E4IT STARTER - MODULE 7.pdf

1. English For IT:Starter
Module 7

2. What you will learn
Vocabulary
Telling a personal
story
Grammar Pronunciation
1 5
3
2 4
Soft Skills Speaking&
Writing
Past Simple (irregular) t and d
Answering a job
interview question:
“Tell me about a time…”
Sharing personal
experience

3. WARM UP
Do you know any companies
that did something to help
their communities during
the pandemic?

4. Vocabulary
Meet Bobbie Racette, the founder of Virtual Gurus.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, many people
lost their jobs and many business owners went broke. Bobbie Racette
was one of the people affected by the outcomes of COVID. She got
fired from a big oil company where she worked as an accountant.
After that, she took on a bunch of low-paid freelance gigs and
contract jobs to be able to survive and feed herself.
However, she knew she had to find a way to make a change in her life.
Bobbie came up with a very ambitious idea which seemed impossible
at the time. She decided to create an online marketplace which could
double as an online learning platform and a work search site.
The platform works as follows: job seekers go through a learning program to update their skills, then the AI
algorithm helps them find projects from trusted partners and clients which are a good match for their skills
and experience.

5. Vocabulary
When Bobbie got the idea for the startup, she had only 300 dollars in her bank account and, on top
of that, she didn’t have any prior tech background. However, she didn’t let that stop her. She
found a team of hardworking developers and marketers and leveraged her expertise in business
and administration to get a working beta of her platform up and running.
It was only a matter of time that the word about her company started to spread. Public attention
brought Bobbie VC funding which was essential for improving the product and providing stable
income to her employees.
Her business took a hit in the fall of 2020 when 60% of her client base left due to internal financial
difficulties. Bobbie took immediate action. She offered her clients a 40% discount to help them
get through the rough times (she didn’t cut her team’s salaries, just in case you’re wondering.)
Although, there was a risk for her company to run out of money, the plan worked!
Now, Virtual Gurus is a successful company that keeps growing every month. As Bobbie herself
said it: “I established The Virtual Gurus Academy to be a resource for both remote workers and our
clients that demand the most cutting edge skills.”
She was successful in that.

6. Questions
1. What challenges did Bobbie have
to get through to establish her
business?
2. Did you try any online learning
platforms or freelance work sites?
What was your experience like?

7. 7
Grammar
Some verbs don’t get an -ed ending in Past Simple.
Instead, they change their form.
You need to learn these verbs by heart
Here are some common irregular verbs

8. Irregular Verbs
Drive - drove
Eat - ate
Fall - fell
Fight - fought
Find - found
Forget - forgot
Get - got
Give - gave
Go - went
Grow - grew
Have - had
Hear - heard
Become - became
Break - broke
Bring - brought
Buy - bought
Build - built
Catch - caught
Choose - chose
Come - came
Cost - cost
Come - came
Cut - cut
Drink - drank
Hit - hit
Keep - kept
Know - knew
Let - let
Leave - left
Lose - lost
Make - made
Mean - meant
Meet - met
Pay - paid
Put - put
Read - read
Should - had to
Say - said
See - saw
Send - sent
Spend - spent
Take - took
Teach - taught
Think - thought
Understand -
understood
Win - won
Write - wrote

9. 9
Past Simple. Irregular Verbs
+ Subject + verb (2nd form)
She brought her cat to the party
? Did + verb (1st form)
Did he bring you your order?
- Subject + didn’t + verb (1st form)
I didn’t bring anything to eat
The good news is that you form Past Simple with Irregular Verbs the same way as
with regular verbs

10. Practice
Put the verbs in the right form
1. I ______ (become) a manager soon after I joined the company
2. She _______ (spend) so much time on that report
3. I ________ (not see) any issues
4. He _______ (read) the book from cover to cover
5. ________ (he/write) me an email?
6. The first time I ______ (meet) him was in 2009.
7. _______(they/pay) you the salary for November? - No, they didn’t
8. He _______ (build) this app in two weeks
9. Nice hat! How much _______ (it/cost)
10. _______(there/be) a storm last night?
11. That’s not what I _______(mean)
12. I ______(send) him a message but he ______ (not/reply). He just
_____(leave) me on read

11. Mini-game
Choose one irregular verb and convert it from the 2nd form into the 1st
form. Then make up a question with this verb and ask it to someone in
the group.
The winner will be the person who made the least amount of mistakes in
the irregular verb
E.g. Won - win. Question: Did you ever win any competitions in school?
Bought Spent Sent Heard
Caught Wrote Got Took
Thought Lost Drank Brought

12. Pronunciation tip
Consonants at the end of the word (such as -t and -d) are never
assimilated. This is a very important pronunciation rule. Assimilating
consonants can change the meaning of the word.
Compare:
food vs foot
D: Spend, build, brand, understand, read, broad, god, made
T: Spent, built, slept, put, rent, brought, got, mate

13. Soft skills
One of the questions interviewers love to
ask job seekers is: “Tell me about a time
when…”.
This question requires you to remember
your past experience and talk about what
you did to solve a difficult problem.
Interviewers ask this question because it
lets them evaluate the candidate’s skills
based on their past actions and also
assess the candidate’s ability to learn
quickly and adapt to new challenges.

14. Soft skills
When someone asks you this type of question,
you can follow this formula:
Describe the situation / problem
There was a time when…
Once I had to ….
Describe what you did to solve the problem
I decided to…
I realized I needed to..
My teammates and I agreed to…
I got the idea to…
The outcome of your actions
As a result…
In the end…
Tell me about a time you
had to solve a
challenging problem.
How did you deal with it?

15. Soft Skills
Practice
Now, try to answer the
question:
Tell me about a time you
had to solve a challenging
problem. How did you deal
with it?

16. Speaking & Writing
Let’s come back to Bobbie Rocette’s story. This time she’ll tell it in her own words.
Here’s a portion of her interview that she gave to “Women of Influence”.
My first ever job was….
At the age of 16, I got my first job working with teenagers from poor families. It was a tough job. I worked 25 hours
a week after school and saw a lot of things that people of a similar age don't normally see.
I decided to be an entrepreneur because…
Well, that’s the thing, I didn’t decide to be an entrepreneur – it chose me. I got fired and decided to just go for it.
My biggest setback was…
Trusting the wrong people when I first launched my business.
One thing I learned about myself was that….
I could be a leader in difficult times. I always managed to bring the right people on board and execute my vision.
The best piece of advice I got was…
Do what you do best and rely on others to do their best

17. Speaking & Writing. Practice
Now, it’s your turn. Answer the same questions. Prepare to listen to your
peers and ask them follow up questions to their answers
My first ever job was….
I decided to be a/an (......) because…
My biggest setback was…
One thing I learned about myself was that….
The best piece of advice I got was…

18. HW
Pick any 12 irregular verbs
and come up with 4
statements, 4 questions
and 4 negative sentences
of your own.

19. That’s a wrap!
🌯