terça-feira, 10 de agosto de 2010

Ensino de inglês mira tecnologia

Ensino de inglês mira tecnologia Encontro de professores defende uso de ferramentas modernas e mais qualificação do setor

VANESSA PRATA
COLABORAÇÃO PARA A FOLHA


Foi-se o tempo em que professores de inglês podiam encarar a profissão como um "bico" e o mercado exigia apenas fluência na língua para ingressar na carreira.
Cada vez mais é necessário estar por dentro das novas metodologias e abordagens e utilizar a tecnologia como aliada, sem deixar de lado o aspecto humano do ensino.
Esses foram os motes da Convenção Nacional Braz-Tesol, que reuniu 1.200 profissionais de ensino de inglês do Brasil e do mundo de 19 a 22 de julho em São Paulo.
"A profissionalização do setor é uma tendência. O mercado está mais exigente e precisa de professores qualificados e comprometidos", afirma Vinícius Nobre, vice-presidente da Braz-Tesol, a maior associação de professores de inglês do país.
Na sessão de abertura, Patricia Friedrich, professora da Universidade do Estado do Arizona, dos EUA, destacou a responsabilidade social do professor de idiomas.
"Dar aulas não é só um emprego. Devemos ter consciência do impacto do inglês como língua global e de que a linguagem pode ser um veículo para resolver conflitos."

INGLÊS GLOBAL
Uma das principais tendências no ensino de inglês é o uso de tecnologia, como sites, filmes, vídeos do YouTube, blogs e podcasts (arquivos de áudio on-line).
"O professor tem de conhecer as ferramentas e orientar os alunos a utilizá-las fora da sala de aula também, para o aprendizado na rapidez que o mercado exige hoje", diz o inglês Graeme Hodgson, diretor de língua inglesa do British Council.
"Quem lutar contra a tecnologia sairá perdendo. É importante aprender a lidar e trabalhar com ela", completa David Crystal, autor de duas enciclopédias da Cambridge University Press.
Com a internet, ganha destaque a ideia de um "inglês global", com mais variedade linguística do que a tradicional divisão entre o inglês britânico e o norte-americano.
Para o professor Henrique Moura, respeitar as características culturais dos falantes não nativos é um dos temas em pauta atualmente.
"Na China, há mais alunos aprendendo inglês do que nativos dessa língua, e isso tem impacto no ensino. Não é preciso ter a preocupação de soar como um nativo, mas de ser compreendido globalmente", declara Ben Goldstein, professor de cursos on-line da Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, na Espanha.

EXIGÊNCIAS ATUAIS
PARA PROFESSORES


- Qualificar-se em cursos de graduação (letras, pedagogia ou educação), pós-graduação ou mestrado
- Buscar certificação internacional (como Celta e Icelt, na área de metodologia, e CAE ou CPE, na de proficiência)
- Estar antenado com a tecnologia como ferramenta de ensino (vídeos on-line, podcasts e sites, por exemplo)
- Conhecer diversas metodologias e abordagens, como a comunicativa e a lexical
- Conhecer e aplicar conceitos de ensino afetivo e neurolinguística
- Buscar aperfeiçoamento constante
- Entender a responsabilidade social do professor


Fonte: Folha On Line

domingo, 8 de agosto de 2010

NEVER WAKE UP: THE MEANING AND SECRET OF INCEPTION

By Devin Faraci


This entire article is a major spoiler for Inception. Please do not read it until you've experienced Christopher Nolan's film for yourself.

Every single moment of Inception is a dream. I think that in a couple of years this will become the accepted reading of the film, and differing interpretations will have to be skillfully argued to be even remotely considered. The film makes this clear, and it never holds back the truth from audiences. Some find this idea to be narratively repugnant, since they think that a movie where everything is a dream is a movie without stakes, a movie where the audience is wasting their time.

Except that this is exactly what Nolan is arguing against. The film is a metaphor for the way that Nolan as a director works, and what he's ultimately saying is that the catharsis found in a dream is as real as the catharsis found in a movie is as real as the catharsis found in life. Inception is about making movies, and cinema is the shared dream that truly interests the director.

I believe that Inception is a dream to the point where even the dream-sharing stuff is a dream. Dom Cobb isn't an extractor. He can't go into other people's dreams. He isn't on the run from the Cobol Corporation. At one point he tells himself this, through the voice of Mal, who is a projection of his own subconscious. She asks him how real he thinks his world is, where he's being chased across the globe by faceless corporate goons.

She asks him that in a scene that we all know is a dream, but Inception lets us in on this elsewhere. Michael Caine's character implores Cobb to return to reality, to wake up. During the chase in Mombasa, Cobb tries to escape down an alleyway, and the two buildings between which he's running begin closing in on him - a classic anxiety dream moment. When he finally pulls himself free he finds Ken Watanabe's character waiting for him, against all logic. Except dream logic.

