1. Assignment:
Reported speech
One of your colleagues owns some Goodwheel shares. He couldn’t attend the shareholders meeting, so he authorised you to go on his behalf. Read the CEO’s speech below and then report to your colleague what Mr Mitcham said.
Dear Shareholders
Last year was once again a very successful year for our company. We managed to reach our targets concerning sales and profits, and we also continued to satisfy our customers with our reliable service. We are operating in more than 50 countries worldwide. As an international team, we are able to share our expertise and know-how. This has become even easier this year because of the new common software platforms we have introduced.
We intend to ensure that our employees will be able to develop and continue to work here with a sense of pride.
I am pleased to announce that we will invest 2 million euros over the next 2 years in upgrading our production facilities to protect the environment and reduce waste.
Thank you for your interest and support in the past year.
Begin with these words:
Hilary Mitcham started by saying that …
2. Assignment:
Direct speech
Your colleague Natalie tells you about a dialogue she had with a potential customer. Turn the reported speech into direct speech.
The first sentence is given as an example:
He said his name was Alex Huber and he worked for Morton Automotive.
→ “My name is Alex Huber and I work for Morton Automotive.”
1) Then he asked if we had had a stand at the trade fair the previous month.
2) I told him our company hadn’t exhibited at the trade fair that year.
3) He said that our product was exactly what he had been looking for.
4) He asked if we shipped overseas.
5) I explained that we didn’t ship overseas but we had partners in most European countries who represent us.
6) He wanted to know if we offered discounts on bulk orders.
7) I had to leave then so I asked him if I could pass his name on to their sales team.
3. Assignment:
An agenda
Below is the invitation to a firm’s annual sales meeting. Write the agenda based on the information in the memo.
4. Assignment:
Summary
Read the text “Outsourcing – A Strategic Business Decision” by R. Buller. The text contains about 625 words. Summarise the text in your own words. Do not copy passages from the original text.
Write between 80 and 120 words.
5. Assignment:
A short presentation
Prepare 3 presentation slides based on the information below.
Your company is planning to ban food and drink at the desk. There are a staff canteen and breakout areas on all floors, and the management wants everybody to use those. Staff will no longer be allowed to eat at their desks. This includes any kind of food, including biscuits and other snacks, as well as drinks such as coffee, tea, soft drinks, etc. Your task is to present to your team the potential advantages and possible disadvantages of the ban.
Here are some ideas to think about: time, cost, health, types of food eaten, impact on colleagues, environment and customers.
Your slides should make sense even without your talk. Therefore, you cannot simply use these individual words. Decide which points are most important for you and your colleagues, and put these into suitable phrases. If you want to prepare the slides in presentation software such as PowerPoint or Keynote, save or export them as a PDF file. Do not send in the native file (*.ppt, *.key etc.). If you prepare your slides in the Word document, make sure it is clear what each slide contains; for example, with a border around it. Remember that suitable formatting is important.