English vocabulary for Business

and Management: strategies for

learning:
Worksheet (student version)

Business and Law Librarians 2022-2023

Learning outcomes

At the end of the session we hope you will feel more confident about:

 Dealing with unknown vocabulary in a business setting

 Recognising how prefixes change the meaning of a word

 Building your vocabulary through word families

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Workshop structure

Introduction and learning outcomes

Activity 1: Dealing with unknown vocabulary: using the context
Activity 2: Match the words to the meaning using prefixes and suffixes
Activity 3: Get to know a word family by filling the gaps
Reflection

4 tips to get the most out of this workshop

1. Work through the practical activities as they are introduced in the live
workshop.
2. Take part in the interactive activities and participate in discussions.
3. Reflect on the activities: What did you learn? Are there any activities
where you did not understand the content or results?
4. You may ask any questions during or at the end of the workshop: either
post them into the chat area or raise your ‘digital!’ hand and unmute
when invited to speak.

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Activity 1:

Read the extract below from a lecture given by Paul Bennett at UWE Bristol,
entitled: “What is Strategy?” and underline the words which you don’t know. 

Put the unknown words into the table below.

 
Strategy is important because it is how you decide what to do with your
resources; what you've got within an organisation to make sure that
you enhance its performance; how you make the most profit, the most
output.  These strategic decisions are often the biggest, the largest,
the most significant because they will shape all the other decisions that the
organization will take. You’ll start with a really big umbrella, the really big
strategic one, and every decision after that will reflect that strategy. They're
often very long term - the point of strategic decisions is not that you change
them every other week or on a monthly basis: at the very minimum
they will be annual; at the very minimum they'll be year long. Whatever you
decide at that point will be your strategy for the foreseeable future. As a result
of that, they’re quite expensive:  what you’re going to do with your
strategies and your product development - they’re the really big, high-level
and highly visible decisions that you make. Usually these are made by senior
management but all levels of an organisation need to be engaged and included
in these decisions because they’re the ones that actually have to enact
them; they’re the ones that have to deliver them.  
 

 
Words I don’t know but Words I don’t know but Words I don’t know,
aren’t important can guess can’t guess and seem

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 important

SLIDE 7 possible answers:

If you wish to listen to the original lecture to support your learning after the
workshop, you may access it here:

https://uwe.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=8543936f-
2325-4bdc-aef5-a95200bdc93e

NB The extract we are using starts at 7:14 What is strategy? and runs to
13:30.

Activity 2: Recognising how prefixes change the meaning of a word

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Type the following link into your internet browser:

go.uwe.ac.uk/prefix

Each word has a prefix, root and suffix. Drag and drop one of each to match
the meaning of each definition. You can check your answers.

Activity 3: Get to know a word family by filling the gaps

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Click on this link http://www.uefap.com/vocab/select/awl.htm
to the Academic Word List.
 Look for the noun ‘strategy’ and write down all the other words in the
same family, i.e. the adjective/the adverb/the verb/other nouns.

The following words from a ‘word family’ – the word ‘strategy’ – are examples
from a compulsory module for your course programme: 

Strategic management UMSDQ5-15-3

strategic, strategies, strategically, strategist, strategists, strategise, strategic

Use the words in bold above to complete the gaps in the sentences below
(some may be duplicated).

[1] Strategists need to peel away the veneer of what works, and understand
more deeply why and under what conditions certain practices lead to
advantage.

(from: Christensen CM. The Past and Future of Competitive Advantage. MIT

Sloan Management Review. 2001;42(2):105-109).

[2] Driven by performance pressures but lacking strategic vision, company after
company has had no better idea than to buy up its rivals.

(from: Porter, M.E. (1996a) What is Strategy? Harvard Business Review 74 (6),
pp. 61–78).

[3] The human ability to strategise and plan in the face of changing
circumstances is fiendishly difficult to replicate.

(from: AI: Thinking Machines; Stories Financial  Times (London, England) July
16, 2016 Saturday

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[4] Organizations typically do not have the capability, the capacity or the
motivational systems to think and act strategically.

(from: Ansoff, H. Igor et al. (2018) Implanting Strategic Management. 3rd ed.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 22.

[5] The essence of strategic positioning is to choose activities that are different
from rivals.

(from: Porter, M.E. (1996a) What is Strategy? Harvard Business Review. 74 (6),
pp. 61–78.

[6] Firms with progressive human resource policies and strategies based on an
inspiring vision such as sustainability have been shown to have a competitive
edge in attracting and retaining high-quality employees.

(from: Stead, J.G. (2014) Sustainable Strategic Management. 2rd ed. Sheffield:
Greenleaf).

Useful links

Academic Phrasebank

Academic word List: word families

Ask A Librarian (enquiries and requests for one-to-one appointments)

BBC Business News

Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary

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Communication for International Students

Global Cafes

Introduction to Business Information Skills

Online Dictionary of Business and Management

Oxford Learner’s Dictionary

Prefixes (EAP Foundation)

Suffixes (EAP Foundation)