Sample business letter

Miles Davis

Rue du Bebop 12

1000 Brussels

Tel: 02 217 7855

Email: davis@email.com

Brussels, 17^th of January 2013

Ms Jennifer Smith

Director of Human Resources

Joint Research Centre

Rue Guimard 10

1049 Brussels

RE: The project manager vacancy (reference no. 123)

Dear Ms Smith,

Having seen the project manager vacancy posted on your HR website, I would like to hereby apply for the position.

Currently, I work as a project manager assistant in DG Research and Innovation at the European Commission. During my three years here, I have had the opportunity to acquire extensive experience not only as a team leader but also as the Acting Project Manager working on nuclear fusion research support. 

In addition, I specialised in nuclear fusion as a biophysicist during my PhD studies, with a Dissertation on transgenetic mutations. Due to my deep fascination with the intricacies of this matter, I have always been keen on pursuing my professional endeavours within the same field.

Moreover, I cherish working in a multicultural environment, since I see diversity of perspectives as an invaluable asset in approaching a given issue.

Even though working in DG Research has been a very rewarding experience concerning my professional and personal development, I am now ready for new challenges. Therefore, I am very enthusiastic about the prospect of joining your team, since you have an excellent track record in supporting nuclear fusion research. On a more personal note, I also share your views on making nuclear technology environmentally sustainable. Thus I am confident that my profile is a perfect match for the position, especially given the fact that you specialise in eliminating radiation exposure in France, where I did part my research as a PhD candidate. 

Should you want to meet me in person to discuss the details of my CV,  I would be happy to come in for an interview at a time suitable for you.

Thank you in advance for your consideration. 

Looking forward to hearing from you at your soonest convenience,

Sincerely yours,

SIGNATURE

Miles Davis

Enc: CV

Second listening summary task

Here is the BBC piece on the European Institutions.  Please listen to it while taking notes in order to write a double-spaced one-page summary report.

A whistle-stop tour of the key EU institutions

In this BBC news piece the reporter first gives us some information on the history of the European Union (EU), which can be traced back to the European Steel & Coal Community established by six European nations after the Second World War.  The Community then transformed into the Union of 27 Member States, having common positions on all policy areas from global warming to the Hungarian sewage system. The following principle is one of the main pillars of the EU policy: "the richer countries help out the poorer ones."

When it comes to understanding the legislative process of the EU, the story starts to get quite complicated, as it is a unique game consisting of three main players within a system of checks and balances unlike any other one in the world.

The first player the reporter presents is the Commission (often called "the engine of the EU") with its 27 Commissioners located in the Berlaymont building. The Schuman metro station nearby is named after a former French foreign minister, who played a crucial role in the early conception of the idea of a united Europe. It is this institution which has the right to propose laws, and where Commissioners regularly meet on Wednesdays. Commissioners and the civil servants at the Commission see themselves as the "guardians of the soul of Europe" against the petty national interests of each Member State.

These national interests are represented at the Council, the second institution the reporter mentions. Its main building has 16 meeting rooms, where ministers and ambassadors get together regularly. At least three times a year the heads of Member States meet there, as well. One could say that "a lot of the real work is done" at the bar, where the informal discussions take place.

The third big player, which is the most familiar one for anyone from a democratic country, is the European Parliament. Among the three institutions, it is the only one whose members (MEPs) are directly elected by the people. The Commission and the Council have to take MEPs' amendments on proposed laws into account. When it comes to budget decisions, they even have the power to reject the whole proposal.

The Parliament demands more and more influence within the balance of powers among the three institutions, and it seemed to be increasingly getting it at the time this report came out.  However, it is ultimately up to the national governments represented at the Council to accept or reject any given legislation proposed by the Commission.

Notes/Memos

Here you can find the document on notes or memos.  If you like, you can send me the texts for the tasks on page 10 before our next session.

Here is an another model for a memo.

Second sample reading summary

Here you can find the article to be summarised.

On target: Europe’s military failings

The article in The Economist points out that although it has lasted only three months so far, the war in Libya has brought NATO forces under severe strains, with many countries already running short of munitions. NATO operations in Libya has been very much depending on America, as it was critically pointed out by the outgoing American defence secretary, Robert Gates. This could be explained by the Europeans’ often badly targeted underspending on defence.

The journalist points out that NATO’s military strength is largely determined by how much America is willing to contribute. Although they are the strongest European members, even the British and French military capabilities remain limited. Moreover, the American attitude towards the alliance might change, and – with European countries not willing to invest more – eventually render NATO irrelevant.

