Ex. 7. Comment on the following saying:
«The Spanish live to work and the British work to live. The British live to work and the Spanish work to live»
What about the Russians?
Ex. 8. Scan part of an interview for a job. Are people in our country similar to the Spanish in the workplace culture? Do you agree with Peter?
Int: OK. I know you’ve worked in Spain and Britain. Are there any differences between the workplace culture in the two countries?
Peter: Mmm, it was a while, a few years ago that I was in Spain, and I think that Britain and Spain have probably become more similar, but the thing I noticed most was that the Spanish work in order to enjoy their lives far more so than they do in Britain.
Ex. 9. Write your objectives and your action plan for getting a better job or promotion. Think about:
· skills you need to develop;
· qualifications you need;
· where you need to look for information and job advertisements.
Unit III
Gender Problems at Work
Lead-in
Ex. 1. Work in pairs to discuss the following questions.
a) Do you think men and women have different styles in their work place?
b) If you were to work in a team would you prefer to work with men or women?
c) Do you think women are good bosses? Top managers?
Focus on speaking I
Ex. 1. Look at the cartoons and say which figures you think represent men and which represent women? Ⓑ Ⓒ
Ⓐ
confrontational, competitive
personal
achievement
comes firstshare credit for success
forceful, self-protective, challenging, direct
collaborative in control
talk about personal matters welcome contributions
hysterical
Ex. 2. Below are the titles to newspaper articles. What might the articles be about? What modal verbs will you use to express supposition?
a) Women-bosses are endangered species.
b) Do you hate female bosses?
c) Women: still lonely at the top?
d) More women on top corporate jobs.
e) Female bosses 10% more likely to be fired than men.
Focus on reading I
Ex. 1. Skim the first paragraph and identify the main topic of the passage.
Ex. 2. The text has eight main sub-sections. Scan the text and match the cartoons in exercise 1 to the sections.
Ex. 3. Skim the headings to the reading passages and see if they match the contents of the sub-sections.
Men and women do things differently. There are, of course, exceptions to every generalisation, including this one. Cristina Stuart is a managing director of Speakeasy Training, a consultancy that runs courses for men and women working together. Here she describes a few key differences between the sexes in the workplace.
Working together
A. The male approach to business is competitive, direct and confrontational. The end justifies the means. Personal status and a focus on the individual are important.
The female method is collaborative. Collective action and responsibility are more important than personal achievement. Lateral thinking, as well as goodwill and the well-being of the individual, are also of great importance.
Tackling problems
B. The male approach is to go to the heart of the problem, without taking into account secondary considerations. The female preference is to look at various options.
Body language
C. Male body language tends to be challenging. Female body language tends towards self-protection. A stereotypical female pose is sitting cross-legged; the male sits with legs apart to give an impression that he is in control. Male behaviour can include forceful gestures for example banging a fist on the desk for effect. The female style does not usually include aggressive gestures.
Language
D. The male way of speaking does not encourage discussion. Women tend to welcome others' opinions and contributions more.
Conversation
E. Men like to talk about their personal experiences and achievements or discuss 'masculine' topics such as cars or sport. Women tend to talk about staff problems and personal matters.
Meetings
F. If a woman does not copy the male confrontational style, she is often ignored.
Self-promotion
G. Men find it easy to tell others about their successes. Women tend to share or pass on the credit for a success.
Humour
H. Men's humour can be cruel, a man's joke usually has a victim. Female humour is less hurtful. A woman often jokes against herself.
Caveat
Many men have a female style of working. Equally many women have a male approach. As Ms Stuart says many of the current management theorems – flatter organizations, empowerment, managing by consensus have a female style to them.
Ex. 4. According to the text, which of these phrases are typically used by men and which of them by women?
Example:
‘It’s very simple. The point is …’
Men. Because ‘the male approach is to go to the heart of the matter.’
a) ‘But we also need to take account of …’
b) ‘You look worried. What do you think about the new plan?’
c) ‘That’s rubbish!’
d) ‘I built the department from nothing.’
e) ‘Thanks for your kind words, but this really was a team effort.’
f) ‘It was so funny. He looked ridiculous!’
Ex. 5. Read the text carefully. Which sub-sections might contain the following phrases as illustrations of the main idea of each paragraph?
a) “Have you heard about Steve? He is going to divorce his wife!”
b) “Let’s get straight down to business. Don’t beat about the bush!”
c) “I’d rather work in a team with a supportive manager.”
d) “The deadline is tomorrow!”
e) “Despite his tough image the boss is quite sentimental.”
f) “It is disappointing that we could not make this import contract but that’s life!”
g) “I hate bitching about my colleagues but ….”
Focus on vocabulary
Word building
