English Exercise 2 [Business English Course]

This is a website I came across while looking for some English exercise for everyone visiting this website.

Business English Course

The previous exercise was a great hit with many e-mailing me to add more exercise for them. I am from Malaysia and I know that I have audiences from all around the globe. I cannot meet you face to face so, the best I can do for you is to PROVIDE NECESSARY WEBSITES AND EXERCISES. Thank you for visiting. Have a nice day.

David Hng

English Ensures Americans Are United

By JASON ROSENBAUM of the Tribune’s staff

Published Sunday, January 7, 2007

JEFFERSON CITY – Republican lawmakers are pushing forward with legislation that would make English the state’s official language of proceedings, a move supporters say would ease the state’s need to translate documents and halt the “Balkanization” of American culture.

House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill, came out in support of such a move during his speech on the opening day of the General Assembly.

“English is the one thing that brings all Americans together,” Jetton said.

“Having all our citizens learn English will not only help our newest citizens fit in, but it will make our whole state more competitive in the world. This is the year we should pass this bill.”

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Gary Nodler, R-Joplin, said the move would ensure that Missouri does not slip into linguistic conflicts such as in Canada and the Balkans.

“This is not a multi-language culture; it’s a predominantly English culture,” Nodler said.

More specifically, Nodler said the move would prevent state agencies from having to translate documents. Written driver’s tests, for example, are offered in 11 different languages, including Spanish, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese.

Lt. John Hotz of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which is the agency in charge of administering the tests, said commercial driver’s license tests are offered only in English and Spanish.

Asked whether the state would have to cease giving tests in other languages if the bill is passed, Hotz said, “That would be something that obviously would have to be determined later on.”

Nodler said the bill could save the state from a number of legal liabilities.

“Given the litigious nature of America, you don’t have to be too imaginative to envision a situation where somebody eventually files a suit because their arrest they suffered was invalid because the arresting officer didn’t speak to them in a language that they could understand,” Nodler said. “Without an official language, I guess you could claim that.”

Hotz said the highway patrol was “probably” taken to court for not announcing someone’s rights in another language. But he said the patrol is making an effort to prevent miscommunication.

“We do have translation services available,” Hotz said. “We’ve also had officers who’ve received training in Spanish and some of them that are fluent in Spanish.”

Hotz said he didn’t know whether translation services would be disallowed under the proposed law.

“But we’re going to have people traveling the highways, I’m sure, who speak all types of different languages,” Hotz said.

“We’re going to have to continue to try and communicate with those folks. I don’t think that we’re going to stop what we’re doing in that aspect,” he said.

State Sen. Chuck Graham, D-Columbia, panned Nodler’s bill as “unnecessary.”

“We have people from a variety of countries,” Graham said. “We print things to make it easier for them to be active, participant citizens. The country’s becoming increasingly bilingual, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”

Graham added it didn’t make much of a difference whether the bill was passed in the legislature or taken to the voters, an option preferred by Nodler.

Nodler disagreed with Graham’s assessment that a multilingual society is beneficial for the nation’s cultural health.

“I reject the suggestion that America can no longer be the melting pot, that it, in fact, has to become a boiling pot of conflicting cultures,” Nodler said.

David Hng

English As It Should Be Taught

By Damien Dawson
AS much as many people may want to deny it, the English language is perhaps the most important language in use today. Teaching English in Mongolia is not unlike TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in any other Asian country. The students understand the importance of being able to speak English and are eager to learn and achieve to the very best of their abilities, as they are anywhere else.

Most Mongolians recognize that the English language is important not only as a means of communicating and understanding, but also as an important method of developing business relationships, improving training and one’s general approach to foreign businesses and development.
With this in mind and the number of language schools increasing worldwide, TEFL is a profession that should be increasing its ranks at a phenomenal rate, as many use this not only to gain valuable teaching experience, but also as a passport to travel around the world.

Teaching English, or teaching in general is not a profession anyone can simply step into, although for many foreign language students studying English, classes often consist of watching a native speaker fumbling through a book learning about their own language while they try to teach it. Meanwhile for the unlucky student learning English from non – native speakers, who are often not fluent enough in English themselves to teach it, such lessons can be confusing and fruitless.

For a teacher to understand grammar is simply not enough, one must understand the subject they are teaching, the correct method of approach and use, and also the correct pronunciation. I have met countless numbers of Asian and European students who, having been taught badly or incorrectly by unqualified teachers, simply cannot pronounce a word correctly and in the process lose all meaning of the words they are trying to say. To be able to teach this correctly, being a graduate is simply not enough, neither is planting your ability to teach on your life experience.

In my own personal experience, being a qualified teacher has not been enough to do one’s job well. In order to create constant and well taught students TEFL institutes need to concern themselves more with finding qualified and able teachers and less with how much they should pay foreign staff. Ultimately this means that language schools should be incorporated into the Government’s education system and monitored in order to ensure a standard of professionalism that will not only benefit their students but ensure that the teaching profession is upheld as the noble profession people believe it to be and a privilege in itself.

When I arrived in Mongolia I found that although the country is a democratic state, Mongolians are a very closed people, that they know or understand very little about western culture or ideals, learning much of what they know from the media and television, which can lead to the misinterpretation of visual information if the translation is not correct or itself misinterpreted. This is by no way an inappropriate method of learning about foreign cultures. As the impact that the English language has had on Mongolia is enormous, however, it may contaminate the individual expectations of the country in question and the understanding of the native population of western culture and its people. After all we can’t believe everything we see on TV and we must take care to remember that generalizing a population is perhaps the singularly most negative assumption we could make.

Mongolia is developing quickly and suffering in the process, through poor guidance and training by employing token foreigners as teachers, whether they know what they’re doing or not! Together with borrowing the more favorable “as seen on TV” aspects from various cultures and failing to recognize the conflict of interest they will cause in the future.

David Hng