First day with my classes was yesterday. The classes were good and I enjoyed teaching the students but I had to teach in wet feet as my shoes have large holes in the soles of both of them. They are now in the trash. My students will not have text books for my class. I am going to get print outs and roll that way. I think it is to late to get them to buy books that may not get here in time for the class. Chuck has found two websites that have Business Negotiation work on them and I’m just going to create something from there. Most of my students were easily half my age with some English training. As David(Scotish English teacher friend), said even seasoned speakers have a hard time breaking out of the shy behavior that Chinese school students have.
Not much to say thus far, today we are going to go shopping and first on
my list of things to get is a pair of rain boots. When I woke up this morning, my right pinkie toe hurt, I soaked my feet this morning and gave myself a pedicure. That made me feel better and my toe is not hurting as much. I discovered this morning that clothes that are laid out to air dry are not as soft as clothes from a dryer. I’m going to look and see if there is a fabric softener that I can use that won’t make me itch and soften our clothing. I’m sleepy and I don’t understand that, I went to bed when I was sleepy last night and didn’t stay up but perhaps having two class yesterday was more of a drain on my energy than I realized. Hmmm, not the best of things, I’ve got lots of work to do for that class to be prepared for it next week. I read the papers that my student’s wrote. Everyone seems to have a common thread that they are much more connected to their feelings than American kids are. They are more intouch with how the weather makes them feel, with how colors effect their moods. It was amazing and eye opening for me. The name of the class is called Business Negotiation English. In my book students need to have good English skills in order to communicate well with someone to say nothing of Business Negotiations. As an American, when I deal with someone for whom English isn’t the first language, if they can’t talk well, I want to deal with someone else. The class is 90 minutes long with a 5 minute break after 45 minutes so I think that I will work it like this for the first half of class we will work on polishing English Skills and the second half of class will be about different negotiation styles that they may see. I’m going to use my own work as a model, negotiations for me aren’t on a corporate level but perhaps one of the trickiest business models, that of the Entrepreneur. As a private teacher for 28 years I’ve had my share of parents that are real laid back about lessons for their kids, and other parents that are more difficult to please and everyone in between. I think this will be a good place to start. We can explore small business operations next negotiations with the vendors we have worked with in our Martial Arts business. Lastly, we can look at negotiations dealing with larger companies; how to convince a company that they need to go to a more efficient model of their product etc. I was thinking about Ford Motor for that one this morning. I see lots of different models of cars here, but few from the Big 3 auto makers in America and I think that may be in part because they really seem to be downsizing slowly. It is almost like we are dragging them into the 21st century kicking and screaming. Cars here in China are smaller and way more energy efficient. That is something that the consumer in China is also mindful of. Americans are not as concerned with what is wasteful like leaving power plugs connected to the electrical outlet even when we are not using our laptop or charging our cell phone or whatever. Negotiating with a business that is already doing well and showing them how to continue doing well may prove to be the most interesting of business negotiations that I can show them. Wow, for not having much to say I sure wrote lots. I’ll write more when we get back from our trips out today…if I every get tired of being tired…LOL
Not much to say thus far, today we are going to go shopping and first on
my list of things to get is a pair of rain boots. When I woke up this morning, my right pinkie toe hurt, I soaked my feet this morning and gave myself a pedicure. That made me feel better and my toe is not hurting as much. I discovered this morning that clothes that are laid out to air dry are not as soft as clothes from a dryer. I’m going to look and see if there is a fabric softener that I can use that won’t make me itch and soften our clothing. I’m sleepy and I don’t understand that, I went to bed when I was sleepy last night and didn’t stay up but perhaps having two class yesterday was more of a drain on my energy than I realized. Hmmm, not the best of things, I’ve got lots of work to do for that class to be prepared for it next week. I read the papers that my student’s wrote. Everyone seems to have a common thread that they are much more connected to their feelings than American kids are. They are more intouch with how the weather makes them feel, with how colors effect their moods. It was amazing and eye opening for me. The name of the class is called Business Negotiation English. In my book students need to have good English skills in order to communicate well with someone to say nothing of Business Negotiations. As an American, when I deal with someone for whom English isn’t the first language, if they can’t talk well, I want to deal with someone else. The class is 90 minutes long with a 5 minute break after 45 minutes so I think that I will work it like this for the first half of class we will work on polishing English Skills and the second half of class will be about different negotiation styles that they may see. I’m going to use my own work as a model, negotiations for me aren’t on a corporate level but perhaps one of the trickiest business models, that of the Entrepreneur. As a private teacher for 28 years I’ve had my share of parents that are real laid back about lessons for their kids, and other parents that are more difficult to please and everyone in between. I think this will be a good place to start. We can explore small business operations next negotiations with the vendors we have worked with in our Martial Arts business. Lastly, we can look at negotiations dealing with larger companies; how to convince a company that they need to go to a more efficient model of their product etc. I was thinking about Ford Motor for that one this morning. I see lots of different models of cars here, but few from the Big 3 auto makers in America and I think that may be in part because they really seem to be downsizing slowly. It is almost like we are dragging them into the 21st century kicking and screaming. Cars here in China are smaller and way more energy efficient. That is something that the consumer in China is also mindful of. Americans are not as concerned with what is wasteful like leaving power plugs connected to the electrical outlet even when we are not using our laptop or charging our cell phone or whatever. Negotiating with a business that is already doing well and showing them how to continue doing well may prove to be the most interesting of business negotiations that I can show them. Wow, for not having much to say I sure wrote lots. I’ll write more when we get back from our trips out today…if I every get tired of being tired…LOL