Category Archives: Speaking

1509, 2021

Useful verbs to describe trends in Business and the Economy

carole/ septiembre 15, 2021/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Business Themes, Grammar, Speaking, Spelling, Vocabulary/ 0 comments

A trend signifies a situation that is developing or changing. There are three specific changes I wish to highlight in this blog:
1) Financial (Sales, profits, costs, budgets)
Sales fell slightly last quarter.
Profits have risen 3% year-on-year.
2) Marketing (Market share)
We saw some growth in market share last year
Sales in the Asian market dropped by 10% last year
3) Economy (Inflation, interest rates, unemployment, house prices)
There has been a steady rise in inflation.
Unemployment has increased this year
House prices went up last year

1309, 2021

Trends in Teaching Today

carole/ septiembre 13, 2021/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Exams, Grammar, Pronunciation, Reading, Speaking, Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing/ 0 comments

We describe a trend as the way a situation develops or changes. Since COVID-19, Language Schools have had to adapt their styles of teaching. Classroom sizes have become smaller to allow for 2 metre distances between desks and students are obliged to wear masks and frequently wash their hands with hydroalcoholic gel.

3103, 2021

Is working from home reducing stress?

carole/ marzo 31, 2021/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Grammar, Learning online, Pronunciation, Reading, Speaking, Technology, Vocabulary, Writing/ 0 comments

Jordan Friedman, a prodigious Stress Coach from New York has been developing stress management programmes for over 20 years. Some of the main stressors his clients talk about are money, commuting, and too much to do in too little time. He believes that we are more stressed today than we were 20 years ago.

2610, 2020

Crime Vocabulary can help you read or listen to News in English

carole/ octubre 26, 2020/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Business Themes, Grammar, Pronunciation, Reading, Speaking, Vocabulary, Writing/ 0 comments

Apart from the daily topic of Covid-19, a typical news story will start with a crime of some sort. It may be petty, stealing someone’s handbag or it may be more serious i.e. killing a person in a bar fight. Each crime carries a punishment which can be serious depending on the level of the crime.

1208, 2020

How we add and contrast information in English

carole/ agosto 12, 2020/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Business Themes, Exams, Grammar, Pronunciation, Reading, Speaking, Technology, Vocabulary, Writing/ 0 comments

The word and is said to be the most common word in English to add information both for natives and non-natives alike. We see it in schools ´Read and Write´, we see it in car magazines ´Buy and Sell´, we see it in bars ´Gin and Tonic´, we see it in condiments ´Salt and Pepper.´ So how can we add information to avoid having to monopolise this little three little word and?

0207, 2020

Do you like being corrected?

carole/ julio 2, 2020/ Blog Carole Brown Idiomas, Business Themes, Exams, Grammar, Pronunciation, Reading, Speaking, Technology, Vocabulary, Writing/ 0 comments

Error correction is a well-worn topic and much has been written about it. In this blog, I don´t intend to reinvent the wheel but maybe throw some fresh light on it. In truth nobody likes to be corrected but unfortunately in language learning it is all part of the process. It is impossible to advance without learning from our mistakes.