Using textbooks to learn and improve at English is very common, and there is nothing wrong with using textbooks as part of a balanced learning program! However, it is also important to include more specific material, such as business books and magazines, and incorporate these into your learning program. In this episode, I explore the importance of such a strategy and I also talk about the concepts of general and specialist vocabulary. So, what about you?  What materials are you using to...

Do you feel uncomfortable when you need to speak English in real situations? Lots of English learners feel a huge sense of embarrassment and fear when speaking in English.  Maybe it’s because they need to talk in front of their boss, or it might be because they think everyone is going to focus on any errors they make (which actually isn’t going to happen!). Fear is often irrational and it’s no different when it comes to the fear of speaking English.  The good news is that there are various...

Using different tenses can really help you to improve  – you are going to sound more natural when speaking in English, and be able to describe more complex situations. So, stop using just the present simple tense! This episode shows you exactly how to do it! Here is the sample text that I use in the audio: I read engineering at Bristol University and I graduated in 2006.  Upon graduation, I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learnt a lot about production and product...

Welcome to Episode 2! Unfortunately, receiving and dealing with complaints from time to time is a necessary part of running or participating in more or less any business.  In this episode, I provide some strategies for dealing with complaints and some useful phrases which non-native speakers can add to their phrase bank in order to be prepared. Managing the right language is very important when dealing with complaints (it is important to make the situation better and not worse!) and therefore...

Welcome to the very first episode of the Community podcast! I have been looking forward to getting started with the podcast for a while now, and here it finally is! Each podcast episode includes the sections “Business Word of the Week” and “Phrase of the Week” as well as a main topic.  In this first episode the main topic is “How to Succeed in Meetings in English”.  I talk about how important it is to prepare before a meeting, and how exactly you can go about this.  Also, as a non-native...