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Let’s make business reporting simple again. In the age of information, many of us are experiencing information overload. There is such a thing as gathering and presenting too much data, and the business world struggles to present information in a rich, powerful, and stimulating manner without crossing the information overload threshold. Remember when you were young and just conquering the skill of reading. Sure reading was fun, and our minds processed a lot of information from the words that we read, but didn’t the illustrations in the books have a more lasting affect? The old saying reminds us a picture is worth a thousands words. We can use words to describe a situation, but a picture really encapsulates the ideas we are trying to get across.

We can apply this lesson to the business world. When presenting information to a conference room full of business professionals we are eager to first obtain, and then retain their attention. This can be achieved through pictures. Now, I am not suggesting that you take your doodling and add it to your presentation, but what I am suggesting is that you make better use of custom charts such as bar graphs and bar charts in your presentation.

Bar charts and bar graphs can offer a simple, but meaningful representation of the information you are trying to relay to your audience. Bar graphs can leave a more lasting impression in the minds of your audience members than a slide offering a comparison of quantified data. For instance, when you see a bar chart, what jumps out at you first? For most people the tallest bar is the bar that is noticed first. You might also notice the shortest bar rather quickly as it stands out as well. In all likelihood, as a presenter you are hoping the eyes of your audience members will gravitate to the extreme ends of the spectrum, either the tall bar or the short bar on the bar chart. Now that you have captured the audiences’ attention and directed it towards the information you wanted to discuss, you are free to continue with your presentation.

Or perhaps you want to use your bar graphs in another manner. Rather than emphasize really high sales or really low variable costs, you wish to show an increasing sales trend. In this scenario, your bar chart would represent your monthly sales across a certain time period. Upon presenting the bar chart, it would be clear to the audience that sales had increased substantially each month from January to August. Again, by using bar graphs you have painlessly grabbed the attention of the audience, directed it toward the topic you wanted to discuss and now you can make the points that are important to you.

When using bar graphs in your presentation, be sure to keep a few things in mind. Label the bar chart clearly so the audience doesn’t spend all its time trying to figure out what the bars represent. Make your bar charts vibrant – use strong colors to make bars of interest standout and soft subdued colors to make the other bars less conspicuous. Keep the information represented by the bar graphs as relevant as possible. Just because you have a beautiful bar chart doesn’t mean it should be used in your presentation. If you have created bar charts that will enhance your presentation then incorporate them into the presentation, otherwise leave them alone. Most importantly, be creative with your visualizations and have fun. Your audience will enjoy your presentation more and come away having learned everything you hoped they would.

When teaching the present progressive, or continuous, tense, we often concentrate on structure: you have a subject, followed by the auxiliary, “be” followed by the “-ing” form of the verb. A lot of teachers have started calling this verb “the -ing verb”, and rightly so, as I am convinced that virtually nobody can say for sure what the correct term for it is.

Would you call it the gerund? No, because the gerund is the noun derived from a verb, not a verb itself. Here we have a completely different discussion, and another lesson to prepare. You probably do a free time/interests lesson where you ask the question “what do you like doing?”. Your students have the opportunity to practise real gerunds, as in sentences like, “I like playing football, going skiing, painting, reading, shopping...”

You, of course, as a serious ESL professional, know that in a sentence like “I am having a shower”, the “-ing” verb is actually the present participle. Are we sure about that?

participles or adjectives?

If I say, “I am tired”, I know that “am” is the verb and that “tired” is obviously an adjective, given that “to be” is a verb of state, and an adjective is used to add detail to a noun, in this case a pronoun, “I”. But tired is also the past participle of the verb “to tire”. Just as past participles can be used as adjectives, so can present participles: The match was tiring, this film is boring” etc. Expressions like “running water” or “living space” contain “-ing” adjectives.

When saying “I am” we are invariably talking about a present state, so what’s the difference between “I am tired”, and “I am working”? To say “I am working” also indicates my present state, even if technically speaking “working” is the present participle, not an adjective. Interestingly, in French there is no present progressive tense, they use an adjectival phrase which translates, “I am in the process of to work”. A fine line indeed between adjectives and participles!

All these thoughts have led me to believe that they should not discussed with your students, being indeed pointless grammatical debate that will not help them one little bit to communicate more effectively. Instead of trying to have your students build sentences from pre-defined parts, i.e. aux + verb+ing = present progressive = something happening now why not make a mind map of all the possible things we could say starting with “I am”. After all, “I am English” is a present, just like “I am working”. You could brainstorm emotions, physical condition, nationalities, age, jobs, and what is happening now. This way, rather than focussing on meaningless grammatical structure, you are giving your students functional language that they can use outside the classroom.

Its Christmas time once again, and everyone is having a shopping rush, a grocery rush, all are busy listing and preparing things for Christmas, well almost all of us waits and very much excited for this special day that is happening only once a year, so we tend to be more precise and concise with this day. Christmas is said to be the perfect day to make reconciliations, this works for almost all of us, we can’t do anything but forgive and forget during this day, heehaw.

Also this day suggest family gatherings and reunions, our relatives from different provinces and from abroad are coming home, usually the Christmas celebration is being held at our grandparents old houses, this is because most of them are not advisable to travel far and long, also this is the perfect time to see them and have some quality and quantity time with them.

As we aged our wants and needs decreases, we only want things that we usually need, and the things that we can really afford, we only rely on our personal savings, sometimes from our children’s if they have a good income and from our pensions, if we are hard working and saved a lot from during our younger years then we will not have that big problem with money when we are old.

Our grandparents usually are the ones who are giving us presents during our birthdays, when we excel in our academics and during Christmas, but it is also nice that we as their grandchildren would give something in return to them, maybe not that expensive but what matter is the intention and the tough of the gift you give. Here are some of the perfect Christmas gifts you can do and give them.

1: you can give them a Christmas cards, you can make them or you can also buy some, all you need to do is write your dedications or something that you want to say to them like thank you and I’m sorry, stuff like that, it’s simple but it means a lot.

2: you can give them a large or Big Scarf, it will be very useful for them as they can use it during cold and hot days.

3: You can also give them nice footwear, something that has a soft sole, easy to wear and comfortable.

4: you can give them a nice soft blanket, as elders usually have a decreased tolerance to cold.

5: you can give them a pain of pyjamas, blouse and polo, it will be the perfect sleeping attire for them

6: you can also give them a commode, diapers, this will be a lot of help for them they will no longer be tired of going to the Comfort room at night.

Something that cannot be bought, and is very much important, give them all you love, care, comfort and attention not only on this day but for as long as they are here with us. Loving and serving them is like serving and loving our own parents, and it is much pleasing top God’s eyes.