Much is made in the film about totems, items unique to dreamers that can be used to tell when someone is actually awake or asleep. Cobb's totem is a top, which spins endlessly when he's asleep, and the fact that the top stops spinning at many points in the film is claimed by some to be evidence that Cobb is awake during those scenes. The problem here is that the top wasn't always Cobb's totem - he got it from his wife, who killed herself because she believed that they were still living in a dream. There's more than a slim chance that she's right - note that when Cobb remembers her suicide she is, bizarrely, sitting on a ledge opposite the room they rented. You could do the logical gymnastics required to claim that Mal simply rented another room across the alleyway, but the more realistic notion here is that it's a dream, with the gap between the two lovers being a metaphorical one made literal. When Mal jumps she leaves behind the top, and if she was right about the world being a dream, the fact that it spins or doesn't spin is meaningless. It's a dream construct anyway. There's no way to use the top as a proof of reality.

Watching the film with this eye you can see the dream logic unfolding. As is said in the movie, dreams seem real in the moment and it's only when you've woken up that things seem strange. The film's 'reality' sequences are filled with moments that, on retrospect, seem strange or unlikely or unexplained. Even the basics of the dream sharing technology is unbelievably vague, and I don't think that's just because Nolan wants to keep things streamlined. It's because Cobb's unconscious mind is filling it in as he goes along.

There's more, but I would have to watch the film again with a notebook to get all the evidence (all of it in plain sight). The end seems without a doubt to be a dream - from the dreamy way the film is shot and edited once Cobb wakes up on the plane all the way through to him coming home to find his two kids in the exact position and in the exact same clothes that he kept remembering them, it doesn't matter if the top falls, Cobb is dreaming.

That Cobb is dreaming and still finds his catharsis (that he can now look at the face of his kids) is the point. It's important to realize that Inception is a not very thinly-veiled autobiographical look at how Nolan works. In a recent red carpet interview, Leonardo DiCaprio - who was important in helping Nolan get the script to the final stages - compares the movie not to The Matrix or some other mindfuck movie but Fellini's 8 1/2. This is probably the second most telling thing DiCaprio said during the publicity tour for the film, with the first being that he based Cobb on Nolan. 8 1/2 is totally autobiographical for Fellini, and it's all about an Italian director trying to overcome his block and make a movie (a science fiction movie, even). It's a film about filmmaking, and so is Inception.

The heist team quite neatly maps to major players in a film production. Cobb is the director while Arthur, the guy who does the research and who sets up the places to sleep, is the producer. Ariadne, the dream architect, is the screenwriter - she creates the world that will be entered. Eames is the actor (this is so obvious that the character sits at an old fashioned mirrored vanity, the type which stage actors would use). Yusuf is the technical guy; remember, the Oscar come from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and it requires a good number of technically minded people to get a movie off the ground. Nolan himself more or less explains this in the latest issue of Film Comment, saying 'There are a lot of striking similarities [between what the team does and the putting on of a major Hollywood movie]. When for instance the team is out on the street they've created, surveying it, that's really identical with what we do on tech scouts before we shoot.'

That leaves two key figures. Saito is the money guy, the big corporate suit who fancies himself a part of the game. And Fischer, the mark, is the audience. Cobb, as a director, takes Fischer through an engaging, stimulating and exciting journey, one that leads him to an understanding about himself. Cobb is the big time movie director (or rather the best version of that - certainly not a Michael Bay) who brings the action, who brings the spectacle, but who also brings the meaning and the humanity and the emotion.

The movies-as-dreams aspect is part of why Inception keeps the dreams so grounded. In the film it's explained that playing with the dream too much alerts the dreamer to the falseness around him; this is just another version of the suspension of disbelief upon which all films hinge. As soon as the audience is pulled out of the movie by some element - an implausible scene, a ludicrous line, a poor performance - it's possible that the cinematic dream spell is broken completely, and they're lost.

As a great director, Cobb is also a great artist, which means that even when he's creating a dream about snowmobile chases, he's bringing something of himself into it. That's Mal. It's the auterist impulse, the need to bring your own interests, obsessions and issues into a movie. It's what the best directors do. It's very telling that Nolan sees this as kind of a problem; I suspect another filmmaker might have cast Mal as the special element that makes Cobb so successful.

Inception is such a big deal because it's what great movies strive to do. You walk out of a great film changed, with new ideas planted in your head, with your neural networks subtly rewired by what you've just seen. On a meta level Inception itself does this, with audiences leaving the theater buzzing about the way it made them feel and perceive. New ideas, new thoughts, new points of view are more lasting a souvenir of a great movie than a ticket stub.

