The English Challenge of Finance for Dummies

As you probably know the For Dummies series of is known for simplifying complicated topics into easy to follow steps and concepts. Nowadays, we can find a lot of this kind of friendly advice on short videos available on YouTube. So for today’s post, we will focus on one featuring financial advice for those who are not experts in the field finance.

But of course, “dummies” is just a marketing name. The material requires a great deal of thought and careful consideration. It is also expressed in a level of English that requires paying very close attention. In other words, it is a challenge.

So here is a LISTENING ACTIVITY we recommend you do with this VIDEO. You will need a solid intermediate level to achieve it.




First review the following questions:

Who is Eric Tyson?
How does he recommend we put financial advice in perspective?
What does it mean to look at your level of consumer debt?
How does Tyson recommend people direct savings into retirement accounts?
Why should we obtain proper insurance coverage?
How can someone reduce their taxes with a Health Savings Account?
How many of these tips are useful outside of the United States?

Next, WATCH the video once and answer the QUESTIONS.




Finally, WATCH the video again, using the transcript and correct your answers. Be sure to GOOGLE words and phrases you are not familiar with. You can also find any finance or business term in www.investopedia.com

Extra Activity: Prepare a short presentation about one of Eric Tyson’s suggestions and present to your class, study group or record for future assessment.


VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

I'm Eric Tyson, author of Personal Finance for Dummies and Investing for Dummies. I'm also a former financial counselor and a syndicated columnist

Pretty much everyone goes through tough times at some point in their life financially or they’re part of the general difficult environment with the economy. And it's important to keep perspective. One of the ways to do that is the look at the diet of financial advice and information you're exposing yourself to. You want to be very careful not to expose yourself to too much information especially if it’s conflicting or it's causing you to be ridden with anxiety or stress and you should look at that.

There are a number I've are useful measures for your financial health. You know, one one thing I think is really important for people to look at is the level consumer debt for example on credit cards and auto loans that they have a relative to their income. Ideally that should be 0 but if it gets up to be more than say 20 or 25 percent, that's a significant cause for concern.

To secure financial future, several things you should think about doing first. You need to live within your means. In other words, spend less than you earn. Secondly direct that savings into retirement accounts so you can get tax benefits from doing that. Types of accounts we're talking about here are like 401K plans and 403B plans. If you're self-employed, it might be a Keough plan. Retirement accounts are still a terrific guy vehicle to take advantage of. And I think they're kind of misnamed. If they were called tax reduction accounts which is what they were really are, more people, especially younger people would be attracted to take advantage of them. For every thousand dollars that you put in your retirement account you may get safe three hundred fifty dollars in federal and state income tax breaks. everyone gets the federal tax break. And in most states, you can take a state tax break as well. And once the money is in the account, in addition to those up front tax breaks, the money can compound and grow over time without taxation.

And finally, make sure you have proper insurance coverage. If anyone's depending on your income, you need to have life insurance. You want to have long term disability coverage and you also want to have proper coverage of your assets, whether it's your home or car and and things like that.

Psychologically it's difficult for people to the stick with an investment after its decline in value. And during the 2000's we've had two brutal bear markets in the stock market. Bear markets where the market's broad market averages had fallen more than 40 percent. The worst thing that you can do in an environment like that are to sell the stocks that you own after they've already collapsed and drop significantly in value because then you're not going to participate in the inevitable rebound that will will eventually happen.

If you're finding it difficult to stick to your stock market investments one simple thing to do was to go into so-called value mutual funds, value stock funds. These are funds that invest in the safest and most conservative stocks. Stocks that tend to pay good dividends, and invest in companies that tended not be cyclical companies that tend to do well during good times as well as bad. So psychologically that enables you to stay with your your stock market investments. That might be a vehicle to check out.

