Discuss the following questions in pairs or in small groups
1. What do you think about your English lessons? Speak about your English classes at school / university? What lessons are better/worse? Why do you think so?
2. What would you improve in your English classes?
3. Would you like to read/speak/write/listen more?
Letter writing
There are different types of letters such as: reports, letters of complaint, letters of request, letters giving information, CV, letters of application, cover letters, reference letters, and etc. There are also several styles of letters. Each style has its own distinctive features and characteristics. Here is a diagram of rules of language styles.
Here are the characteristics of formal and informal styles.
1) The following sentences are mixed formal and informal. Write F (formal) or I (informal) after each sentence and prove your answer.
| F / I | Proof | |
| 1. The project will be completed next year. | ||
| 2. I showed that his arguments didn’t hold water. | ||
| 3. I wonder why he put up with those terrible conditions for so long. | ||
| 4. Five more tests will be necessary before the experiment can be concluded. | ||
| 5. It is possible to consider the results from a different viewpoint. | ||
| 6. It has been proved that the arguments so far are without foundation. | ||
| 7. He’ll have to do another five tests before he can stop the experiment. | ||
| 8. It is not clear why such terrible conditions were tolerated for so long. | ||
| 9. There are a number of reasons why the questionnaire should be revised. | ||
| 10. We’ll finish the job next year. |
Fill in the gaps of the tables given below with an appropriate word
| Formal | Informal | Formal | Informal | |
| Help | Retain | |||
| Commence | Finally | |||
| Demonstrate | At first | |||
| Go | Next | |||
| Want | Therefore | |||
| Enquire | Comprehension | |||
| Inform | Chance | |||
| Get | Enough | |||
| Need | Responsible |
3) Visit the website given below and do a quiz “Formal letter vocabulary”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/worldservice/quiznet/quizengine?quiz=1121_formal_letters
Correct the mistakes in the following business letter
5) Study appendix 7 for samples of formal and informal letters and its components. Imagine that you have found a good solution for a challenging scientific problem in your sphere of knowledge. Write a formal and an informal letters to your boss and a friend correspondingly to tell them about your solution. You can use exercise 2) for formal and informal words.
a) Many breakthroughs have been made with the help of foundation grants. Sometimes it is necessary we get financial support to make a scientific discovery. Read a short article about grants and discuss it in pairs or in small groups.
Grant
Grants are funding programs created by one party (Grant Makers), often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often (but not always) a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. Most grants are competitive, although some are awarded through non-competitive and/or less-competitive processes.
When applying for a grant, the applicant prepares a well thought-out document, known as a proposal. The proposal clearly and concisely states why a project is being proposed, what will be accomplished, who or what and how the project will provide a needed benefit or change and, of course, how much is being requested. Most grants are made to fund a specific project and require some level of compliance and reporting. The Grant Writing process involves an applicant submitting a proposal (or submission) to a potential funder, either on the applicant's own initiative or in response to a Request for Proposal from the funder. Other grants can be given to individuals, such as victims of natural disasters or individuals such as people who seek to open a small business. Government grants, which you don’t have to repay back, are available for almost anybody. These are money programs that are offered to you by your county and state which you never have to repay. Project related funding to governments, business, communities and individuals is often arranged by application either in writing or on-line.
Tips for finding your grant:
Here are some tips to help you search for your own free government grant:
- Use the internet to search the government grants available to you. When you enter the free money related keywords the search engines take your search words and then find documents and return websites that are related to that keyword you searched for.
- When searching for free government money information, you should try to search for a variety of terms related to free government grants, such as applications, free scholarship, housing grants. Fine tune your keywords while using the search and use specific keywords.
- It would take long to see all the grants from the government available to you, so the more specific your keywords to narrow your search, the better the results.
By searching you can find information about receiving free grant money for yourself.
Just by spending a little time online doing some research you could be on the way to receiving a nice check in the mail.
Answer the questions
1. What does the notion “grant” mean?
2. What are the ways of finding a grant?
3. Would you like to apply for a grant? Why? Why not?
4. What kind of grant would you like to apply for?
2) Visit the website given below, look through the list of different grants for different categories of students, for example, grants for undergraduate students, graduate students, etc. Follow program guidelines and choose the grant you would like to apply for. Make a short presentation about it. Use appendix 2 for the tips how to make a Power Point presentation, appendix 3 for strategies for oral presentations, and appendix 5 for rules of body language. Use appendix 4 to evaluate your groupmate’s presentation.
http://www.nsf.gov/funding/
Your presentation should include following points:
- Important information
- Summary of program requirements
- Requirements to submit a proposal
- Why have you chosen this grant?
b) You are a young promising scientist. You are going to conduct a very important scientific research but the only problem you have is lack of money. You are going to participate in the grant competition together with your colleagues. It’s necessary you compose a project proposal to take part in this grant competition. Read the information of the second part of the textbook “Academic writing practice” about writing a grant and compose the first part of proposal – cover sheet. Use appendix 6 to follow the sample of cover sheet of the grant proposal.