English audio course

Dear Listener, more and more people in the world are learning English. English is the mother tongue of many countries not only Great Britain and the United States, but Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And English is also the language of international communication. New technology like the Internet is bringing people closer together and today we have the chance to exchange our thoughts and ideas with people from all around the world. 

You are German and Germany has the biggest economy within the European Union, the EU. Your country is the number one exporter of goods and in the future you will do even more business with companies from other countries, especially within the EU. That's why you want to improve your English. Your children are learning English at school and probably they listen to English pop music and surf the Internet where most of the information is in English. There are so many motivations for you to learn English and we are very glad you have made that decision and we want to help you. 

We are English-Online, a British-German company that helps German people learn English. We use new technologies such as email, the world wide web and SMS to communicate with our students. My name is Sue Darville and I am from Bristol in England and I will record personalized voice messages for you. 

You can listen to these messages every day when you are at home maybe during breakfast or, when you are in your car or during your lunch break. The most important thing is listen to the CD over and over and over again. 

In addition there will be an English class for you once a week. When you listen to the CD every day for 10 -- 15 minutes you will understand more and more. In the English class you will read the text which you are now hearing and you can ask questions. You will also practise the grammar. But the most important thing -- the backbone so to speak -- is this CD. Do you remember how you learned German, your mother tongue? Children hear their mother tongue every day for 12 hours or more absorbing the words effortlessly and then they start repeating words. You can do the same with English. Listen to this CD every day for a certain period of time and you will see how your understanding improves and increases. 
I'm looking forward to working with you. 

Best regards, 
Sue Darville, Bristol, England.

Introduction

Hello everybody, how are you today? I'm fine because when you are listening to this CD our new English class has started. This means I will meet new interesting people from Saxony or other parts of Germany. Where exactly are you from? What do you do? Why do you want to practise and improve your English? There are so many questions I'd like to ask, but let me tell you something about myself first: 

I'm Sue Darville and I live in a suburb of Bristol in the south west of England. Bristol is a very large city and it's famous for both its university and its connection with the world of hot air ballooning. Have you ever flown in a hot air balloon? It's an amazing experience. Every summer people from all over the world come to Bristol to take part in the international hot air balloon fiesta. If you like I can tell you more about this wonderful event. In the meantime you can tell me something about your situation. Are you from a small town or a large city? What is your area famous for? I have heard a lot about Leipzig and its international trade fair. There is a lot of information on Leipzig on the Internet and much of it is in English. What do you do? What is your job? I have two jobs: I work for a financial company as a financial advisor but I'm also the co-founder of English-Online, a British-German company. Both my jobs are very interesting as every day something new happens. 

What about your job? Is it interesting? How much time do you spend at work and what do you do in your freetime to relax? 
I wish you a lot of fun in your English class and say goodbye until our next session.

Getting to know each other

Hello everyone, this is Sue from English Online again. How are you doing? Today I'm going to tell you something about my daily activities. 

I usually get up at about 6:30 and the first thing I do is switch on the radio. It's always tuned to BBC radio news so I start the day with the latest happenings and events. 

My workplace is very close by so I'm able to walk. It takes about ten minutes to get there and it's good exercise for me as I try to walk very fast. 

I usually start work at 8:45 and I finish about 5:15. We work for a large financial company. There are 10 people in our office -- 7 financial advisors, a customer manager, a company trainer and coach and our area manager. I have a desk with a PC and a telephone. From my PC, I can access the Internet as well as our corporate intranet. All of our clients are private individuals who need advice on how to invest their money. They contact our company either via email or phone or through personal contact to make an appointment with one of the advisors. Then, they come to the office and we design a personal investment plan for them. 

My job is to handle the day to day administration for my area manager who has 10 offices to run. I also help develop training needs analysis for our coach and I devise informational spreadsheets. I also take my turn at advising our clients when I am needed. I enjoy the personal contact with them as they come from all walks of life and are all ages. 

All of our corporate clients are handled by our head office so we do not see any of them.

Job activities

Hello everyone, in this session we will practise the English alphabet. It's very important for you to spell the names of people and addresses properly. 

The letters of the English alphabet are pronounced as follows. 

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 

Now, you will hear those letters which have similar sounds grouped together: 
In the first groups there are the letters that sound like similar to word "age": 

A, H, J, K

Alphabet 1

The letters in the second group sound similar to the word "see": 

B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V. 

The letters in the third group sound similar to the word ten: 

F, L, M, N, S, X. 

The letters in group number 4 sound similar to the word "drive": 

I, Y. 

Then there is the letter O as in the word "home". 

In the next group the letters sound like in the word "too": 

Q, U, W. 

And finally there is the letter "R" which jsounds like the word "car", "bar", "scar".

Alphabet 2

Now, can you spell your name? My name is spelled as follows: 

D, A, R, V, I, L, L, (or double L) E. 

My first name is Sue, that's spelled: 

S, U, E. 

Now, can you write down the following words: 

B, U, S, I, N, E, S, S, or "double S". 

C, O, M, P, U, T, E, R, 

M, A, N, A, G, E, R, 

E, N, G, I, N, E, E, R, 

E, X, E, C, U, T, I, V, E.

Questions and exercises

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New words and expressions

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