| Week Number |
Unit Name |
Topics Covered |
Outcome Keywords |
| 1 |
Introducing the Entrepreneur |
- -What is an entrepreneur?
- -The role of entrepreneurs
- -Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs
- -Idea generation
- -Entrepreneurship as a career
- -Benefits of being an entrepreneur
- -Leadership
|
- -Prepare and ask questions to a keynote speaker and successful entrepreneur about their qualities and strategies, roleplay an aspiring entrepreneur but in a different historical period, demonstrating leadership and solving problems of the time.
- -Listen to a podcast about the role of entrepreneurs to identify the main ideas, listen to a panel discussion on the benefits of being an entrepreneur to follow main points and infer speakers’ opinions.
- -Read a case study on a successful entrepreneur to skim for qualities and to prepare an oral response taking opposite emotional sides and answering comprehension questions from those stances, a blog post on the challenges of entrepreneurship to prepare an oral response offering solutions.
- -Write a reflective journal entry on the benefits of being an entrepreneur, offering evidence from all lesson resources on this unit.
|
| 2 |
Eureka! Developing a Business Idea |
- -Business Creativity
- -Problem-solving techniques
- -Choosing Your Mission
- -Conducting a Needs Analysis
- -Gathering Information
- -Identifying Your Target Markets
- -Building and Testing Your Business Idea
- -Product development
|
- -Speed-date and compile a class survey about the products and corresponding target markets floated during a speed-dating activity, present a simple crafted (from paper, cardboard, digital tools etc.) prototype of a business idea and use feedback cards to comment on effectiveness and suggest improvements.
- -Words and word partnerships related to preferences, demographic groups, behavioural tendencies, nouns for products, adjectives for their features, terms for stages in product development, conversational functions for explaining how something solves a problem or meets a need.
- -Listen to a podcast about real-world problems facing entrepreneurs for specific information, note-taking, and to brainstorm possible solutions.
- -Read a set of solutions arrived at by famous business to identify context and the problem they were resolving, for inference and elicitation of key vocabulary related to problems, causes, and effects/ results.
- -Create a short description of an appropriate target market for a product, including demographic, psychographic, and behavioural information.
|
| 3 |
Preparedness |
- -Resilience
- -Adaptability
- -Learning from failure
- -Self-motivation
- -Learning by doing
- -Learn from other entrepreneurs
- -Educational programs and resources for self-study
|
- -Brainstorm the impact of entrepreneurial spirit on practical life skills, give a Ted Talk about self-discipline, problem-solving ability, and frugality in good entrepreneurs.
- -Abstract nouns, adjectives, and adverbs to talk about and qualify soft skills.
- -Present tenses and modal verbs for recommendation, strong recommendation, and obligation.
- -Follow a conversation between two entrepreneurs on one of the following subjects: resilience, adaptability, learning from failure, self-motivation, learning by doing to follow the main points, take notes, and participate in a jigsaw reconstruction of what was heard.
- -Read extracts from a monograph on entrepreneurs/ leaders to skim and scan for information on self-discipline, problem-solving ability, and frugality, and to prepare a written response in the form of a speech on the added benefits of these qualities, conduct web research on additional self-learning resources on entrepreneurship and share with classmates.
- -Design an entrepreneurship course with a focus on teaching students communication, good time management, discipline, adaptability, resilience, negotiation, and teamworking.
|
| 4 |
Set up your Start-up |
- -Getting your business plan down on paper
- -Doing market research (target audience, competition analysis, SWOT analysis)
- -Business policy and strategy
- -Business start-up
|
- -List the key components of a business plan, conduct a vox pop to gather information about a target audience, present a SWOT analysis of a chosen company with a constraint on the industry.
- -Future tenses to describe plans, future needs, and events, descriptors for tables/ charts/ graphs, the language of trends.
- -Listen to a coach with experience in developing business plans for practical tips and to adjust work accordingly, to a panel discussion on the role of competition analysis in business success, participate in an entrepreneurial movie night watching extracts of movies/ documentaries for specific information about business strategy seen and to present opinions and reflections.
- -Read sample business plans for fictitious and real projects for understanding of structure and to place missing elements, read a market research report to identify trends, take notes, and prepare a short oral response.
