通过对话学习以Pose为词根的高频单词
By Vincent from www.englishvincent.com
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A: Can you give me a hand with my budget proposal?
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Proposal=put forth/forward
The sales department put forward a proposal last week, but the manager didn’t approve it.
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B: I’d love to, but I’m composing an email.
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Compose=put (words) together=写邮件，写报告，谱曲
记得初中的时候就学到这个单词composition=作文
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A: I thought you finished your proposal last week.
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B: I put forward (presented) the proposal to the sales director on Monday, but he was opposed of it. What are you up to exactly?
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Oppose=place on the other side=反对，
见opposite帮助理解，强化记忆
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A: Well, I’m writing Vincent to tell him the Customs will still impose duties even if we declare our goods to be gifts.
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Impose=put into=把东西放在（篮子）里以增加其负担=征税/强制/限制/强加
Hangzhou Government imposed smoking ban in public places last month. Damn!
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B: We are not gonna get away with it. The customs will impose penalties and expose us on the internet
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Expose=to put out=暴露，曝光，揭发
Ex-这个前缀，参见External=外面的，外表的，外部的，
I was so pissed off when he let me go that I decided to expose him online. （见Unit 20）
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A: Yeah, better not play game with them.
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B: I’m finished. Now let me take a look at your proposal and see what I can do.
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A: That would be fantastic. I’ll give you a ride home in return.
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B: You’ve got a deal! By the way, before we get started, how’s your apartment hunting going?
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A: I made a deposit of 100,000 yuan on an apartment.
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Deposit=put down=押金，定金
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B: That’s a big amount of money. You’ll lose the money if you have a change of mind.
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A: As the housing price has been rocketing this year, I just fear the apartment owner will break the agreement. With that amount of deposit, he just can’t afford not to sell me the apartment.
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B: Where did you get all the money? I thought you didn’t have much disposable money. Did you rob a bank or something?
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Dispose= put apart= put in order=arrange= 安排，布置，处理，可供处置的，可供支配的
在credit card一课中我们学习了disposable income=spare money=可支配收入，闲钱。
I’ll put my spare money in the stock market.
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A: Nay, my parents gave me the money.
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B; it must feel horrible to be a Neet.
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NEET:「Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training」
说中国的很多年轻人啃老是不公平的。
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A: Like you are in a position to comment. That’s so not fair. Not that we want to be a burden of the family, we young people just have no choice.
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Like you are in a position to comment=你也比我好不了多少。
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B: I just think you should apply for the position of sales director.
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Position=定位，位置，职位
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A: Yeah, after we finish this damn proposal.
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再推荐一部学习商务英语的美剧 Better Off Ted
By Vincent from www.englishvincent.com
By Vincent from www.englishvincent.com
记得之前推荐过Hotel Babylon和Mad Men，为大家提高交流性的工作英语。 最近又下了几集Shark Tank（创智赢家），难度比较大，但是用来学习商务口语简直是太完美了！
Shark Tank is a reality show where entrepreneurs make presentations in front of 5 “sharks”. Sharks here mean investors. Sharks will invest in their companies in exchange of certain percent of their company stake if they are convinced their businesses are profitable.
我大概花了2个小时听写第一集第8集的一段对话，太难了，讲得实在太快，不过硬着头皮听写完后再听那段对话就觉得很简单了。大家不妨也下下来做做听力练习。 一个月能听写并掌握一集，肯定会每天都有进步。
Make A Presentation to Raise Money
DJS: Hello, My name is D.J. Stephen, and this is Sean Conway. Our company is Notehall, we are here asking for a 90K dollars in exchange of 10% of our company (seeking 90k for a 10% stake)
Sean: Notehall’s a website that allows college students to buy and sell class notes and study guides in each the college courses. So, Kevin, Let’s see a huge exam coming upso you naturally are gonna create a study guide to prepare for that exam. You’re gonna load it on Notehall. At the same time, Robert, you have been distracted by a cute blonde girl in class.
Robert: Since I’ve been married for 20 years, that would never happened
Kevin: But he has been stealing my notes for years.
Sean: But you’re gonna go on and Download Kevin’s notes and pay a few dollars doing this. And Kevin could earn a commission on- on the transaction. It’s that simple.
DJS: We launched it at University of Arizona and within 8 months. Our website was being used by 40% students on campus . we pilot launched at Arizona State University and Kansas University and we saw relatively great traffic with basically zero advertising costs. we are planning on launching at 24 universities this upcoming fall. And with your help, and we feel we can go nationwide in just a short period of time making notehall the next dorm room name on the web today
Robert: Is it legal?
