25%...

Audiowire präsi 1  

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

first of all, thanks for attending to the meeting, I know it is very early in the morning, though. We are from Online experience, and the purpose of our presentation is to provide you with recommendations and advice to improve your website and sales....

That is the way I introduced the presentation. The presentation counts for 25% of the total grade. Thus, I have to be honest, I was very nervous. Usually, I do not prepare at all for presentations, but this time I had to, I mean it counts for 25% of the final grade as mentioned previously.

Nevertheless, let me start from the very beginning. Louis, Koen and my humble self made a little brainstorming and prepared the PPt.

Than, I questioned myself: Do I need to prepare anything else? Shall I write a script for myself?

Usually, I go in front of class and start talking, if do not know what I have to talk I keep smiling (as mentioned previously in my blog) and start my sentence again or try to make something funny to make the people and me relaxed. So far it worked out fine for me.

Unfortunately, I knew this time is no excuse I cannot mess it up. I have to be serious and try to minimize my mistakes. There is no time for mistakes anymore...

... to hold the presentation as good as I can I decided to prescribe my text and learn it by heart. However, I realized very quick I cannot learn my text by hard, I would do mistakes and make myself nervous. Thus, I decided to write down the most important keyword and learn them by heart. Since we had to present in a formal way and this time we had an English teacher in front of us and not like in all other courses, I thought it would be a good way to prepare the presentation.

And now to the presentation itself. As I said previously, I did the introduction part and was bloody nervous. I never had it before in Uni. Nevertheless, I got through the first part and made the stage free for  Louis so that I could take a step back and calm down. While Louis and Koen presented I could not pay any attention on them. I was thinking about my final part: What if I forget the keywords? What if I talk in an awkward English out of the sudden?

Anyway, the time flew and it was my turn now (I had to present slide 8 and 9). I tried to appear calm but I was not I guess. However, when I turned from slide 8 to 9 I wanted to look as professional as possible. So I put before the presentation a cup of water next to the computer to take a sip out to slow the presentation down, but when I grabbed the cup I recognized how I trembled. That is the point where I thought, what the hell is wrong with me? It is only a presentation! Thus, I was quite for like 5 seconds and smiled, since I learned it from my first presentation and finally continued my last part of the presentation.

All in all, the presentation was very good. Even the teacher was not able to ask any questions, so we covered everything. I did some little pronunciation mistakes and a little grammar mistake, but it is fine for me, because usually I do some more mistakes holding a presentation....

Finally I want to show you the difference between my first and last presentation in English 1:

The Big Help

Hi everyone,

I want to make a little entry and talk about what is a great help for me in my English course.
A few weeks ago we had an English exam, I have to be honest it did not went well for me. Nevertheless, I learned a lot of vocabularies for the exam out of the AWL (academic word list). I went through the entire list and marked every word, which I could not make up a sentence with. Thus, I ended up with an endless list of vocabularies...  I had no other choice than starting right away, obviously I did not had a look on the list in time. This might be the reason, why I was not happy with my grade in the exam.

Usually I do look pretty much the same. So my advice, start learning in time.

Anyway, I was not going to talk about my exam at this stage. Way more important is that the AWL helped me a lot with understanding the books better, which we have to read in other courses.
Learning the AWL made it easier for me to understand what I read and it is not just going to help me here in my first semester, this list will help me in my future study program as well as in my future life. So, it is a good advice to go through the list and learn all vocabularies which you think you do not understand.

Here is the AWL:

Awl

Go through and find out how many words you do not understand, write them down and learn every day 10 of them, I promise you, you are going to understand everything you read a lot better in only 6 weeks.

So everybody, keep on going with learning. I hope I could give a good advice.

Two Fase Foundation - Hazel Cosmetics

... and once again, hi everyone,

The next group task was to create a new product line for Hazel Cosmetics, so Louis, Elles, Laurien and I (please visit the blogs as well by clicking on the names) came up with 'Two Fase Foundation'. However, before I talk to much I want to show you my Press-release

Press Information

GRONINGEN, NETHERLAND, November 29, 2011

NEW PRODUCT LINE

Hazel Cosmetics has announced a groundbreaking product line called “Two Fase Foundation”. This fashionable new cosmetic line combines daily care as with makeup for teenagers and young adults from 14 to 25. The new fashionable product will be available for all customers in Europe, North America and Australia.

