Well this last week has been a whirlwind of activity, though it's felt good to be out in the real world, finding work, housing, etc. Right now I'm staying on my friends'(Abigail and Jill) couch, along with our friend Hunter, and we are all living like a nice little family (Family photos to be posted soon). We all run around the city all day, then meet back up at 'Hotel Rwanda' to have dinner and discuss our various successes and failures. Some favorite topics are; 'Crazy roommates we've had since living in Prague', 'Humiliating attempts at crossing the language barrier' and 'Are any of us really sure we want to teachers? Really, though?'. And so forth.
I've gotten work through 3 different language schools (typical for English teachers here) and all told have about 20 hours of work a week. It's nice and spread out, though some lessons will mean getting up pretty early in the morning to catch trams, trains and the odd rickshaw. (The rickshaws here are basically a big bicycle where the driver sits up front and pedals and the passengers sit in the back under a see-through enclosure.)
One of my jobs will be to go to the airport twice a week and teach Air Traffic Controllers airport lingo. Which means I have to learn tons of terminology and then present it in a clear and enjoyable way. I've got a 70 page manual to work from, as well as the movie 'Airplane' on DVD. 'Day One - inflating your copilot'.
The other jobs involve going to businesses all around Prague and teaching small groups of business-folk. Some will want to learn business English, but mainly it'll be teaching them how to schmooz at parties in London or the US. I may need some input from anyone involved in this world.
OKAY - CALLING ALL BUSINESSY-TYPE PEOPLE. PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR TOP 5 OR 10 BUSINESS WORDS OR PHRASES THAT I SHOULD TEACH CZECH BUSINESS PEOPLE. (read above paragraph). I WILL POST ALL ENTRIES, SO MAKE THEM GOOD.
Here's some inspiration. I found it on Boston.com.
"This is our new sexy system. It is the belt and suspenders of our operation and when we open the kimono for the client, we will set the expectation moving forward. As our operation bifercates, we will take the low hanging fruit to the mat and run it up the flagpole to see if it flies and then escalate. Onesy twosey the clients will bop by. If we have a question we should take a walk to discuss deliverables and push back. We should support this from womb to tomb. The expectation is to get it on your radar so that you will have the bandwidth for deliverables."
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4 comments:
Eric here's a list of business school guy words:
spreadsheet, tps report, financial model, stapler, flare, Goldberg, strategy, yield, dividend, deliverable, poop, financial statements, sales growth, product, price, performance, i'm rick james biatch, stock ,bond, paradise city, grass is green, girls are pretty, analysis, project, management, melon, marketing.
you are missing funny episodes of the office but check out www.nbc.com...free episodes!!! and i quote dwight "go inside my trunk, there you will find many pelts, under that there is a smaller pelt..."James
If they leave your class not knowing "paradigm" they'll be as ill equipped for business as eunuchs are for... business.
Also - the phrase that's all the rage in DC is "mind-shift" F*ck if I know what it means (something something cult something?) but you can't make it through the meeting without it.
boven
money laundering, swiss bank acount, tax evasion, "nice to make your acquaintance... and is this your lovely wife? How long has she been pregnant?" personnel, export, import, perks, laissez faire (I know its French but whatever), the british are coming, yankees suck, ... And they should learn to quote the Anchorman "I'm a pretty big deal"
Punt, actionable,
"Took a bath"
"to eat the cost of"
"had to nail his feet to the starting blocks and push him over"
consumer confidence
"percieved Value"
Feature
Benefits
Imagery
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