English conversation course in Hong Kong
Oral English lessons: 1-1 and for small groups of friends
In this English conversation course we're going to talk about various topics about our daily lives, work, travel, study, shopping, family and friends, business and social situations.
The goal is that you understand native English speakers and express your ideas by speaking fluently and confidently with correct pronunciation and grammar.
If your English communication level is not good enough, we will practise simple topics with easy grammar and vocabulary.
As your English improves, we are going to work on your higher level comprehension skills and learn about jokes, humour, metaphors, analogy, stories, sarcasm. This is where you start to understand the hidden meaning of messages, connect ideas together and see the big picture. You will learn to think in English.
Jokes, humour, metaphors, analogy, stories, sarcasm, idioms
Metaphors and analogies are tools that you can use to explain something that the other person does not understand by using something as an example that they understand.
You will learn idioms and expressions. They are a group of words that have a meaning that is not deducible (understandable) from the meaning of the individual words
Understanding humour, jokes, sarcastic remarks and flirting requires creativity, understanding the culture and sub-culture and some knowledge. We will deal with these, too.
Advanced level discussion topics
Influence, control, value creation
- Hiring and firing, interviewing
- Motivating and inspiring
- Strategy and business system building
- Business planning
Job, promotion and school interview preparation
Communication
Presentation and public speaking
Effective communication strategies, theories and practice
Relationship
Dating and starting a relationship
Self-management
- Healthy eating
- Sleeping well
- Physical exercise
- Meditation
- Personal responsibility vs system dependence
- Addictions
- Habit changing
- Emotion and stress management
- Strategic, system and probability thinking
- Control, power, influence
- Self-development
- Changing habits
- Effective learning and teaching
Topics about the society and social institutions
- Social constructs: language, money, rules, culture, symbols
- Social institutions: government, education and health system, social network and taxation
- Money and the financial system
- Practical spirituality
Concepts, ideas
We are going to learn concepts in various topics. Concepts are complex ideas that might contain other complex ideas. For example, conscious mind, frameworks, power, liberty, balance sheet, derivatives, cardiovascular system. They are not just words you learn in a few seconds. You need to understand related ideas in that field to really understand the speaker's message.
When you learn something at higher level e.g. marketing, science, art therapy, computer programming, yoga, law, accounting, scuba diving, engineering, repairing air-conditioners etc. you learn concepts, not just words any more.
So concepts are complex ideas even if we use only one or two words to name them. Learning concepts means we learn a lot of interrelated concepts and see the connections and hierarchy among them.
For instance, you can learn the word “system” in a few seconds but really understanding systems needs a lot of time. I usually use 5-10 hours to teach system theory. It includes related concepts like positive feedback loop, negative feedback loop, emergent property, leverage, input, output, friction, control, cybernetics etc.
Furthermore, you can learn various theories, principles, rules, processes and procedure when you learn about a concept. So if you really want to understand a word and the world study concepts, not just words.
The flow of a lesson
You are always welcome to start any topics in the lesson. The best scenario is when we engage in a topic so deeply that we do not even think that it is an English lesson. I want you to focus on the topic we discuss and feel confident to express yourself without concentrating the accuracy of your speaking too much. Just relax and don't be nervous in the classroom.
We can talk about what has happened to you or me recently. We can talk about your work, business, office or school. Besides our every day life, we can discuss our ideas and opinion about anything: the government, education system, financial system (investments, money), health and fitness, sports, music, movies, career, travel experiences, family issues etc.