Take your trainers one step further
With more than 15 years’ experience as a foreign language teacher, teacher trainer and EFL author, we know the exact needs of learners of business English. Trainers are responsible for providing learners with the tools and skills they need to perform their job in English with as much success as they do in their native language. LS also knows that your trainers are experts in their fields and that they are qualified to effectively teach business English. So how can we help? It is our mission to enable trainers to go several steps further – expand their boundaries, explore new outlets, leverage innovative hands-on materials, create more learner-centered, interactive, effective and sustainable learning environments. With LS, you don’t just learn business English, you experience it.
Flexible offers for all your needs
LS training covers not only all your training needs, but also your time and your budget. You can choose from a wide variety of standardized training workshops or have us entirely customize a training package for you. Whichever you choose, we guarantee an enjoyable, practical and effective hands-on approach to teaching learners of English.
Tailored teacher trainer workshops
Of course all LS teacher trainer workshops can be fully tailored to suit your specific needs. I would be glad to meet with you to further discuss how I can assist your trainers in optimizing their teaching methods and tools.
Tell me and I forget...
Show me and I remember...
Involve me and I learn.
Current workshop topics
The following will give you an overview of our current teacher trainer workshops.
Perform! in English© – the only business English game of its kind...
Games not only motivate learners to actively participate in class; with game-like activities, learners are more likely to retain the information so that they can apply these skills on the job with greater success. Our board games offer everything trainers need to activate learners’ intrinsic business English communication skills for sustainable learning in a fun environment. In this workshop, you will experience
Perform! in English© - an extremely flexible and innovative board game focusing on global communication and collaboration skills across all industries. The basic company starter set includes more than 320 playing cards covering the following topics at the A2-B2 level: office and company talk, emails, telephoning, meetings, intercultural competencies, useful grammar tips and a variety of fun and challenging tasks. The game features a modular design, allowing trainers complete flexibility to not only choose which topics to cover, but also the time allotted. Whether for use in weekly courses or seminars – join us to learn how you can quickly and easily transform your lessons into fun, communicative and powerful sessions help your learners maximize the quality of their work while performing in English on the job.
Play. Learn. Remember.
Business Communication in 3 steps – Familiarize. Apply. Activate.
Studies show that when learning vocabulary in a foreign language, you need to be exposed to the new language in use a good 30 times before owning it. As trainers, it is our job to give our learners the opportunity in class to read, listen to, write and say new words and expressions as much as possible in the classroom so that they in turn will be able to communicate with greater ease and more confidence in the real business world. In this workshop, I will share with you my innovative 3-step game concept that has been designed to best prepare learners to own specific language “chunks”. The first step:
familiarize your learners with the language skill sets needed for one specific topic (e.g., leading a meeting or conducting interviews) by leveraging a series of flash cards in a variety of activities. The second step: allow the learners to
apply the newly acquired language by playing a communicative game in a more controlled environment with additional vocabulary support. The third step: learners
activate what they have been practicing with greater challenges and roleplay. This 3-step game approach is just as effective as it is enjoyable, and most importantly, it promotes sustainable learning.
Learn by experimenting, not just by doing.
Why use props and games to support adult learning in a foreign language class?
Games and hands-on activities in the foreign language classroom are excellent tools that connect adult learners to the language in a way that is enjoyable, purposeful and interactive. At the same time, these tools adapt learning to different learning styles. Because they are innovative and fun, games can be intrinsically motivating and thereby help learners construct meaning in a more personal way. In addition, games reinforce and review previously acquired knowledge by allowing learners to proactively apply what they have learned. By creating this personal connection and giving them the opportunity to apply their knowledge in a less controlled environment, the learners will be able to better retain the newly acquired information on a long-term basis and thus apply the knowledge in the real world.
In this workshop, I will provide you will a variety of innovative ideas on how to quickly and easily create visual aids, games and hands-on activities, including useful on-line resources & free templates, such as game boards, PowerPoint games and interactive activities. I will also demonstrate how to create and use dice, flash cards, spinners, and other fun props to spice up the learning atmosphere. Everything is easy to make and requires little PC know-how. In short, this workshop will help facilitate making creative, interactive lesson plans without taking hours of valuable time.
Simplify your life as a trainer.