- -Create a business plan with a one-page executive summary for a unique venture that takes advantage of an upcoming trend or unites unrelated processes, build a competitor analysis chart for a chosen industry/ product, analyse a chosen company’s start-up process and create a timeline and infographic on the budget for that project.
|
| 5 |
Elevate your Elevator Pitch |
- -Pitching and presenting
- -The Elevator Pitch
- -Investor presentations
- -Networking
- -Conferences and Trade Fairs
|
- -Deliver an elevator pitch in the time it takes to ride the school elevator, participate in a trade fair/ conference scenario and exchange cards with at least three people, roleplay a Shark Tank investor presentation using the business plan from a previous unit.
- -Revision of past tenses and expressions related to the past, the language of persuasion (e.g., storytelling), conversational functions for building rapport (e.g., the inclusion of the listener with pronouns), impact-making strategies (e.g., short sentences, strong action verbs), opening/ supporting/ concluding a presentation effectively with signposting phrases
- -Listen to various examples of elevator pitches, investor presentations, and networking conversations from real-life situations, such as TED Talks, business podcasts, or online webinars to identify the contexts, topics, and listen for specific words and conversational phrases unique to each.
- -Read infographics and listicles about what makes a sales pitch effective for gist and information transfer into a set of tips for scripting a persuasive one.
- -Write a script for a sales pitch OR for a networking event between a set of celebrities to accomplish a set of pre-determined goals.
|
| 6 |
Cash Flow |
- -Budgeting
- -Cash flow management
- -Financial statements
- -Funding options
- -Venture Capital/ Corporate Finance
|
- -Roleplay a specific investor or entrepreneur according to role cards including their background, investment preferences, and business goals to negotiate a potential investment deal, considering factors such as risk, return on investment, and business viability.
- -Terms for various funding options, formal English for recommending and reporting, select reporting verbs.
- -Listen to a technical financial discussion to follow the main points, extract key information, and specific numbers and words.
- -Read a financial statement for information transfer to an e-mail related to budgeting, a case study on a budgeting issue to prepare oral responses giving opinions, offering solutions, and making formal recommendations.
- -Add to the business plan created a few units ago considering various expenses, revenue source, financial goals, expected in/outflows of cash for a specific period.
|
| 7 |
What Business Are You In? |
- -Setting up a Retail Store
- -Franchising Management
- -Family Business Management
- -Social Enterprise Management
|
- -Show and tell with a family business succession plan including the roles and responsibilities of family members and the decision-making process.
- -Phrases for staging instructions, describing a process, the language of contrast, advanced family members vocabulary.
- -Listen to a set of stages/ instructions for setting up a retail store for specific information on store layout, visual merchandising, and customer service techniques, to a technical talk on the legal considerations of franchising, to a testimonial about running a family business to take notes on unique challenges.
- -Read an inventory or a sales strategy or a general note on store planning for gist, to follow the main points, and to retell, read a franchise agreement for specific information on fees, support services, dis/advantages, the mission statement of a social enterprise to extract details on stakeholder engagement and sustainability strategies for implementation in own business plans.
- -Create a visual presentation for a retail store’s unique selling proposition, competitive advantage, store layout, and merchandising.
|
| 8 |
A Running Concern |
- -Operations and Operational Management
- -Production methods
- -Inventory management
- -Logistics
- -Quality control
- -Setting your Fees/ Pricing your merchandise
- -Getting Paid
- -Working with strategic partners or vendors
- -Working with support staff
|
- -Create a short skit in groups illustrating different production methods and their dis/advantages, debate an assigned pricing strategy from the in favour and then the against point of view.
- -Listen, read, and speak to participate in a logistics scavenger hunt looking for specific products/ transport hubs/ warehouses in the local area then planning the most efficient route to collect all the items in the shortest amount of time.
- -Listen to a talk about different types of strategies partnerships to confirm predictions (brainstormed ideas for how a list of partnerships could benefit a particular business).
- -Read an actual case study of a company that faced quality control issues for key information, to identify the causes of the problem and to prepare an oral/ written response with solutions.
- -Types of production methods (e.g., mass production, batch production, custom production), the language of comparison, the language of cause, effect and solution, pricing strategy terms/ partnerships/ collocates (e.g., cost-based pricing, value-based pricing), review dis/agreeing/ justifying/ rebutting language.
- -Create and manage a virtual store’s inventory, make purchasing decisions, and win with highest profits at the end of the game, write a script from the point of view of different support staff roles (e.g., customer service representative, warehouse manager) for a given scenario related to getting paid (e.g., a customer who wants to return a product, a client who is late in paying an invoice).
