Communication & English track¶
Track overview
Level: B2+ heading to C1 (medium-to-high difficulty, no beginner material) · Rhythm: one 30-minute drill a day, 7 days a week (20 minutes on light weeks) · Span: week 0 baseline, weeks 1-24, buffer weeks 25-26 · Audience: a senior engineer moving to Staff/Principal in a global logistics enterprise.
Reading order¶
Read top to bottom; each page's You're done when line is the exit check before moving on.
- Articles & determiners: a / the / zero — P0, ~2 h
- Prepositions & collocations — P0, ~2 h
- Tenses & aspect: perfect vs simple, narrative tenses — P0, ~2 h
- Conditionals, modals & hedging — P0, ~2 h
- Sentence structure & parallelism — P0, ~2 h
- Active vs passive voice, inversion & emphasis — P1, ~2 h
- Clauses, participles & cohesion (linking words) — P1, ~2 h
- Punctuation & style — P1, ~1 h
- Common errors of fluent non-native speakers — P0, ~2 h
- Business & tech-leadership vocabulary — P0, ~3 h
- Word nuance & register (formal vs informal) — P0, ~2 h
- Idioms for work: meetings, strategy, negotiation — P0, ~3 h
- Phrasal verbs at work — P0, ~3 h
- Collocations & precision with numbers and data — P1, ~2 h
- Pronunciation: word stress, rhythm & intonation — P0, ~3 h
- Pace, pauses, filler words & clarity — P0, ~2 h
- Structuring spoken answers: PREP, pyramid, STAR — P0, ~2 h
- Meetings, presentations & speaking on calls — P0, ~3 h
- Shadowing & self-review method — P0, ~2 h
- Concise writing & editing — P0, ~2 h
- Email writing that gets action — P0, ~2 h
- Prose for design docs, RFCs & strategy — P0, ~3 h
- Executive updates, summaries & escalations — P0, ~2 h
- Feedback, disagreement & conflict — P0, ~3 h
- Negotiation & saying no — P0, ~3 h
- Storytelling & persuasion — P0, ~3 h
- Executive presence & handling Q&A — P0, ~3 h
- Listening, asking questions & cross-cultural communication — P1, ~2 h
Goals¶
- Precision: write and speak with fewer grammar and collocation errors, especially the ones fluent non-native speakers keep (articles, prepositions, tenses, uncountables).
- Range: a working vocabulary of C1 business and tech-leadership words, idioms and phrasal verbs, used with the right register.
- Fluency: speak calmly and clearly on calls, in presentations and in interviews: deliberate pace, few fillers, structured answers.
- Impact: write emails, updates, RFCs and executive summaries that get action; handle feedback, negotiation, Q&A and cross-cultural situations like a Staff engineer.
The four areas¶
| Area | What you train | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Grammar and precision | Articles, prepositions, tenses, modals and hedging, sentence structure, clause linking, punctuation, common errors | Topic pages below; Monday drills |
| Vocabulary, idioms, phrasal verbs | Business and tech vocabulary, nuance and register, idioms, phrasal verbs, collocations with data | Tuesday and Thursday drills |
| Spoken fluency and pronunciation | Stress, rhythm, intonation, pace and pauses, spoken structure, meetings, shadowing | Wednesday and Saturday drills |
| Business writing and soft skills | Concise writing, email, design docs, executive updates; feedback, negotiation, storytelling, executive presence, listening | Friday and Sunday drills |
How the daily 30-minute drills work¶
Each week has a page in Weekly drills with seven days. Open the page, go to the day heading, set a timer. The focus of each day matches the weekly arc.
| Day | Type | What you do in 30 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | Grammar | 60-second rule, 10 exercise items (error correction, transformation), then say or write 3 sentences about your real work |
| Tue | Vocabulary | 5 new words in a table, collocations, an 8-sentence cloze, 3 sentences of your own |
| Wed | Speaking | A 60-90 second work prompt with a structure, a pronunciation micro-drill, a 5-point self-check |
| Thu | Idioms and phrasal verbs | 5 expressions with register notes, an 8-item exercise, a warning about when not to use them |
| Fri | Writing | Rewrite a realistic bad draft under constraints, compare with the model answer and the edits |
| Sat | Speaking record | A 2-minute recorded talk, scoring rubric (1-4 on six criteria), a shadowing task, log the score |
| Sun | Soft skills and review | A scenario and a 150-word response or script, then a 20-item weekly recap and an error-log prompt |
Light weeks (6, 12, 18, 25, 26) use 20 minutes: about 6 exercise items and 3 new words, same headings. Difficulty ramps: weeks 1-8 medium, 9-20 medium-high, 21-26 high and timed.