Teaching the essentials of global English small talk
Studies show that being successful on-the-job is a 50/50 combination of professional skills and soft skills. Communication is the key soft skill needed to perform in today’s global business world. The ability to engage in English conversation in a variety of settings is crucial for building and fostering business relationships worldwide. As professional business English trainers, it is our job to equip our learners with the necessary tools and skills they need to optimally communicate with their international colleagues, partners and customers. In this hands-on workshop, you will experience a variety of fun and engaging small talk activities, games, ideas and resources that you can take with you to quickly and easily create an interactive classroom in which every learner – no matter how large of a group – can actively participate.
How can I help my English learners get the most out of listening exercises?
In this workshop, we will explore methods for turning listening exercises into interactive learner-centered activities. I will share with you ideas on how to design meaningful hands-ons pre-listening, while you listen and post-listening activities that will encourage your learners to actively participate in class and simultaneously improve their listening and communication skills so they can better communicate and collaborate with global partners, customers and colleagues. Whether using textbook audio files, songs, podcasts or video clips, you’ll walk out with a variety of exciting ideas on how to incorporate such media into your learning environment for both one:one courses and larger groups.
Untangling Grammar - visualize it!
How is it that many of our students seem to know their grammar, but at the same time, can’t seem to use it? This session will look at what causes the grammar to become tangled and consider what students need in order to untangle some of the confusion, making them better able to use what they know. We will explore innovative methods and visual aids to help German learners of English better understand the reasons behind English grammar rules, in other words, the “English mentality”, so that they can successfully remember and apply such rules outside of class.
Grammar made easy.
Help your B1-B2 English learners overcome the difficulties of pronunciation – fast, fun and effective activities to take with you
Have you ever thought to yourself, “Phonetics and pronunciation lesson plans – no thanks!” Fear no more! Teaching pronunciation does not necessarily require learning the entire phonetic alphabet and doing one drill after another. It is much more about getting a natural feel for the language, and by this I mean rhythm, intonation and stress. Learners will be surprised that just slightly moving their jaw or tongue differently can make or break good pronunciation or that raising or dropping their voice at the end of a question can make them sound much more polite. By doing so, learners will sound clearer and more natural and they will ultimately gain more confidence when speaking English.
The goal of this workshop is to motivate you, the trainer, to incorporate a variety of simple, yet fun and effective pronunciation exercises into your lessons – without having to reinvent the wheel! We will discuss a variety of methods, all of which are fun, hands-on and effective, and best of all, they are easy to prepare and carry out in class. The basis of the workshop will be the Headway series combined with other creative games and activities.
Test Students, Track Progress and Record Results with oxfordenglishtesting.com
If you’ve ever felt that getting through those pile of tests is just a little too much for you on top of all the other demands of a modern English teacher, then this talk will help to lift the weight from your shoulders. Learn how oxfordenglishtesting (OET) frees up teachers to teach by providing an efficient placement test system for Testing Students, Tracking Progress and Recording Results. (Commercial talk and demo on how to leverage OET for optimal classroom management.)
Business Communication: easing the transition from the classroom into the real world
Business Result is one part of the new super-series from OUP. It is aimed specifically to help students in group or one:one settings with their professional communicative skills and takes an innovative approach to business English teaching. In this workshop, we will explore ways in which its highly communicative syllabus provides skills students can pick up and use immediately at work. Specifically, we will explore how to leverage authentic business cases, interactive CD-Roms, video clips and hands-on activities to activate learners’ communicative skills for maximized performance on the job.
Business English you can take to work today…
Lesson planning from A to Z
This session aims to provide a review session for teachers. It looks at the basic principles of lesson planning with the aim of reminding teachers what they need to consider when planning a lesson. We will explore the overall factors involved, then go into detail with the general framework for a skills and language lesson before drawing everything together by creating a sample lesson plan. What to bring with you: ideas and materials you’d like to use as a basis for a new 90-minute lesson plan.
Leveraging PowerPoint in the classroom
Powerpoint is an excellent tool for teaching EFL classes of all sizes. Powerpoint has been proven to help overall concentration, adds variety to your lessons, is visually appealing, promotes learner-centered activities and automatically creates an interactive and fun learning environment, that is, if everything technically speaking goes according to plan! (But don’t worry, I'll give you some tips on back-up plans just in case.) In this workshop we will explore the following:
- Why use PPT presentations in EFL Classrooms?
- How can PPTs facilitate my lesson plans and classroom management?
- How can I create my own PPT?
- How can I integrate video and listening activities?
- Where can I obtain free pre-made PPTs for my classes?
What you need for this workshop: a laptop, MS PowerPoint and your favorite textbook or lesson.
Contact us today to book your teacher training workshop for your institution or to request our catalog.
