UNIT ONE

CONCEPTS IN ECONOMICS

F Competition

F The structure of employment

F Governments and Banking Crises

F European Issues
154 Communicate in Business

UNIT ONE

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

ü Developing your listening skills

ü Understanding the main points

ü Note-taking and summarising

ü Developing your business vocabulary

 Section A – Listening activities 155

UNIT ONE
9 Activity I
Listen to the following presentation about the competition policy in Estonia. Indicate through
a tick for YES ( P ) or a cross for NO ( O ) in which fields mentioned below there are monopolies:
Gas ƒ
Telecommunication ƒ
Marine passenger traffic ƒ
Others ƒ

9 Activity II
While listening to the cassette fill in the missing figures:
The self-employed rate has in the meantime not only reached the average EU value of 12
percent working population, but has even surpassed it. At the end of April 1996, the Statistical
Office listed …1… entrepreneurs. Apart from the overall decrease in paid employment, structural
change in favour of the tertiary sector is continuing. The tertiary sector expanded from …2…
employees (…3… percent) in 1990 to approximately …4… employees (…5… percent) five years
on, whereas the number of employees in the manufacturing industries during the same period
decreased from …6… to …7… and thus proportionately sank from 11.8 to 6.5 percent.

Activity III
You will hear an extract from an article about ways in which governments come to the rescue
of ailing banks.
Before listening make sure you understand/remember the words and expressions below:
E go bust
E bail out
E bank run
E lender of last resort
E pay off
E incentive
E dud assists
E swamp a bank
 156 Communicate in Business

Now listen to the the cassette and find out which of the following topics does the extract
discuss?
1. Government responses to banking crises.
2. Taxpayers' protests.
3. The Japanese banking system.
4. Nationalisations in Central America.
5. Relieving banks of their bad loans.

9 Activity IV
Listen again and take brief notes under the four headings below:

Liquidation Closure by merger Government Nationalisation

loans/transfers
 Section A – Listening activities 157

EUROPEAN MANAGEMENT STYLES:

FRENCH AND BRITISH BOSSES

9 Activity V
Listen to the cassette. You will hear a presentation of cultural differences in European
management. According to the presentation which of the statements below are TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE FALSE
1) French management styles are superior to the British ones. ƒ ƒ
2) 37% of the British bosses have no further education after school. ƒ ƒ
3) There is a tendency for French managers to get into top
positions because of family connections. ƒ ƒ
4) Alliances between French and British partners are
smooth and differences are easily ironed out. ƒ ƒ
5) A small number of both British and French bosses
have degrees from reputed universities. ƒ ƒ

9 Activity VI
Listen again and fill in the gaps in the following sentences:
1) With a few exceptions, French and British bosses are as different as …… and ……
2) …… tend to be catapulted into top positions in business, having never …… their hands
…… ……
3) Over 80% are professional managers who started in their early 20s far from the seat of
power and have …… their way ……
4) And yet Britain has an elite too – one formed when the participants were barely …… of
…… ……
5) Some added a final coat of social varnish while …… a degree at Oxford or Cambridge.