instructions:  Match the informal phrases (1-15) with the neutral/formal phrases (a-o).                                                       Informal   Neutral/Formal 1  What do you need? ____ a) With regard to....(or With reference to) 2  Thanks for the email of 12 Feb. ____ b) I can assure you that... 3  Sorry, I can't make it. ____ c) We note from our records that you have not... 4  I'm sorry to tell you that... ____ d) Please let us know your requirements. 5  I promise... ____ e) I was wondering if you could... 6  Could you....? ____ f) We would like to remind you that... 7  You haven't.... ____ g) I look forward to meeting...

 Have you been using any novel AI apps recently? Share your experience with the group. What do you enjoy in the process? What surprises you? If you could use a metaphor to describe AI's effect on human life what would it be? Let's listen to this interview with  Danielle Susan Allen, a University Professor at Harvard University and the Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard Kennedy School    Let's discover some of the possibilities AI offers in this article.  Choose an app, explore it, and present it to the class. Formal & Informal English  

Did you use to play any of the games in the photos? What toys or games do you remember playing from your school days? Were any of them crazes? (i.e. fads for a short time?) Do not name it, only explain the rules and let others guess  Did you use to improvise any games? (i.e. invent them while you played? Can you name one?  According to the author, why did some games stand the test of time? What point does the author wish to make by mentioning each of the following? a. 'toothpaste', 'snake eyes' and jumbos' (lines 1-2)b Egypt three millennia ago (lines 6-7)  c. video/computer games (lines 11, 23 and 25)  d. cognitive growth (line 19)  e. In the attic (line 29) f rules and structure (line 34)  READING SKILL Using topic sentences  Paragraphs in more formal texts, such as articles and essays, often include topic sentences. Most topic sentences are at the beginning or end of a paragraph. They summarize the paragraph in some way: by stating the argument, ask...

Identify a rule that applies to series of triples of numbers, that these three numbers “2-4-6” satisfy. Here is an article on the original experiment by psychologist Peter  Wason. Can you think of examples of confirmation bias that you've seen? What role do you think media plays in encouraging confirmation bias? Which of these things do you naturally do when you have conversations with people who don't share your point of view?  Which of these things do you need to work on?  2 What are some common beliefs that yo with your friends or family? Have you  met people with different beliefs from you? What happened? What are the benefits of having to convert people who have different beliefs from COMMUNICATION SKILL  Convincing someone who questions the evidence In order to make someone more likely to want to listen to - and believe - your evidence, try to do the following  1 Listen carefully and with respect.  2 Show that you understand their opinions....