“The new Two Fase Foundation line will change the world of makeup and force our competitors to an economic disequilibrium”, predicts Angela Lang, Hazel’s CEO. “We have revolutionized the way young women will use makeup, and simultaneously, protect their skin. Additionally, we believe we create a competitive advantage that helps us meet our growth targets.”

The Two Fase Foundation is a new makeup device that combines the beauty and carrying for women’s skin in a single step. By applying the new Fase Foundation on the skin the caring ingredients within the lotion together with the covering effect of the foundation will lead to an optimal and fresh look a whole day. Additionally, this product is available for all different skin types, starting from bright skins to darker skins.

Furthermore, the company will quit door-to-door sales and start focusing on store sales. Therefore, the company is going to provide a training opportunity for their employees to improve customer service.

The new Two Fase Foundation is a combination of makeup and carrying for women’s skin. This new product line will be available in your favorite retail store, in due time to Christmas, on December 2011.

END
About Hazel

Hazel is one of the world’s largest direct sellers of cosmetics and beauty products. Lately, Hazel suffered problems concerning sales growth. Hence, a new CEO has been appointed to advice a new strategic vision of the company.

Mission statement: Feel secure, a pretty and healthy skin at the same time with Two Fase Foundation.

Hazel Cosmetics

Broadway 23

Los Angeles, California

Tel 011 49 9876 5432

I hope you like the idea. And by the way my indicative grade was between 6 and 7 but my teacher said it is more towards a 7 than a 6. Furthermore, we are allowed to re-write and hand it in again... So let us see what I am going to score then. I will keep you updated.

Thanks for reading and talk to you soon.

And here is the feedback by my teacher:

From Germany over Australia to the Netherlands...

In this reflective report I want to show you my point of view of my past, present and future concerning my knowledge for the language of English.

In order to get familiar with my language learning history I have to mention some points of my previous education, concerning my experiences. Back home in Hamburg, Germany, English lessons started in fifth grade. I always had serious trouble to keep up with my classmates learning English. Obviously, this led me to achieve low grades at secondary school, as well as in my previous school education. One reason for this might be that I raised up bilingual. I spoke turkish and german at home as well as with my friends outside. 

However, knowing that my English is not as good as I wanted it to be, I decided to go abroad for one year, to be precise I chose Australia, to practice my language. What I experienced over there was interesting. I remember my first day in Australia very well, I went in to a shop and could not understand anyone at all. I could not pick up that they spoke English to me, which was very frustrating for me. Nevertheless, after being in Australia for eight months, most people told me my English would be great and I would be able to speak like people who had lived in Australia for at least two to three years. After having been in Australia for a whole year, I decided to keep up with my English and even try to study in English.

Thus, I ended up in Groningen, the Netherlands. Before I came to class I thought my English was very good, but after hearing my classmates talk English I was surprised and realized quickly my English had to be improved way more. In fact, I have to start learning appropriate English. However, I reckon I can speak very well and understandably for everyone, although I keep my language simple. So, the area I have to improve firstly is my vocabulary concerning the technical terms, especially in terms of business English. And secondly, I need to pay slightly more attention to my grammar as well. Enhancing my technical terms and grammar I hope I will be able to write good statements and/or texts without using any help from dictionaries. Thus, I need more time to write a text compared to my other classmates in the next three years, due to the fact that I need to look up many words and learn in which content I have to use them.

Another point I want to mention at this stage is some advice for next year’s first-year’s students. At first sight when I saw on my schedule that I have English lessons, it sounded ridiculous to me and I thought my English is already good enough, due to my year abroad. Nevertheless, English is a very important subject, which shows you how to write appropriate academic texts or journals. The course provides you with a lot of know-how about the language itself. The most important advice is, keep up with learning all the vocabularies given by the tutors. This does not just save you a lot of time before the exam, all those vocabularies make it way simpler for you to read and understand academic journals, for instance the Harvard Business Review, which every first year student has to deal with in the first semester.

