What happened at the Course Launch

There were 17 students in all who came along to the Nisbethska Building in Kalmar this evening. Once everyone had arrived, we tried out being James Bond! English has a greater level of formality than Swedish (though a lesser level than in some cultures), and you have to get used to addressing people you don't know by their surnames - and with certain forms of words … which you'll learn about as you complete the Warm-Ups and Send-Ins.

Then the students practised putting the different components of a business letter into the right place in the letter. You'll find a description of that 'right place' in Module 1 on the Course Web Site. One of the questions which then came up is: when do you write 'Dear Sir' and when do you write 'Dear Mr Smith'? We did an exercise about that too, and you'll find a page called 'Salutations and Closures' in Module 1.

We ended with a tour of the course web site, and looked at the first Warm-Up and the way you don't have to do more than one Send-In out of the three on offer each time. You can follow the fortunes of three different (fictitious) companies on this course, but you don't have to stick with the same company all the time (though you can if you want to).

The main thing to remember is that you accumulate marks as you go through the course - when you've reached the 'magic' 50/100, you've passed!

When everyone else had gone home … I snook back to my office and made the Course Launch podcast … and wrote this post on the Course Blog. It's nice having you with us this term and we're all looking forward to helping you improve your ability to write good business English!