A number of different ways to reduce your taxes: you know, the first thing that -you know- every year you do your tax return, don't stick it into a file folder after April 15. Actually get it out, take a look at it, cause that can provide a lot of clues for how you can reduce your taxes in the year ahead. Health savings accounts are a vehicle a lot of people should consider if you have a high deductible health plan. Money that goes into the HSA can be deductible on both your federal and in most cases, your state tax returns. Even if you're looking at spending that money immediately on health care expenses, if you pass it through the HSA, so you get the tax break. And finally, look at buying a home. Homes have always been a terrific tax shelter and with prices depressed in many communities are after the real estate market slide in the early 2000's, you can get much better buys than what we've seen in quite some time.

The SIGHTS and SOUNDS of Language

By Paul Ponce, PLS Teacher

Merriam-Webster defines audiovisual as an adjective that describes anything that is related to, or uses both sight and sound. As you probably already know, the word is usually associated with the field of film and video production. So audiovisual or A/V - for short - is something that people who deal with cameras and microphones have to worry about. Nobody else.

But when you think about it, doesn't language learning also involve sight and sound? Don't we learn to speak by decoding what we see versus what we hear? Doesn't the human body come equipped with its own variety of onboard camera, microphone and speaker system. Think about it.

So here's a little story you might have heard of.

A mom approaches her little boy, looks into his eyes as she points to herself and says, "Mama". This happens a few times. The little boy sees this nice lady in front of him, who he's become quite attached to, by the way, and hears the words that come out of her mouth. His ears sample the sound bite, his eyes focus the lens of the "camera" for a close-up shot of the scene. Stuff starts to happen in the "editing room" upstairs.

For the briefest instant, the "recorded" image and sound play again in the boy's brain, as he takes his first "baby" steps into what is to become: audiovisual learning. In nano seconds, the brain reviews the information and concludes: "Hey, we have a match!", just not in those words. It's more like: This lady in front of me (image) = "Mama" (sound). Once again, to be sure, "Mama" (sound) = This lady in front of me (image). 

Finally, the litlte boy looks at the lady again and hits "play" on the sampled sound captured earlier. Out come the words, "Ma.. ma". Naturally, Mama's onboard camera captures the tender and unforgettable moment for all of eternity.

But the story continues...


That's right. Our little boy grows and the audiovisual learning advances at full speed. He learns to speak correctly and clearly. But things get complicated right around the time the little boy is taught to read and write in school.


You see, those who teach him don't encourage the use of his on-board A/V equipment for the purposes of language learning. Instead, they insist on its replacement with what they consider state-of-the-art technology. Written language.

But let's clarify. The purpose of this observation is not to knock the power of the written word. It is obviously an invaluable tool for language and communication. But here's the thing. It's not the only one.

So with that in mind. It doesn't hurt to put a little more focus on our ability to see and hear when it comes time to learn a language. After all, we continue to be audiovisual learners of many skills in life, whether we admit it or not. That's why it is unfortunate when written language operates more as a roadblock than a bridge in the language learning process.

The key is to create the opportunity for audiovisual learning to happen in a language learning context. In fact, it is a process that can be managed, depending on the level, age and scope of learning. Students must be told in advance that the activity does will not involve reading or writing. So what does it involve?

An "audiovisual" session might involve storytelling activities, guessing games and role-playing situations. It's the type of activity that levels the playing field between those who are better listener/speakers and those who are better writer/readers.  

RECOMMENDED ACTIVITY:

1. At home: Look at something, observe and think about what you see. Write down what you see. Write down what you hear.

In class: Read your description to classmates. They must guess what you were looking at. Tell them how they did.

2. At home: Watch a television commercial in English (YouTube has many).
Write down what you see. Write down some spoken parts of what is said without revealing the product or service sold in the commercial.


In class: Read your description to classmates. They must guess what the commercial was about. Tell them how they did.

The IDIOMATIC Five

Understanding and learning idioms, phrasal verbs and other challenging word combinations used by native speakers is a key part of mastering English beyond intermediate level. The purpose of this post is to provide an innovative strategy to effectively learn them.

