Business English Special - Part I

En PLS hacemos todo lo posible para brindarles cursos, workshops y herramientas para acercar el inglés a miles de profesionales que confían en nosotros día a día.

Por eso, en esta ocación acercamos el contenido especial de dos Video Boosters especiales de Business English provistos por nuestros partners de la innovadora plataforma online English Attack!

Para visualizarlos necesita acceso a English Attack! PREMIUM, pero por ser parte de nuestra comunidad, le brindamos una semana a dicho servicio. Para validarlo, simplemente realicen las actividades del Video Booster del día (ubicado en el cuadro de English Attack de ésta página, en la colúmna a la derecha >>) y luego registrense gratuitamente en English Attack!). Luego, proceda a realizar los Video Boosters de Business English recomendados:

Temario de Video Boosters:

TEMA 1 - Starting Meetings Effectively
Comenzamos viendo un tema central de todas las empresas - las reuniones de negocios - y aprendiendo en inglés maneras de hacerlas más eficientes.

TEMA 2 - 4 Ways to Think Like an Innovator
Abrimos la mente para ver cómo podemos ser más creativos en la búsqueda de soluciones y hacer grandes productos o servicios. Y todo mientras aprendemos inglés. (basado en material del Harvard Business Review)

Cada Video Booster no lleva más de 10 minutos de realizar, y las instrucciones lo van guiando paso a paso. Pero recomendamos hacerlo más de una vez para fijar los conceptos.

Una vez que caduque la semana PREMIUM, podrán seguir haciendo el material gratuito de Video Boosters de English Attack! o bien preguntar por los planes de empresa de English Attack! a través de PLS que están a un precio especial no disponible en la página de English Attack! e incluyen actividades y workshops adicionales.

En English Attack! además de Video Boosters, podrán practicar con listas de PhotoVocabs temáticos muy variados y relevantes y practicar a través de Juegos de aprendizaje. Aquí destacamos uno muy bueno basado en una charla de TED.  Ver Aquí

STORIES: The Most Effective BUSINESS Communication TOOL

Overlooked in business until recently, storytelling tunes into our ancestral quest for insight on the world and its wonders.

In fact, stories read to us as children taught us to organize our own experience in the way of a story. So whether you like it or not, Cinderella, Star Wars or The Hardy Boys had a hand in shaping your vision of yourself. Your story.

Cognitive psychologists have written volumes about this, so has Joseph Campbell.

But here's the bottom line. As adults, we continue to organize our experiences in story form. In fact,  the story template is embedded deep within our psyche. We are intrinsically familiar with it.

This is why stories move us.

The fact that business doesn't take advantage of this when communicating is simply a leftover from the linear "inside the box" industrial era mentality . In today's mash-up world, new combinations and innovation are simply necessary for survival. There's a new generation of buyers and sellers out there and they don't want to be spoken to with the same deliverance their grandaddy was.

Why? Because they're tired of being "sold to", of being told that companies have always been great and perfect and everything about them shines. That's a crock, businesses know it, and so does everyone and their dog. But here's the thing. People still need stuff, they still want to do business, and yes, they still want to make a buck. And they can accept that the road to success ain't easy or pretty.

That's why deep down inside they're looking for a deeper connection, a sign that whatever they've decided to do has a meaning beyond the obvious commercial transaction.

That meaning could be the name of a product or a project or perhaps, its scope, its design, its back-story. Or all of the above. But it will only reach this potential stakeholder in the way of a message that has some sort of semblance to a story. Facts and figures might support an argument rationally, but they will achieve nothing on the emotional plane.

And folks, there's very little emotion in your average business communication piece. Read a press release, website copy, or listen to the average key note speech and draw your own conclusions.

Today's volatile and challenging business world requires messages to stand out. To be meaningful. To draw us in. To connect to the audience. 

So who can lend a hand?

Business Communication Consultant / Writer & Producer Pablo Ponce de Leon can. His extensive experience in Film and Television - including Hollywood - combined with his years working as communication consultant for businesses in Latin America make him the ideal candidate to help you establish a meaningful connection to an audience in any business situation.

So forget pie charts and bullet points and get ready to take your audience on the journey of human experience! Pablo's business storytelling method is ideal for, but not limited to:

• Sales Presentations
• Product Presentations
• Key Note Speeches
• Social Media Marketing Campaigns
• Exhibit Concept Creation
• Staff training
• Ad Copy
• Web Copy
• Blogging
• Video presentations
• Online advertising
• Buzz marketing concepts

His upcoming PLS Workshop "Storytelling in Business" will help provide insight into how to make use of this tool for your business communication in English. But as you'll discover, the skills will be quite useful to you in your native language as well.

For more information: contact PLS at: pls@pls.com.ar

A MOVIE about... a Word Collocation

In language, when two or more words are commonly used together, it is called a word collocation. That's why when students ask the meaning of a word out of context, we often try to first see if the word is used "alone", which is often not the case or if it's often part of something bigger.

There are verb collocations, noun collocations and special collocations for every field imaginable: business, medicine, technology and as we'll see today, music. (see links below for details)

So to understand the logic behind collocations, let's focus on a special case. Let's take the word air. Naturally, we'll assume you know the basic meaning of this word. After all, you're breathing it.

Now, there are many word collocations that begin with the word air that are popularly used in the English language. So let's check out a few:

air force - a military force that uses aircraft to engage the enemy

air conditioner - a device that provides climate control to cool a house or a building

air hockey - a game played on a table that sprays out air on its surface, whereby players must shoot a hockey puck into their opponent's goal; also known as table hockey

air guitar - an activity that involves imitating a guitar player when we don't have a guitar, practiced by kids and teenagers across the world


As you can see, each one is quite different than the simple word air. So, what about the movie, right?

We were just getting to that part. So just like there is air guitar, what would you call an activity that involves mimicking a drummer when you don't have a drum set?

air drumming

So to end this blog post, we have a full comedy movie that deals with this topic.

Adventures of Power


"Adventures of Power" (Subtitulado en Español) por AriGoldFilms

It's an epic comedy about a mine-worker named Power whose love of drums and lack of musical skill has turned him into the ridiculed "air drummer" of his small town. But when Power's union-leader father calls a strike at the mine, Power discovers an underground subculture of air-drummers who just might hold the key to changing the world. Power's journey across America brings him face-to-face with his town's greatest enemy, and allows him to discover the beat within his own heart and fall in love.


Ari Gold, the star and director of this comedy provided free special access to his film to viewers in Latin America, when he was unable to get distribution in those countries. The movie stars some well-known actors like Micheal McKean (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Jane Lynch (40 year-old virgin) and Adrian Greiner (Entourage).

Enjoy the movie and feel free to recommend it, as it is a very legal copy.

For more on collocations, please check out:

This excellent guide: http://esl.about.com/od/engilshvocabulary/a/collocations.htm

This fun quiz: http://esl.about.com/library/vocabulary/blcollocation_1.htm

And as a final note, if you can "air guitar" or "air drum", what else can you "air do" for fun?