Sean: What we are doing is pretty much giving the students a better understanding of the actual course We are teaching those students how to take notes.
Barbara: How do you know the notes are good? Do you get—Kind of get the chance to take a little peek and review before you sign up
Sean: There is actually a preview that’s automatically generated and it shows 30% of the notes
Barbara: what if it’s wrong information
DJS: we offer a 100% money-back guarantee if students aren’t satisfied with the content they buy .
Barbara: That’s better,
DJS: we refund about 25 out of over 5,700 documents that have been uploaded…
Daymond: But a quick question. I want to know… How much have you guys sold in one year
Sean: So we had 5,900 credit card transaction in 8 month, and we have 30K sheer revenue.
Kevin: What’s the price of a typical note downloaded?
So the actual transaction price, our average transaction price is around 4 dollars 90 cents.
Robert: You get a cut of the fee I’m paying?
Sean: So on average, Notehall will withhold 60% of the actual transaction and the Notetaker will earn 40%
Kevin: This is a great idea, and like other great ideas on the internet, they get copied right away. Tell me about your competition.
DJS: we do have other pla<fix>yers in the space, and no one has gained traction yet. That– when I say we saw relatively great traffic in K.U. and S.U. it’s because we gain 1,500 new students
in 6 weeks time. Some of the leading competitors in the space have been there and they don’t have hundreds students.
Barbara: Why they were different. Why weren’t they able to get as many people?
DJS: We’ve discovered a way to get content creators efficiently and effectively, and that’s the lifeblood. Our competitors are just focused on trying to get as many users as they can, and no one’s uploading any valuable content. And if they don’t get the valuable content, students are not gonna continue, you’re not gonna grow virally like we’ve seen so far at K.U. and A.S.U.
访谈式英语教学的实践和体会
By Vincent from www.englishvincent.com
每次招到中级别的新生，都会给该生生上一堂很exclusive的访谈课。课前让学生写一份英文的personal profile 和job description, 还有其他有关该生工作和单位的材料，备课的时候根据这些材料设计 interview questions, 到了上课的时候就是不停发问，并让其他学生参与发问。如果课前准备30个问题，那么上课的时候可以根据学生的回答再问30个问题并做一些评论。这样可以让学生不停开口讲2个小时。
大部分新生在回答问题的时候都是磕磕绊绊，步履蹒跚的。所以这个时候就要对他们进行即使的纠正和帮助，让他们能够把话讲下去。而另外的学生也会参与发问，不至于打哈欠。
这样做的好处在于
1.这样的访谈是对学生语言环境的仿真模拟，学生在做实际的交流，问答的内容可以帮助他们以后用英文做presentation，写邮件，和外国客户交谈。比起单纯的阅读或对现成对话的练习，自己在老师的提示和纠正下下组织语言说一遍所达到的效果要好很多倍，因为学生是在真正用英语表达。学的东西派得上用场，话能讲得出口，才能交流。
2.如果可以调动其他学生的参与，这种方式可以让课堂很活跃。3个小时的课程几乎全是对话还有老师的纠正。（当然老师会经常卡壳，因为太多话了）。学生如果能在课堂上积极摘录白板上的笔记，并在课后将部分对话整理成笔记，就可以把一堂课海量的对话内容作为再次练习的素材，而且这个素材讲的就是自己同学的事，特别容易记住。
3.每个人都喜欢谈论自己，更会在谈论自己熟悉和擅长的事情时津津乐道。而且事后都会发现自己其实硬着头皮也是会讲点英语的。虽然一开始觉得很吃力，但是久了之后就容易帮助学生逐渐建立自己的语言体系。很多人表达能力欠缺，单词量少也只是原因之一，更重要的在于语言组织能力不足，也缺乏对于单词，词组和句型的实际运用。很多句型其实都差不多的。重复多了，而且被纠正多了，就会慢慢开始用正确的方式去组织语言，话也就慢慢讲得顺了。这个时候再积累更多的单词填进去，讲出来的话也显得没那么别扭，开始“通情达理”了。
4.很多学生看再多文档，学习再多对话，还是会讲出别扭的中式英文，而且经常感到难以启齿，因为大凡是需要老师的学生，都是对于英语这门外语不够敏感的，他们缺乏在自学中自动纠错提高的能力。如果阅读/听力/对话练习等消极的学习方式占据了太多的课堂时间，学生还是难以有质的提高，而访谈式的教学可以让学生不停使用英语，并犯尽可能多的错误，从而让老师有机会能够在交流的过程当中直接指出错误并作出纠正。这样做，再迟钝的学生也容易留下印象。英语教学应该告别被动学习，被动表达，而应该被逼着并硬着头皮主动表达。
5. 长达两个小时的问答过程中，很容易重复相同或者类似的语料，更能帮助学生记忆。
下面是上次访谈的前十分钟录音记录。部分对话整理过，并修改和抹去了部分敏感内容。
Vincent: We know you are a sales manager, right? Suppose you are making a sale presentation in front of your foreign client now, how would you do the “company profile”?