Habits that make it work: - Do the exercise before you open the answers; explain your choice aloud, then check. - Keep an error log (a note file; each error, the correct form, the rule). The weekly review and weeks 16, 18, 23 use it. - Record yourself at least twice a week. Listening to your own voice is the fastest feedback you have. - Use new words in real Slack messages, emails and meetings within 48 hours.
Topic pages¶
Topic pages hold the reference material, resources, labs and graded questions. Study a topic in the phase shown and return to it when the drill week touches the topic. Priority P0 is core.
1. Grammar and precision¶
| Topic | Priority | Complexity | Phase | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Articles & determiners: a / the / zero | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
| Prepositions & collocations | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
| Tenses & aspect: perfect vs simple, narrative tenses | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
| Conditionals, modals & hedging | P0 | ⅘ | 1 | 2 |
| Sentence structure & parallelism | P0 | ⅗ | 2 | 2 |
| Active vs passive voice, inversion & emphasis | P1 | ⅘ | 3 | 2 |
| Clauses, participles & cohesion (linking words) | P1 | ⅘ | 3 | 2 |
| Punctuation & style | P1 | ⅖ | 2 | 1 |
| Common errors of fluent non-native speakers | P0 | ⅗ | 2 | 2 |
2. Vocabulary, idioms and phrasal verbs¶
| Topic | Priority | Complexity | Phase | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business & tech-leadership vocabulary | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 3 |
| Word nuance & register (formal vs informal) | P0 | ⅘ | 1 | 2 |
| Idioms for work: meetings, strategy, negotiation | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 3 |
| Phrasal verbs at work | P0 | ⅗ | 2 | 3 |
| Collocations & precision with numbers and data | P1 | ⅗ | 2 | 2 |
3. Spoken fluency and pronunciation¶
| Topic | Priority | Complexity | Phase | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: word stress, rhythm & intonation | P0 | ⅘ | 1 | 3 |
| Pace, pauses, filler words & clarity | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
| Structuring spoken answers: PREP, pyramid, STAR | P0 | ⅗ | 2 | 2 |
| Meetings, presentations & speaking on calls | P0 | ⅗ | 2 | 3 |
| Shadowing & self-review method | P0 | ⅖ | 1 | 2 |
4a. Business writing¶
| Topic | Priority | Complexity | Phase | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concise writing & editing | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
| Email writing that gets action | P0 | ⅖ | 1 | 2 |
| Prose for design docs, RFCs & strategy | P0 | ⅘ | 2 | 3 |
| Executive updates, summaries & escalations | P0 | ⅗ | 4 | 2 |
4b. Soft skills¶
| Topic | Priority | Complexity | Phase | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feedback, disagreement & conflict | P0 | ⅗ | 1 | 3 |
| Negotiation & saying no | P0 | ⅘ | 3 | 3 |
| Storytelling & persuasion | P0 | ⅘ | 2 | 3 |
| Executive presence & handling Q&A | P0 | ⅘ | 4 | 3 |
| Listening, asking questions & cross-cultural communication | P1 | ⅗ | 1 | 2 |
Cross-track: Staff+ skills covers the leadership content (stakeholders, RFCs, influence) that this track makes you able to say and write well. Question bank: Communication questions. AI coach prompts: AI tutor prompts.