To be sure, American administrations have a long tradition of frightening the Europeans by demanding better burden sharing, while appreciating their importance at least as political allies. NATO has outlasted the Soviet Union, and it is now busier than ever. However, a ‘mental change’ can be observed. America’s perspective has not stayed the same after the cold war, and Europe is expected to look after its own security. Nevertheless, the crisis has made European countries cut military spending. Until now, all European NATO members, except Britain, France and Greece, have stayed below the spending target of 2% of their GDPs, with America spending around 5% of its GDP.

Europe needs to have the capability to act, which – as Libya demonstrates – seems not to be the case right now. Even though Europeans cannot be expected to suddenly increase military spending, they should exclude it from future budgetary cuts.  They should also improve their co-ordination: There is a need to increase their efficiency and become more specialised in military equipment production to benefit from economies of scale to a much greater extent. The author concludes that although circumstances are difficult due to diverging national interests, there is no alternative to pooling.

Sample argumentative text

FLEXITIME

Flexitime is a daily/weekly work schedule, which the European Union staff may opt for when they first join the Institutions, or later on during their careers. EU staff is supposed to work 7.5 hours per day for a total of 35 hours per week. As per the flexitime system, staff may freely choose their times of arrival and departure, provided that "core time" is respected, and that a minimum of half an hour is taken for lunch breaks, as they are considered essential for well-being at work. Core time runs from 09.30 to 12.00 and from 15.00 to 16.30 (16.00 on Fridays). Whenever extra-time is cumulated at the end of the month, these hours may be reported in the following month, and compensation in the form of leaves may be taken. A maximum of two days off per month is allowed.

I believe that flexitime is extremely beneficial because it allows for a better balance between private and professional life. Thus such flexibility regarding working time helps to accommodate individual needs, whilst still respecting organizational rules at work. 

In addition, since extra-time is not remunerated at the Institutions, the possibility of having up to two days of leave per month may contribute to keeping up personnel's motivation, especially in periods of heavy workload. 

Nevertheless, some reluctance towards flexitime still exists, especially among middle and senior managers who wish to have strict control over their staff. For instance, within the Commission, since the registration of working hours is done by each staff member him/herself without any sort of external scrutiny, the misuse of the system is possible.

Personally, I consider flexitime to have a very positive impact on personnel's working conditions. Deemed as one of the main benefits of the private sector working conditions, it has thus been introduced within the European public administration.

Sample email

Dear Ms Smith,
 
Knowing that your entry into service at the European Commission is approaching, I would like to hereby extend you a warm welcome to our Unit, and provide you with some practical information.
 
As agreed during your job interview, you will be in charge of the follow-up of inter-service consultations. This position involves regular interaction and coordination with the other services of our DG as well as with other DGs. You will be working closely with Ms Black in our Unit, as inter-service consultation follow-up is a shared responsibility. Under my supervision, Ms Black will be explaining to you the various procedures, so that you can become acquainted with our working methods as soon as possible. As an attachment, I am resending your job description, in case you need it for a quick reference.
 
You should have been already informed that you will be attending a two-day training course organised by DG HR, i.e., the Directorate-General for Human Resources and Security, before taking up your duties at our Unit. This very useful course should provide you with additional information regarding the functioning of the European Commission, its working environment, and the rights and duties of its employees. During the training, you will have the opportunity to get your badge ready; all the relevant information will be provided by the trainers.
 
As a newcomer in Brussels, you might also be interested in receiving information on matters such as accommodation and public transportation. Please note that the orientation leaders at DG HR will be handing out an information package during the training, and that a legal advisor will be at your disposal to check the leases you might be considering before you sign a contract. If you need to search for an apartment, the best place to start is the immoweb website (http://www.immoweb.be/). There is also plenty of short-term accommodation available in Brussels, especially in the Schuman area close to the European Institutions. You can find all the necessary information about public transportation in Brussels at http://www.stib.be/.
 
I would also like to hereby invite you take up your duties in our Unit on Wednesday, 16th of March, i.e., after the completion of the training mentioned above.  I propose starting the day with a meeting in my office at 9.30 am.  Afterwards, I will introduce you to the members of the team you will be working in. Moreover, you will need to make an appointment to see Mr Miller (tel: +32(0)2/291 7811) in the afternoon of the same day.  I suggest making the appointment at least three days in advance, since he is usually very busy.  He is the HR focal point in our DG, and thus he will be your interlocutor for all contract related issues .
 