New student:
Costa is a xxx in networking and communication devices industry. Its annual revenue totaled xxx billion in 2008. We have achieved an 30% yearly growth over the past five years. Our mission is to change the way people study, work and recreate with Costa’s networking and communication solutions.
Vincent: Wow. I’m impressed. Obviously Costa has been doing very well these years. Well, could you tell me some very interesting facts about Costa?
New Student:Can you repeat that?
Vincent: Well, tell me some very interesting things about Costa.
New Student:Costa offers very decent salaries to its employees…uh…uh…
Vincent:…uh…uh… well, it’s enviable , but not a bit interesting … do i need to repeat my questions again?
New Student [totally ignores me]:My colleague bought an apartment with Costa’s credit card five years ago.
Vincent: Are you saying Costa’s credit card has a very high credit line?
New Student:Exactly!
Vincent: What was the credit line?
New Student:About 5 million RMB, he could buy like 10 houses with that credit card, but it was cancelled 3 years ago. I have to use my own credit card now.
Vincent: You should’ve joined Costa earlier,and bought 10 apartments. That would make your filthy rich now. But I suppose there must still be some benefits of being one of Costa’s employees. What if you want to take out a mortgage from the bank now, how much are they likely to offer?
New Student:I’ll need to provide my payslip ( not salary list) . and after checking my payslip, they will offer 50,000 monthly loan to me,
Vincent: that’s a huge amount of money. Another question, where is Costa headquartered?
New Student:xxxxx, xxxxx. There are 5,000 employees in China, and about 2,000 of them will fly to XXXXX for the annual sales meeting.
Vincent: Did you ever get a chance to speak at the meeting?
New Student:Never.
Vincent:You are pathetic.What if you were the top salesman in GCR?
New Student:Definitely. And He (I) will also be interviewed by CEO XXXX XXXXX.
Vincent: Wow…that’s cool. I guess they will hit the strip club afterwards?
New Student:Haha…I don’t know. I never got the chance to find out.
网上有很多可供讨论的ESL Conversational Questions,但是很多都显得太学生太学术气，比如“你认为我们的税务系统存在什么问题？” 感觉像是大学里面只有尖子生才会开口说的话题。比如在一个网站上看到几个关于代沟的问题：
什么是代沟？
你是如何克服代沟的？
你觉得有可能克服代沟么？
很多人认为女人可以嫁给老自己很多的男人，但是男人不可以娶老他们很多的女人。你怎么看？
要是你的父亲比你母亲老了一倍，你会怎么想？
你觉得你的代沟斗争和你父亲那一辈人的代沟斗争有什么不同？
这样的问题，设计到社会／伦理／道德等，普通学生用英语压根就不知道怎么说，也会觉得索然无味。如果无法设计出有趣的问题，就要设计他们不假思索就可以回答的问题。比如
你们公司卖什么产品。
客户是谁？
你们是如何招募合作伙伴的？
能给回扣么？为什么不能？
为什么您们公司不喜欢雇佣没怀孕过的年轻女性？
你的信用卡额度是多少？
每个月要还所少还贷？
你和男朋友经常因为什么而争吵？
甩掉前男友的时候你给了什么理由？
这个方式的坏处在于
1. 老师挖空心思拷问学生，并冒着被学生考倒的危险（这个时候觉得很失败），学生而要经常苦思冥想，一刻不得消停。双方都觉得很用脑过度很崩溃。
2.由于谈话具体内容是未知的，全靠老师课堂的把握，所以课堂效果不够稳定。如果老师当时没有状态或者课堂功课没做好，上课的效果就会大打折扣。
3.其他学生如果生活/社会/工作经验不足，会难以参与到对话中来。
总而言之，要设计问题和情景，让学生不断开口，讲自己的故事和选择，而且保证谈话的内容是派得上用场的。