Your first assignment is to write a dialogue of your own and present it to your audience in class. The following requirements will help you complete a piece of good work.

1. Topic and Situations

The topic of this assignment is Office and Telephone Conversation. You probably like to use about 4-5 situations selected from the 13 ones suggested in my handouts. If you have extra time left, you may try to "briefly" talk about personnel problems or supplier/client relationship. For personnel problems, please refer to your textbook, Hacikyan's Business in English: A Communicative Skills Approach p. 1,8,32,39 or situations like praising or criticizing staff performance. For client relationship, you cannot give very professional viewpoints at this stage. However, you can still give reasonable negotiations by referring to the occasions like ordering, delivery, payment or complaint and settlement which have already been accessible to you from your general reading like books, newspapers or magazine articles.

To make your audience able to follow your speech, you need to give a brief situation summary at the beginning of each situation (which can be indicated by ACT 1, 2, 3…, a technique used in theater scripts).

2. Required Minimum Time and Participants

Since your group is made of 3 or 4 students, your dialogue will last about 15-25 minutes for a group presentation. The reason for doing this is to offer each student a chance to speak English 5 minutes or so.

3. Presentation

Type your dialogues on computers. The deadline for the written work is: 10/23. Hand in your work by printed pages. Disk assignment has not been finally decided yet but it is likely for doing so in the future. Wait for my announcement. You are supposed to present your office dialogue by speaking confidently and naturally in front of your audience. You are not allowed to do manuscript reading. Presentation date is 12/18.

E-mail me other issues or concerns not included in this guideline. We can find out workable solutions. Good luck and my best wishes to your study!

Your third assignment is to write a letter to confirm and/or acknowledge a company's decision or action upon an important business deal or engagement. To complete your assignment acceptably, use the following requirements and regulations.

1、BUSINESS CONTEXT

The business context includes the following options:

• Informing of a payment for a purchase, subscription, or service (p.93 & 94; handout like Reader Digest or Time Magazine order form),
• Confirming a sales contract (p.95 or the handout: license agreement),
• Submitting a program draft for approval (p.96),
• Confirming prices and discounts (p.100; handout of a price list ),
• Confirming travel arrangements (p.102),
• Other occasions which are familiar, interesting and useful to you

Choose one situation for writing your business letter.

2、GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

• You need to attach a brief summary of the business situation to the letter.
  
  For instance, if you choose to write travel arrangements, your summary needs to describe for what occasion an invitation takes place. This invitation can be a visit to a business organization or participation in a convention. In your confirmation letter, you can be the host company which issues such an invitation or the guest who is acknowledging his acceptance.
  
  
• Two pages of your letter are required. First, write your summary (about 50-80 words) on one page. Then write your official letter on the second page.
  
  
• E-mail your homework to me at/before the deadline. After emailing your homework, don't forget to save the data to the disk. Please ask for a free disk from me for this task.
  
  
• When e-mailing, fill in the subject line by writing a short phrase like "homework 3". Also, please write a few sentences in the message area for the sake of courtesy. Don't leave the space blank.
  
  
• Include the necessary letter parts. Use both the formal letter format and styles, but you don't need to attach an addressed envelope in your e-mail message.

DISUCSSION

• When you need to brainstorm with me, write down your questions, uncertainties or doubts and e-mail them to me. Our web discussion zone is still under construction. Therefore, clicking the discussion button on BEPP webpage is useless at the moment. However, discussion through e-mail transfer is a tentative solution. You are encouraged to discuss issues with me and your classmates.

ASSIGNMENT GUIDELINE 5

The business situation practiced in this assignment is about payment collection. This can be a third reminder after your telephone, fax or e-mail message to remind the customer of the overdue payment for a large amount of money. You urge their quick response to your request. For instance, this business deal can be a purchase order of quite a number of computers or a refund for dissatisfactory delivery or damaged merchandise.

Sometimes collection can involve small amount of money. In this case, collectors do not follow sophisticated system as reminders, but a form letter still needs to be sent to remind the customer of his/her duty. This can be a subscription fee to your magazine, an application fee for a language test, an admission fee for an educational institute or social clubs.

In your form letter, you need to include both typed content and the empty blanks. In the empty blanks, you need to fill in necessary information with underlines (like Sample 2) . To cause your reader's attention, art graphics as suggested in your textbook can be designed and displayed on your form letter.

If you have different ideas but you are not sure if they are related to the purpose or requirements of this assignment, please go to discussion board for brainstorming.

(like Sample 2)

1. Sales Contract (handout)

2. Letter of Confirmation and Announcement (Textbook p. 93-106)

3. Offer and Order (handout like magazine subscription and book order)

4. The Best of the Biggest (handout)

• Types of questions are similar to the mid-term exam except the last part.

• These questions are divided into four parts. They are described in the following Table for your reference.