Note: This lesson occurred on Saturday November 6 2010.
This morning I had a lesson with Shin, who is a 45 year old computer programmer in Tokyo. He wanted to improve his mastery of English to conduct business and for his work, so I prepared an article that I found online for him.
The lesson text I used was as follows:
Carrefour quits Japan
BNE: The world’s second largest retailer, French-owned Carrefour SA, has announced its withdrawal from the Japanese market. It has sold its shares to Japan’s largest retail group, the supermarket chain operator Aeon Co, which retains full rights to the Carrefour brand in Japan. Carrefour entered Japan four years ago, hoping to entice Japanese consumers, famous for their love of quality, to their stores by offering a more sophisticated image, and more international groceries than traditional Japanese supermarkets. However, it failed to overcome poor consumer spending and the Japanese recession. Supermarket sales fell by 3.5 per cent last year. The pullout follows earlier failures by European retail giants to crack the Japanese market.
French cosmetics chain Sephora, part of the luxury group LVMH, and British drug store giant Boots both retreated from Japan soon after arriving, amid stiff competition from local operators. American retailers Wal-Mart and Costco are faring a little better and look to have their strategies right by selling in bulk at unbeatable prices. Although Japan’s consumers love international products such as Loius Vuitton, BMW, and even Starbucks coffee, they still prefer their home-grown foods. One Carrefour shopper at the Amagasaki, Hyogo outlet did express disappointment at the news of the takeover, saying, “I love Carrefour’s European feel. I hope the new owners will still sell all those lovely cheeses and wines, and play the French music.”
I selected the text to teach business vocabulary such as pullout, overcome, etc. He did well with it. I thought the lesson was difficult enough to be challenging, but not so difficult as to be impossible. He has a lot of good vocabulary from the massive amount of text he reads every week for his job. Sometimes he forgets to pluralize words when he speaks and his pronunciation needs a little work as well.
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