It's possible to view Fischer, the mark, as not the audience but just as the character that is being put through the movie that is the dream. To be honest, I haven't quite solidified my thought on Fischer's place in the allegorical web, but what's important is that the breakthrough that Fischer has in the ski fortress is real. Despite the fact that his father is not there, despite the fact that the pinwheel was never by his father's bedside, the emotions that Fischer experiences are 100 percent genuine. It doesn't matter that the movie you're watching isn't a real story, that it's just highly paid people putting on a show - when a movie moves you, it truly moves you. The tears you cry during Up are totally real, even if absolutely nothing that you see on screen has ever existed in the physical world.

For Cobb there's a deeper meaning to it all. While Cobb doesn't have daddy issues (that we know of), he, like Fischer, is dealing with a loss. He's trying to come to grips with the death of his wife*; Fischer's journey reflects Cobb's while not being a complete point for point reflection. That's important for Nolan, who is making films that have personal components - that talk about things that obviously interest or concern him - but that aren't actually about him. Other filmmakers (Fellini) may make movies that are thinly veiled autobiography, but that's not what Nolan or Cobb are doing. The movies (or dreams) they're putting together reflect what they're going through but aren't easily mapped on to them. Talking to Film Comment, Nolan says he has never been to psychoanalysis. 'I think I use filmmaking for that purpose. I have a passionate relationship to what I do.'

In a lot of ways Inception is a bookend to last summer's Inglorious Basterds. In that film Quentin Tarantino celebrated the ways that cinema could change the world, while in Inception Nolan is examining the ways that cinema, the ultimate shared dream, can change an individual. The entire film is a dream, within the confines of the movie itself, but in a more meta sense it's Nolan's dream. He's dreaming Cobb, and finding his own moments of revelation and resolution, just as Cobb is dreaming Fischer and finding his own catharsis and change.

The whole film being a dream isn't a cop out or a waste of time, but an ultimate expression of the film's themes and meaning. It's all fake. But it's all very, very real. And that's something every single movie lover understands implicitly and completely.

* it's really worth noting that if you accept that the whole movie is a dream that Mal may not be dead. She could have just left Cobb. The mourning that he is experiencing deep inside his mind is no less real if she's alive or dead - he has still lost her.

http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/24477/1/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/Page1.html

quinta-feira, 20 de maio de 2010

Doodle

A doodle is a type of sketch, an unfocused drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied.

Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.

Stereotypical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class.

Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available.

Popular kinds of doodles include cartoon versions of teachers or companions in a school, famous TV or comic characters, invented fictional beings, landscapes, geometric shapes and patterns, textures, banners with legends, and animations made by drawing a scene sequence in various pages of a book or notebook.

Regardless of any advancement in technology, pen and paper will always be the number once choice for any budding artist or illustrator. It is with the these pencil sketches that we create great designs. So, what exactly makes a doodle so fascinating even though it is claimed to be one of the most unproductive ways of spending time. Maybe a gross understatement, but once you look at these creative doodles, you will know what I’m talking about.

A doodle is a type of sketch, an unfocused drawing made while a person’s attention is otherwise occupied elsewhere. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes. Stereotypical examples of doodling are found in school notebooks, often in the margins, drawn by students daydreaming or losing interest during class. Other common examples of doodling are produced during long telephone conversations if a pen and paper are available. Popular kinds of doodles include cartoon versions of teachers or companions in a school, famous TV or comic characters, invented fictional beings, landscapes, geometric shapes, textures, banners with legends, and animations made by drawing a scene sequence in various pages of a book or notebook. (via wikipedia)
In this article, I have showcased some of the coolest doodle art found on the web. Some of them will just blow you away. Also, at the end of the article, I have given links to some really useful resources and articles which will definitely be of interest to you.

So, Enjoy the journey.
Source: http://richworks.in/2010/04/25-most-creative-examples-of-doodle-art/
Wikipedia

terça-feira, 11 de maio de 2010

Practising English outside School

By Josef Essberger

When you are learning English, it is very important to use and practise your English as often as possible. If you are studying in a school, you have some good opportunities to practise. But what can you do after school, or if you are studying alone, to continue practising?

In fact there are many things that you can do outside school to improve your English. Let us consider the 4 skills that you need to develop to use a language well:

1.LISTENING
2.SPEAKING
3.READING
4.WRITING
Here are some of the ways you can improve these skills outside school:

LISTENING
Listening to English is one of the most important things you can do to improve your English. Do not try too hard to understand everything. Just listen and you will soon understand. You have several possibilities:

Cassettes and CDs
Listening to songs (on cassette or compact disc) can be useful in helping you to "feel" the language. It does not matter if you do not understand everything.

Television
On television, you have a big choice of programmes: films, chat shows, documentaries, news. In many parts of the world you can watch English-language television, for example:

•BBC
•CNN
Many television stations have Internet sites which give details of frequencies.