As you probably remember from your interview, our offices are located at Rue de la Science, 15, close to Rue Belliard. With your badge, you can come up directly to our Unit, which is located on the 7th floor; I am in office 123.
 
Looking forward to meeting you in person,
 
With kind regards,

 Iris Wellington

Sample listening summary sample

Here is the link for a presentation  by Hans Rosling on population growth.

GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH

Presentation by Hans Rosling in Cannes

Introduction

Hans Rosling presented how world population have been changing since 1960. He also made a prediction on how the progress will continue, if no action is taken to stop the growth in the poorest developing countries. He used colourful boxes to describe the population sizes and statistical data on progress. Each box represented one billion people.

Evolution

In 1960 there were two boxes for the developing world and one box for the industrialised western world. There was a big gap in levels of wealth between the west and the rest. While people’s goal in the western world was to get their own cars, people in developing countries dreamed of new sandals.

Since 1960 the gap between these two categories of countries has been reduced, and world population has more than doubled. If the growth continues at its current trend, the population will reach 9 billion by 2050.

Solution

According to Rosling the only way to stop this growth is by getting the poorest people out of poverty, giving them education and increasing their child survival rate. This will dramatically affect the number of children per woman.

The most developed poor countries have gotten closer to the western world when it comes to birth rate. However, we still have the 2 billion poor people, whose birth rate is almost six children per woman. If four of those children survive to adulthood, the population in the poorest countries will double from 2 to 4 billion in one generation.

Statistically, it is shown that birth rate is lower in wealthiest and healthiest countries where child survival rate is near 100%.  As such, Rosling describes child survival as the new green. Only by investing in improving the living conditions of the  poorest countries, the current trend can be stopped, and the rate of global population growth can be kept at a sustainable level.

Sample reading summary

Here is a text from The Economist, which you can read and write a summary report on. 

Cross-border co-operation or redrawing borders

A summary of Charlemagne’s article

In 1968 a language war took place at the University of Leuven splitting it into two parts. This was followed by a series of divisions within the Belgian Catholic church and major national political parties. The championing of the linguistic agenda eventually turned Belgium into a near-ungovernable state.

The last election in June 2010 left the Kingdom with a caretaker government for 230 days, thereby breaking a new European record. Nonetheless, due to its many-layered decentralised administration, daily life went on in Belgium. The country even chaired the rotating European Presidency without any problems during the second half of 2010. "Eurocrats", along with financial markets, seemed not to be worried about living in a paralysed country with a giant public debt close to 100% of its GDP.

Over the years up to the time this article came out, the break-up of Belgium had looked less and less unthinkable. Nevertheless, any hint of partition would trigger a dumping of Belgian bonds because of the uncertainty over who would pay back the federal debt.

Yet, some Flemish separatists, who are comforted by a strong euro and an ever-deeper integration of the EU, hope that Europe would be the acid that dissolves Belgium. As such, even though Europe overcame a lot of historic enmities within its borders as national sovereignties eroded through the EU integration, which is an antidote for violent nationalism, this integration process also enables non-violent groups, such as the Flemish separatists, to act up and receive broad support from voters. This means that a precedent of a rich region pulling away from a poorer one would concern many other EU Member States, such as Spain or Italy.

Luckily, conundrums created by overlapping communities are better solved with democratic tools, such as minority rights, autonomy or tolerance, rather than by redrawing borders.

Sample synthesis summary

Here you can find the main article which is to be synthesized with a second article in a summary report.

The U-bend of life
Why, beyond middle age, people get happier as they get older

According to many recent social, medical and economic studies, people should not dread ageing, as life is not a long slow decline but rather a U-bend.

After a cheerful adulthood and a depressing mid-life crisis, luckily things do not go downhill further. Although old age means losing treasures such as vitality, mental sharpness and looks, what is surprising is that the elderly finally find what they spend their lives pursuing, namely happiness.

Unconvinced by the conventional direct relationship between money and well-being, some economists have established a new branch of economics based on the new concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which policy makers have been increasingly taking into account.

Statisticians have been trying to find the answer to the perennial question of what makes people happy. Surveys have been conducted to measure two sides of this issue, i.e., global well-being and hedonic or emotional well-being. Moreover, the following four main factors have emerged from the collected data: gender, personality, external circumstances and age.

