All Work and No Play: Cassette

The "Longman American Business English" series is designed to improve the communication skills of professional people involved in international business. The series is suitable for classroom use or self-study. Each title has a book and a cassette. The subject matter is similar to that of the "British English Skills" series, but the books are not adaptations and have been written from scratch. They are at a slightly lower level than their British English equivalents and are less crowded and more guided, with the Asian market in mind. "All Work and No Play" aims to provide pre-intermediate and intermedicate students of English with the tools they need to take part confidently and effectively in social situations within a business context. Guidance is provided on the following: the correct language to use when meeting someone for the first time and when meeting an acquaintance; appropriate small talk; ways to make invitations and to accept or decline them; strategies for beginning, ending and maintaining conversations; ways to act as both host and guest. The exercises are guided so the course is non-threatening for lower level students.
The course should also help students develop good relationships with business colleagues and clients and help them to cope with a variety of social situations which are likely to occur in their business lives. It should help even lower students to act confidently in social situations. The course shows a variety of people of different nationalities talking to each other in English, so it avoids the sense that they will always be up against people with native speaker fluency.