I haven't made as much progress as I thought I would.
I haven't made as much progress as I thought I would. Here are the first few pages of my project. I'm not very happy with the cover - it's really sombre. I played around with using a raised hand emoji but it looked a bit amateurish.
As I collate activities to put into the book, I keep wondering if I shouldn't limit myself to Business English and that I'd have a wider audience if I pitched it at ELT in general. But then again there are books on virtual activities for ELT and there's nothing for BE/ESP which is the need that I'm trying to address.
You won't see the actual activities in the draft. Articulating them concisely (perhaps in the way that Dorothy's done in her book on tips) is something I'm struggling with. I hadn't envisioned blocks of numbered text and that's certainly not how I write activities in my own materials.
What do you reckon? Would the first two pages motivate you to want to read more?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1196OYuLYKx_xIh0Oiu191_gBXlPmHB9u/view?usp=sharing
As I collate activities to put into the book, I keep wondering if I shouldn't limit myself to Business English and that I'd have a wider audience if I pitched it at ELT in general. But then again there are books on virtual activities for ELT and there's nothing for BE/ESP which is the need that I'm trying to address.
You won't see the actual activities in the draft. Articulating them concisely (perhaps in the way that Dorothy's done in her book on tips) is something I'm struggling with. I hadn't envisioned blocks of numbered text and that's certainly not how I write activities in my own materials.
What do you reckon? Would the first two pages motivate you to want to read more?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1196OYuLYKx_xIh0Oiu191_gBXlPmHB9u/view?usp=sharing
I think you would have more of a nitch with Business English, but I'm not the expert on it. In the US, they're starting to do English training online for major corporations, and I see this as being extremely relevant. It's hard to come up with activities with the limitations. I like how you put that we shouldn't focus on those but what we can do. Really cool idea!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'll hopefully be able to put the activities in by next week - it's just a bit difficult because I'm super tied up at work.
ReplyDeleteBusiness English is a very good idea (my former job was with CUP, including marketing, focus groups, feedback to editors, etc so I feel fairly confident about this fact!) cheers!
ReplyDeleteAdi Rajan I completely understand!
ReplyDeleteAdi Rajan Nice! Remember to have your cover as a separate jpeg, not part of the Word doc.
ReplyDeleteThe background is awfully dark. Is that the original image? Any way to lighten it up a bit?
I'd mov the subtitle down to the bottom (lower third) and make it larger. You could leave your name at the very bottom, or put it up at the top. But you want the subtitle large enough to read. Nice font--just don't be shy with. Even your main title could be a little larger, perhaps?
Try orange with the title, or a warmer yellow (if the gray background doesn't change).
So many people are teaching online now that I think keeping it open to everyone instead of just business English would work. But it really depends on the contents. If your activities specifically focus on business English, there's also enough audience there.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see the cover in an orange, blue, or some other color.
ReplyDeleteDorothy Zemach thanks Dorothy. The original image is quite light but Canva made it darker. I'll create some other options.
ReplyDeleteSteven Herder I'm going to give that a go.
ReplyDeleteKate Cory-Wright thanks Kate!
ReplyDeleteHello, I am just now starting to comment on other people's work and it looks good to me, very professional I would say. I am usually dealing with children and teeenagers though, so my opinion might not be very useful... sorry...
ReplyDelete