The U-bend was noticed in the early 1990s, and if turned upside down, it becomes an arc, peaking at the age of 46, when people are the most depressed.

Researchers believe that the U-bend must be the result of internal changes, not external circumstances. Older people have fewer rows and come up with better solutions to conflicts; they are better at controlling their emotions and at accepting misfortunes; they are also less prone to anger, and come to accept their strengths and weaknesses.

The U-bend also shows us that old people are healthier, as happier people are less likely to catch viruses and recover from illnesses more quickly. Thus, the cheerfulness of the old helps counteract their crumbliness and loss of productivity due to declining cognitive skills—a point worth remembering as the world is trying to work out how to deal with an ageing workforce.

Money really can buy you happiness with some qualifications
 
It is widely believed that money cannot buy happiness, and that growth-oriented free-market economies have got it wrong. Many recent studies have shown only a loose correlation between money and happiness when measured over time or across countries. The “Easterlin paradox” suggests that well-being depends not on absolute, but on relative income. For, people feel miserable not because they are poor, but because they are at the bottom of the particular pile in which they find themselves.

As data on the effect of income on well-being is now available almost everywhere in the world, the huge variation in life satisfaction across countries is becoming increasingly evident. Although developed countries score up to eight and developing countries as low as three out of ten, cultural factors are also at work, such as the ones prevailing over the surprisingly gloomy Portuguese in the Western World. Another example is the case of Hong Kong and Denmark, which have similar incomes per person, but respectively score 5.5 and eight on the ten-point scale. Along the same lines, the saddest place in the world relative to its income per person is Bulgaria.

Greetings and closers

Here is a list of greetings you can use in your formal emails depending on the recipient:

• Anonymous singular:

1. Dear Sir/Madam
2. Dear Madam/Sir
3. Dear Sir or Madam
4. Dear Madam or Sir

• Anonymous plural:

1. Dear Sirs/Ladies
2. Dear Ladies/Sirs
3. Dear Sirs and/or Ladies
4. Dear Ladies and/or Sirs

• With a given male name: Dear Mr Smith

• With a given female name:

1.  Dear Ms Smith (civil status irrelevant or unknown)
2.  Dear Mrs Smith (married)
3.  Dear Miss Smith (single and younger than fifty)

• With given names to a group of less than three people (male):  Dear Messrs Smith and Jones

• With given names to a group of less than three people (female):

1. Dear Mses Smith and Jones (civil statuses unknown, irrelevant or different)
2. Dear Mesdames Smith and Jones (both of them married)
3. Dear Misses Smith and Jones (both of them single and younger than fifty)

• With given names to a group of less than three people (mixed gender and not related to each other by marriage or blood): 

1. Dear Messrs Smith and Jones, and Ms Presley 
2. Dear Ms Presley, and Messrs Smith and Jones

• With a given name to a couple who use the same last name:

1. Dear Mr and Mrs Smith 
2. Dear Mrs and Mr Smith 

• With given names to a group of more than three people (mixed gender):

1. Dear Sirs/Ladies
2. Dear Ladies/Sirs
3. Dear Sirs and Ladies
4. Dear Ladies and Sirs

• With given names to a group of more than three people (all male): Dear Sirs

• With given names to a group of more than three people (all female): Dear Ladies 

• With a given first and last name and the gender is not clear:  Dear Alex Smith

Here is a list of closers which apply to all formal emails regardless of their content:

• With kind regards
• Kind regards
• Regards

You can hereby find a document on how to address various VIPs in different contexts.

Memo

Here you can find an example for a memo.  Source: Market Leader Upper Intermediate Business English Course Book by David Cotton, et al.

Minutes

Here is a document on writing minutes. 

 

Here you can find an example for minutes.  Source: Market Leader Upper Intermediate Business English Course Book by David Cotton, et al.

Notes and reports

I am hereby making a document available with tips on taking notes with the intention of writing reports.  There is also some information on how to write reports by expanding from given information, e.g., in an advertisement, which may not consist of full sentences, .

Here is a text from The Economist, which you can read and write a summary report on.  Those of you who could not join us on 14th of April, this article is to be read with the intention of writing a summary of not longer than one 1.5-spaced page.  If you can send me the summary before our next session on 28th of April, we can talk about it during our workshop.

Here is a speech text, which can be used as an exercise for taking notes and writing a summary.

Here is a stream of a BBC news piece, which you can watch once as you take notes.  You can then bring the notes to a summary report.

Here you can find four advertisements, each one of which can be expanded into a report.