Vocabulary

1. Which of the words below can you use to describe:

2. the buildings and architecture of a town?

_skyscraper__________________

___________________________

___________________________

3. the atmosphere of a town?

_lively______________________

___________________________

___________________________

Text 3

Read the text about top cities.

Top Cities

Have you ever walked around a city and thought, ‘this is Paradise’? Or maybe, ‘this is the ugliest, most polluted, dangerous, frightening place I’ve ever been to and I can’t wait to get out’?

Most of us have. And that’w why most of us like to know about the place before we go there. One thing we can do is read a good guide book. Another is to look at a new survey conducted by William Mercer, one of the world’s largest Human Resources consultancies.

Mercer decided to judge some of the world’s great cities. They produced their results by giving marks for various criteria. These included political, economic and social environment, healthcare, educational provision, recreation and transport infrastructure.

So, which are the best cities to live in, and which should we avoid? In joint first place were Vancouver, Berne, Vienna and Zurich while Sydney, Geneva, Auckland and came second. Swiss cities occupied there of the top ten places, making it the single most successful country of all those surveyed.

New York was used as the base city with a score of 100, which put it in 50^th place. Overall, US cities suffered because of high crime rates. The highest ranked US city was Honolulu with 104 points.

For Londoners, the news was not too bad. London was slightly ahead of New York with 101.5. The report named London’s good international relations as a positive point. Its poorest scores – six out of ten – were awarded for its climate and traffic. Bottom of the list was Brazzaville, in the Congo, where there has been a civil war for many years.

Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, last night said it was unfair to compare large international cities with small cities since the smaller ones were far easier to run. ‘You have to look at cities of five million people plus. On that basis we’re much better than Tokyo and New York’, said Mr. Livingstone.

IV. WRITING

1. Think of three people you know professionally but not personally. For example, your dentist, a waitress in a café you visit regularly, your hairdresser, a shop assistant.

Write a few sentences describing the sort of people you think they are.

2. Thank you letters

1. Read the letters and answer the questions.

1. Why is Liliana writing?

2. What did they do during Liliana’s visit?

3. Why is William Dabbitt writing?

4. Did Ms Jenkins and her team do a good job? How do we known?

Writing skill / formal/informal

2. a. Which letter is formal? How do you know? Are these features normally formal or informal? Write (F) or (I).

1. full verb forms (e.g. We are) ___

2. contractions (e.g. I’m) ___

3. the passive ___

4. exclamation marks (!) ___

5. abbreviations (e.g. thanks) ___

b. Underline examples of these features in the letters.

3. Informal emails

1. Read the email and answer the questions.

1. Why hasn’t Mark written recently?

2. What are Fernando’s hobbies?

3. How does Mark know about Fabio’s mews?

4. What is Felicity studying?

5. What does Mark invite Fernando to do?

Informal greeting

Hi Fernando,

1. Thank for your email. It’s great to hear from you. It’s great to hear from you. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch for a while, but I’ve been very busy with work. I’m travelling a lot at the moment. I’ve been to Germany, Spain, Brazil, China and Japan in the last four months!

2. How are things with you? Are you still doing karate and running every day? Have you found a girlfriend yet? Do you remember Fabio? I saw him the other day and he’s married now and has four children!

3. Anyway, life here is pretty good. Felicity is enjoying her course, and is very excited about becoming a teacher. We would love to see you sometime. Why don’t you come and visit us next time you are in the UK?

4. Look forward to hearing from you again soon.

All the best,

Mark

Informal language for ending, e.g. Love, Mark, Lots of love, Mark, All the best, Mark.

Report on use of emails

Rosana Mendes, human resources manager, requested a survey about use of emails at work in order to improve office communication and identify training needs.

Procedure

Staff were given a questionnaire to be returned by 8 March.

1. Number of emails received per day

2. Use of email technology

3. Stress caused by ‘email overload’

Results

Out of 48 members of staff, 40 returned the questionnaire.