Baseline and checkpoints¶
Week 0 is the baseline: a 40-item grammar diagnostic, a 60-word vocabulary check, a recorded talk, a 150-word status email, and a 30-item self-assessment. Record the results in docs/log/comm-baseline.md. Checkpoints repeat the measures at weeks 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 (checkpoints comm-1 to comm-6 in the plan) and week 24 compares with the baseline directly.
| Checkpoint | Week | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 0 | Full diagnostics; save scores |
| comm-1 | 4 | Re-score the speaking rubric on a fresh 2-minute talk; count errors in a 150-word email |
| comm-2 | 8 | 100-word vocabulary check; 5-minute presentation recorded and scored |
| comm-3 | 12 | Grammar mini-test (20 items from your error log); executive summary rewrite |
| comm-4 | 16 | 5-minute pitch; error-log review: which errors are gone, which remain |
| comm-5 | 20 | 10-minute technical talk with Q&A; vocabulary check |
| comm-6 | 24 | Repeat all baseline tests; compare |
How to score - Grammar: items correct out of 40 (or 20 for the mini-test). Track by category (articles, prepositions, tenses, modals, structure), not just the total. - Vocabulary: words known and usable in a sentence (not just recognised) out of 60 or 100, by band. - Speaking: the 1-4 rubric from the Saturday drill on six criteria (clarity, structure, fluency, grammar accuracy, vocabulary range, pronunciation), total out of 24. Also measure: words per minute (aim 130-150), fillers per minute (aim under 2), longest pause. - Writing: for the same email or paragraph, count word count, errors per 100 words, and whether the ask and the date are in the first two lines. - Soft skills: the 30-item self-assessment (1-4) plus feedback from one trusted colleague. - Trend rule: improvement of 10-15 percent per quarter in errors per 100 words and fillers per minute is realistic. Do not chase a total score; fix your top three errors.
Tools¶
| Tool | Use | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Learner's Dictionaries, Merriam-Webster | Definitions, collocations, example sentences, pronunciation (both UK and US) | free |
| Anki (or any spaced-repetition app) | Cards for words, collocations, idioms and your own error corrections; 10-15 new cards a day at most | free/paid |
| Voice recorder (phone), plus a free transcription tool | Record, transcribe, count fillers, read your own grammar | free |
| YouGlish, Forvo | Hear real usage and name/word pronunciations | free |
| Grammarly or LanguageTool | Catch article and preposition slips; read the explanations, do not auto-accept | freemium |
| AI tutor (Claude, ChatGPT) | Strict correction, role-plays, weekly diagnostics; see AI tutor prompts | freemium |
| BBC Learning English (6 Minute English, The English We Speak), Rachel's English, English with Lucy, Better English Pronunciation with Paul | Listening, pronunciation, idioms | free |
| Toastmasters | Live speaking practice and evaluations | freemium |
Sound like a Staff engineer: one-page phrase sheet¶
Print or keep open. Use each phrase once this week, in real speech.
Open with the point - "My recommendation is X. There are three reasons." - "I would like a decision on X by Friday." - "The short version: it will slip by two weeks."
Give a view with the right strength | Strong | Moderate | Tentative | |---|---|---| | "I am confident that..." | "I would recommend..." | "My initial view is..." | | "The data clearly shows..." | "It appears that..." | "It seems possible that..." | | "We must not..." | "We should avoid..." | "It might be worth avoiding..." |
Disagree well - "I see it differently, and here is why." - "I have a concern about the rollback path." - "Can we test that assumption before we commit?" - "I disagree, and I will commit to the decision."
Ask and clarify - "Help me understand what is driving the date." - "When you say real time, what latency do you mean?" - "What am I missing?" - "Let me play that back to check I have it."
Buy time / recover - "That is a good question; let me think for a second." - "I do not have that number here; I will send it by end of day." - "Let me rephrase that." "Let me correct that."
Say no - "I am not able to take that on this quarter." - "Yes, if we drop X." - "Not now. Can we revisit in March?"
Trade-offs and options - "There are two options. Option A is faster, but it adds risk. Option B is..." - "The trade-off is cost versus latency." - "If we do nothing, X happens by Q3."
Precision with data - "Roughly 40 percent; the range is 35 to 45." - "Up from 12 to 19 percent, a rise of seven points (about 60 percent)." - "Marginal", "material", "significant": use them for what they mean.
Escalate and update - "Status: amber. Cause: X. Ask: Y. Next update: Thursday 10:00 CET." - "I am raising this early because..." - "Decisions needed from you: one."
Close - "To summarise: recommendation, risk, next step." - "Owners and dates: A by Tuesday, B by Friday. Please tell me if I have missed anything."
Avoid (these weaken or confuse): "I just wanted to..." "Sorry, quick question" "I will try" (for a real no) "Does that make sense?" (repeated) "As per my last email" "Kindly revert" (in a global audience, prefer "Could you reply by...?").