The strategy is based on a fun 10 Episode YouTube mini-sitcom series called Idiomatic Inc that covers 5 different types of idiomatic language in a fun story-based format. Those types are: idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs, slang, collocations and proverbs. If you're not sure what the difference is between each type, the following descriptions might be of help.

• idiomatic expressions - a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words
• LIST OF IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS
• phrasal verbs - an idiomatic phrase consisting of a verb and another element, typically either an adverb or a preposition, the combined meaning of which is different from the meaning of its separate parts.
• LIST OF PHRASAL VERBS
• slang - informal words and phrases more common in speech than writing, typically restricted to a particular context.
• LIST OF SLANG
• collocations - a group of words commonly used together
• LIST OF COLLOCATIONS
• proverbs - a short, clever and popular saying that states a general truth or piece of advice.
• LIST OF PROVERBS

  

During the 10 Episodes, the series delivers that key 10 target language items and 20 plus secondary ones. By modeling each of the Idiomatic Five, the main purpose is to provide a general idea of how native speakers use simple word combinations to communicate more complex ideas in conversation.

In the story of Idiomatic Inc, a customer assistant in language services answers questions about idiomatic language in context. As it is a comedy, crazy things happen along the way. And it's those funny moments that help to drive not only meaning of the key language, but also additional language items.

Learning in Context

Of course, many people are overwhelmed at the notion of studying lists of idioms. And they should be because it is a terrible idea. The best way to truly learn idiomatic language and to understand the different types is to see how they are used in context.

Idiomatic Inc has been created so students can see how one idiomatic type differs from the other. In other words, how a phrasal verb is really used in a situation. How a proverb differs from slang. How collocations are the real backbone of the language native English speakers speak and how their combinations are limitless.

So then, beyond these 10 videos, how can English users continue to improve their proficiency in the Idiomatic Five? The best way to answer that is that by working with authentic material in context. This means text, audio and video created by native speakers for native speakers.

Truthfully, it would be pointless to study and learn all the existing idiomatic words or word combinations. There are just so many idiomatic expressions, phrasal verbs, slang expressions, collocations and proverbs. Natives certainly don’t know all of them. So why would you want to?

Instead, it is more productive to study and learn idiomatic language not only in context, but based on your interests, needs and priorities. So then, the question becomes how do you decide what those are.

Your Turn

OK, forget about idioms for a moment. Seriously. Let's talk about you. What are you interested in? What do you really like? Are you into sports, technology, fashion, politics, music, film, business, education, parenting or anything else in this world? You probably are.

This will be your topic. Choose source material about that topic. It can be a short article or video (with an available transcript). It could be a scene of a movie. Do the following.

• Read the text or watch the video.
• Write a 100 word summary describing what it is.
• Did you use the same style of language that is used in the source material? If you didn't, it's OK. It means you need to acquire idioms.
• Re-read or watch the original material again. Compare.
• Select a short passage of the text or segment of the video.
• Identify idiomatic language.
• Look for the meaning if you don't know it. Use dictionary, Google, etc to verify.
• Rewrite the summary and incorporate the idioms.
• (Wait a week) Tell someone else in English about what you read about or watched. It could be during class or during a study group session.
• Repeat again with a different topic and source material
• Repeat again with the same topic and another source material.
.

Getting Creative

Choosing idioms from a previous topic and source material, write a short story using some or all of the idiomatic language from that topic. The story doesn't need to be long. It only needs to have 4 things: a beginning, middle, end and a conflict. Share your story with your class and peers. Submit it to correction. Repeat with more idioms. With many more idioms.

Soon you will find you are incorporating idioms about the things you are interested in and are even about a few more. 

The key is: Have fun! Do not get stressed. Share your work with others and most importantly, help others with their work. You will find this last part is the most rewarding.