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| 9 |
Grow your Business |
- -Scaling a business
- -Strategic partnerships
- -International markets
- -Human Resource Management
- -Information Technology Management
|
- -Participate in a case study about a company that has successfully implemented digital transformation in its HR processes for the key factors that contributed to the company’s success (e.g., use of HR analytics, cloud-based HR systems, employee self-service portals), and for personalisation to own organisations.
- -The language of presenting opinions in semi-formal writing, ways of introducing what someone else has said and providing more information on the topic, terms for information systems related to HR management.
- -Listen to a boardroom meeting to identify context, topics related to scaling a business, international markets, strategic and HR management, to recognise different accents, speech patterns, and intonations, select from a list of recommended podcasts about the unit’s topics to listen and prepare a written response for gallery viewing.
- -Read out the news from various sources, such as online newspapers, business magazines, or industry blogs, in a bulletin for gist, fact-checking, and to prepare a written opinion piece.
|
| 10 |
Reaching Audiences |
- -Marketing Tools
- -Marketing Techniques
- -Marketing Management and Strategies
- -Branding
- -Customer segmentation
- -Pricing
- -Community Outreach
|
- -Roleplay brand ambassadors in a boardroom meeting discussing the strengths and weaknesses of their respective brands and proposing strategies for improvement and then in a public/ press interview promoting the brand, create visual representations (e.g., posters, infographics) of different customer segments and their characteristics, then participate in a gallery walk, analysing the various segments presented by peers.
- -The language of persuasion on positive and negative traits, phrases and conversational functions for giving constructive peer feedback, review strategies for structuring explanations and answering questions strategically.
- -Listen to a monologue about various marketing tools for information transfer to a table/ chart showing effectiveness, impact, limitations, etc.
- -Read various social media pricing case studies to lift key factors that influence pricing decisions, and to prepare an oral response proposing alternative pricing strategies.
- -Stage or really collaborate with local businesses/ community organisations/ schools to host an entrepreneurial fair, creating a schedule for the event, preparing prompts for engaging with visitors, explaining a unique business idea, answering questions, preparing feedback forms for visitors, then write up a reflection after the experience (What did they learn about entrepreneurship and community engagement? How did they use English to communicate their ideas effectively? What challenges did they face, and how did they overcome them?)
|
| 11 |
Working with Clients |
- -Business communication
- -Selling your services
- -Customer acquisition
- -Customer retention
- -Customer service
|
- -Participate in an escape room: customer courting edition, using knowledge of sales and customer services language, techniques, and tools to complete listening, reading, speaking, writing, and physical challenges, design a digital tool in groups to give insights into customer behaviour and present its functions to the class.
- -Types of customer retention strategies (e.g., loyalty programmes, gamification of customer experience, personalisation, live chats, etc.), describing how a digital tool works, conveying positive, negative, compassionate tone through choice of words, phrases, sequencing and syntax.
- -Listen to phone calls and meetings between sales representatives and customers to extract the main points, identify effective communication strategies, correct inappropriate language, practise active listening including with peers in class.
- -Read online product/ service reviews to infer customers’ stance, identify the reasons customers have left positive/ negative feedback and to prepare a short response to one of the reviews, addressing the customer’s concerns/ thanking them for their positive feedback.
- -Write a persuasive sales email to a potential customer, offering a special promotion, and exchange for peer feedback.
|
| 12 |
Pay it Forward with Business Ethics |
- -Contracts
- -Intellectual property
- -Business ethics
- -Social responsibility
|
- -Competitively negotiate a personal or a business contract using a set of goal cards and associated points, participate in a chain game of Dilemma concerning ethical problems faced in personal and business situations, find someone in the class who has a similar idea for a much-needed CSR campaign in their locality/ region.
- -Common formal and legal terms, phrases for arguing, conceding a point, making compromises, stating red lines etc. in both spoken and written production, terms in the word family of copyright and IP, the language of speculating and giving conditional responses.
- -Listen to a TED Talk to get inside information about business contracts in business and take notes, listen to songs or watch movie clips to participate in a discussion on the importance of intellectual property rights in the entertainment industry, expanding into the use of copyrighted material in education, and also product patents
- -Read a fact sheet to lift key information and phrases about contractual employment rights and to prepare an informative oral vlog/ reel, skim and scan material from a recent corporate social responsibility campaign to summarise its main goals and prepare a short oral reaction about whether they have been met.
- -Write a letter to a local politician to express strong views on the need for strengthened intellectual property laws, write a personal informal diary entry about a time when one faced an ethical dilemma and how they resolved it.
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