IMBA Business English Lesson 2

1. IMBA Business English Lesson 2 Teacher: Murray Sherk Course Website: Use the link on http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/~msherk/ Your partner for most of this lesson is the person whose card is on the desk beside yours. Find your card and sit there.

2. Note: No Class Next Week • I’m away • Lesson 3 is 2 weeks from today.

3. Pairing Up • Your partner for most of this lesson is the person whose card is on the desk beside yours. • Find your card and sit there.

4. Find one thing that you and your partner disagree about • a cultural thing? • a language thing? • a personal thing? • Not just that you are different, but you feel strongly that your way is right (and the other is wrong)

5. Date is approximately 1934. • Murray’s mother-in-law is one of the little girls. • “Preventorium” to keep kids safe from tuberculosis

6. Describe what you see in this picture. • What do you think is going on? • Is it fake? • Who? Why? When? • Answer: I don’t know!

7. What do you see in this picture? • Describe it carefully. • What is a likely story explaining what is going on in the photo. • Who? Why? When? Where?

8. What more do you see now? • Does your first story still make sense?

9. Now? • Story still OK?

10. Being Convincing:Getting people to believe you • What are some good ways to convince people that things are true? • How did you try to convince people that your story was true? • How did you try to find holes in the other stories?

11. Formal Arguments Argument = [Claim that something should be believed or done] + [Reasons supporting the claim]

12. Strategies for Arguments • “Argument” = “claim” + “reasons and evidence” • Is the claim clear? • Are these good reasons to accept the claim? • Is there enough evidence to accept the claim (in the time you have)?

13. Strategies for Arguments • Logic & Reason • objective facts plus logical thinking • Character & Credentials • “I’m honest – I’m telling the truth” • “I know what I’m talking about” • “They are honest and can speak with authority, and they believe this” • Partly subjective, but “expert opinion” • Emotion • fear, love, respect, loyalty, patriotism…

14. Claim: “If your native tongue is Chinese, you should practice some English [th] sounds every day.” • Emotion • “Do it or you will fail - your English will not be good enough for international management/business!” • “Do it and you’ll get a high mark in this course to make your mother proud of you.”

15. Practice [th] every day • Emotion • “Do it or you will fail” • Character & Credentials • “Native English speakers who have taught thousands of Chinese students just like you, say this practice is vital.” • “Chinese students with great English spend a lot of time practicing like this.”

16. Practice [th] every day • Emotion • “Do it or you will fail!” • Character & Credentials • “Native English speakers say…” • Logic & Reason • [th] sounds are not part of many languages. Chinese does not have them. • Your face muscles and tongue may not be used to doing the right thing for “th” • muscles learn by repetition over time

17. Sometimes the strategies overlap • C&C can be stronger combined with L&R • “He saw a tiger on East Campus” but one person is easily wrong, crazy, or lying • “200 students saw a tiger on East Campus” is much more convincing. • The witness of many people logically gives stronger evidence than just one such person • L&R is usually weakened by inserting opinion (C&C). “This fact proves this claim” is much better than “I believe this fact proves this claim”

18. Arguments: Scientific vs. Business Scientific: • Use L&R for 90% or more of evidence • C&C and Emotion can be used to motivate, but are considered very weak Business: Depends on the context but… • L&R still best (How will this lead to the “bottom line”?) • C&C (e.g. reputation of company) can be strong • Emotion can be used to get attention

19. Argument Strategy Exercise • Working with your partner, figure out how to use all 3 strategies to argue that the following claim is true: Claim: “Intelligent beings from outer space have visited Earth.”

20. Pair + Pair + Pair = Group • Explain your arguments to the other pairs in the group. • Answer questions and challenges. • Among all the arguments from all the pairs, which are the best? Why do you think these are the best? • Which are the best arguments of each type (L&R, C&C, Emo)?

22. Some Possible L&R Arguments • “Mysteries like how ancient people build huge things like Egyptian pyramids – easy to solve if helped by advanced aliens.” • “So many planets in Universe implies so many aliens that it’s likely one visited.” • Bad math actually • “It’s easy to get a girlfriend at USTC because there are 3,000 girls here” • ignores 12,000 boys competing for the girls and compatibility issues.

23. Some Possible C&C Arguments • “Governments of many major nations have seriously investigated UFO sightings and cannot explain them all as false.” • “In the past 100 years thousands of people around the world have reported seeing UFOs or aliens.”

24. Some Possible Emotion Arguments • “Aliens advanced enough for space flight must be scientifically ahead of us. We must prepare to defend ourselves! (i.e. at least behave like we believe they exist)” • “If they’ve visited, then they’re technologically superior and have not destroyed us. Maybe they’re helping us develop like parents guiding children.”

26. Pronunciation • Why? • Needs to be “good enough” • Be aware of common problems for native speakers of your first language

27. Pronunciation Work: Review “th”

28. Pronunciation [ f ] – same as in Chinese [ v ] = voiced [ f ] [ w ] = “ooo” (not [ v ] !!) [ hw ] = unimportant variation on “wh” (normally pronounced [ w ])

29. fairy vary wary • fine vine wine • fail vale whale

32. Politely Agreeing and Disagreeing • See handout • Practice these expressions as we do our next activity.

33. Oh No! • You and some IMBA classmates were on vacation in another country and were thrown in jail for something you did not do. • You decide to escape from the jail and return to China. • Task 1: Plan how to get out of the jail. • Task 2: Plan how to get back to China.

34. Prison Escape! • A chance to politely agree and disagree while in a team making a plan. • Your whole team is in jail, angry about that, and under great stress. • You’re going to be “touchy” and it will be easy to get into an argument over a perceived insult or disrespect. • Therefore, you’ll have to be polite when disagreeing with each other.

35. Discuss, Negotiate, Plan • Split up however you want into groups of 4 • Work together as a quad to escape • Ask each other questions to refine the plan • Everybody in your group should be able to explain the plan. • You have 20-30 minutes to make your plan

36. Missing Information? • For anything not specified on the handout sheet, you may make reasonable assumptions. • Reasonable: Assume you have a couple of friends outside the jail who are willing to help you. • NOT reasonable: Assume your outside friend is an armed forces general who will send an army to rescue you.

37. Discuss, Plan • Work together as a quad to escape • Ask each other questions to refine the plan • Everybody in your group should be able to explain the plan. • You have 20-30 minutes to make your plan • Later each of you will explain the plan to others.

38. Compare plans with other group • Trade half your group with another group. • Explain your quad’s plan. • Note that the plan must include exiting the jail AND exiting the country. • Listeners may ask questions and politely disagree about ideas • When both plans have been explained, can your combined group agree on which is better? • Could you combine plans to get an even better plan?

40. Class Discussions will be held in future classes: Is there anything in particular you’d like to talk about in our classes? • Culture issue? • Current news event?

41. Donald Trump actually wrote in his Twitter account… • “As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)” • This is just one example of his bizarre statements.

42. Class Discussion Topic: • Is Donald Trump… • …crazy? • …incompetent? • …joking? • …really smart and just playing a role to fool people? • What do you consider evidence for or against any of these views?

43. Homework • Think up some good topics for future class discussions • Could be about culture, business, current news… • Each person, email one or two of your best ideas to me. • msherk@ustc.edu.cn • Remember: Next lesson is TWO weeks from today (on Oct 30)