I am curious where I will end up after my studies. Do you have any ideas already?

Human Trafficking in Southeast Asia

Hey everyone,

This time I have to come up with some bad news, in particular the bad working conditions in third world countries. This entry will be about Stitch-Wear, our first Memo-Report. Furthermore, I want to apply this topic to the course Global Supply And Chain Management.

As you all remember, Stitch Wear’s sales and public image have recently suffered from bad publicity due to child labor accusations and bad working conditions at their manufacturing factories, in particular in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Our Task is to wright a Memo-report to the board of direction of Stitch-Wear.


However, Stitch-Wear is an invented company. Thus, I want to show you a short video how people really work in Southeast Asia:

Recent research shows that an increase in manual and professional business practices such as outsourcing, hiring temporary workers and focusing on project-based teams is having a detrimental effect on workers. A lot of companies are moving to Southeast Asia to hire low-cost labour. However, instead of helping the third world countries they go there and prey upon the poor.

Fortunately, letting people work under bad working conditions will no longer be tolerated by the modern society. Furthermore, there are companies, which do not watch out that they have good working conditions; even the suppliers have to have employees working under good conditions as well.

Quite recently we had to read a Supply Chain Management Review. In the supply chain management review „Toward a more responsible supply chain: the HP story“ (click to read the review), the author Sonali Rammohan characterizes the work of HPs Social and Environmental Responsibility program, how it could be implemented in companies supply chains and what it should aiming on.

I did the review together with my classmate Louis and please feel free to read our evaluation.

Review the hp story

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A Treasure Trove - my first presentation

Hello everybody,

Due to the fact I cannot find my first PPt presentation for this course anymore I want to talk about it.
Dealing with presentation disasters (click to see the article) is the title. However, I do not want to go in detail about the article, moreover I want to talk about my experience and how I felt before and after the presentation.

I have to be honest, I did not prepare the presentation very well due to the fact we did not receive grades. However, I was not nervous at all. So I went in front of the class and hold my presentation. I received comments from Wouter and Jaap. Both said that I had some good and interesting points and I used short and clear sentences but I could put more effort in to the slides of the PPt. Furthermore, the overall PPt was to colorful.
In addition, I received some critics from our teacher Miryam Wijnhoven as well. I had lots of grammar mistakes and talked most of the time in an informal way. I said words like 'guy' or 'gonna' instead of taking my time to say 'going to'. 
My indicative grade (which became my favorite word in the first weeks of my English course) was 6.65. I was not very happy about my grade. Nevertheless, it was a lesson for me and I knew what I have to take care holding a presentation.
Furthermore, everyone has to hold a presentation, which counts for 25% in week 50 and 2. So I am curious if I can improve my English and my presentation skills and score a high grade.

One very important point in the article 'Dealing with presentation disasters', which I will always remember is you have to keep smiling! It does not matter what happen be relaxed, show that you feel comfortable and SMILE!!!

Even top managers and CEO like Bill Gates might have a presentation failure, but you can see that he keeps smiling, makes fun about the mistake and continues.

And here is my feedback by my teacher:

My learning goals for this course

Hi everyone,

This was our first task in this course. We had to write a 1-paragraph summary about our learning goals for this year.

Due to my first blog entry I want to talk about my goals for this course, English for IB&M 1.
I think everyone of us is able to speak English but who of us is able to talk to top managers and explain and show them his or her ideas.
My first aim is to improve my vocabulary. As you might remember in our first and last lecture we were taught we need only 2000 words to have a common conversation. However, we need around 10,000 words to have an intelligent conversation so that both sides can talk about important topics concerning international business.
Furthermore, I want to improve my reading skills. Although I spend my last ten month in Australia and gained a lot of practice in speaking, I never went through an article or other texts. After my first task to read two chapters in 'Organization Structure' I had some problems understand everything. Most of the time I had to go through one sentence twice.