Radio
This is another excellent way to practise your English. Here are 2 stations that you can listen to world-wide:

•BBC World Service
•Voice of America
Films
You can watch films in English on video at home. In some countries, you can watch films in English at the cinema. Watching with video is a very good method because you can replay parts that you do not understand. If you watch a video with English sub-titles, you can cover the sub-titles with paper. Then, if there are some words that you really do not understand, you can remove the paper and look at the sub-title. But be careful! The sub-titles are not always an exact translation.

SPEAKING
Speaking English is one thing that you cannot do alone!

You can listen to English alone.
You can read English alone.
You can write English alone.

But, you run a serious risk if you speak to yourself in English! That is why you should speak as much as possible at school where there are people to speak to.

How can you speak English outside school?

That depends on where you are. But you should make a big effort to find somebody for conversation practice. In a large city, it should not be difficult to find people who speak good English. You can put an advertisement in a local newspaper. There may even be some English or American pubs or clubs where people speak English. You may find an English person, for example, who wants to practise your language. Then you can do a conversation exchange. Outside the big cities, you need to be more imaginative. Perhaps you can use the telephone. Or even the Internet, if you are equipped with an Internet phone.

READING
Reading is an excellent way to learn new vocabulary. But you need to read the right level of English. If it is too difficult, you may become discouraged. If it is too easy, you will make no progress. Try to read something that is slightly above your level. Try to understand the meaning of a new word from the context. If you really cannot understand, use a dictionary and record the word.

What can you read? Well, there is no shortage of reading material: books, poetry, newspapers, magazines, Internet.

There are so many books - fact or fiction - that it should not be difficult to find something suitable. Perhaps you already have some books in English. Or take a look in a library or bookshop. In many cities you can use the library of the British Council.

Some publishers produce 'simple' books for beginners. They are short, simplified stories. Usually they have notes and explanations.

We also have some short stories and classic texts in English Club English Reading with notes to help you.

Newspapers
You can learn a lot of new vocabulary from a newspaper. You can find British or American newspapers in all the big cities of the world. Some countries publish special English-language papers: the 'Bangkok Post' in Thailand or the 'Straits Times' in Singapore, for example.

Here are some British and American newspapers. They are available at news-stands in big cities and at airports and main railway stations.

British:

•The Times
•The Telegraph
•The Financial Times (especially for business)
•The European (weekly - especially about Europe)
•'The Sunday Times' (weekly)
American:

•International Herald Tribune
•Washington Post
Magazines
Try reading a magazine regularly. You can subscribe to a magazine and have it delivered anywhere in the world.

•Time (general interest)
•Newsweek (news)
•The Economist (business)
•Cosmopolitan (fashion, leisure)
WRITING
Practise your English by writing letters to a pen friend. Today, with the Internet, this is very easy. You can exchange letters by email. To find a pen friend from anywhere in the world, check out English Club ESL Forums.

© 1998 Josef Essberger
Source: http://www.englishclub.com

quarta-feira, 5 de maio de 2010

A importância do contexto

Por Ulisses Wehby de Carvalho

Source: http://www.teclasap.com.br/blog

É impressionante o número de perguntas que chegam ao “Fórum Tecla SAP” com títulos do tipo “Como se diz “qualquer coisa” em inglês?”. Até aí nada de extraordinário, pois trata-se de interesse legítimo em ampliar os conhecimentos da língua inglesa. O que muitos estudantes não percebem é que, instintivamente, acabam criando a expectativa de que existe uma conexão direta e estática entre os vocábulos, como se houvesse uma relação biunívoca entre as palavras. Relação o quê? É isso mesmo, biunívoca. Para quem não se lembra das aulas de matemática, uma relação biunívoca é aquela que associa, a cada um dos elementos de um conjunto, um único elemento de outro conjunto, e vice-versa, como na Figura 1 abaixo.

É natural que, ao começarmos a estudar uma língua estrangeira, façamos esse tipo de associação. Que atire a primeira pedra quem, conscientemente ou não, nunca pensou assim. Acontece que, na prática, nenhum termo existe em um fundo cinza estéril. Palavra só é palavra de verdade quando está dentro de um contexto. Tomemos como exemplos três situações distintas, como na Figura 2.

Vejamos agora o que acontece com os mesmos vocábulos do exemplo inicial (Figura 1), agora inseridos no contexto esportivo (Figura 3), mais especificamente no mundo do tênis. Observe as possíveis alterações de sentido.

É lógico que “pegador” aqui não é o rapaz namorador que faz muito sucesso com as garotas. Trata-se de “BALL BOY”, o “pegador de bolas” no tênis. Quanto a “LOVE” querer dizer “zero”, confira o post Vocabulário: Zero publicado aqui no Tecla SAP. Mudemos de contexto mais uma vez e vejamos o que acontece no próximo caso.

Aí você me pergunta: Quer dizer que “HOUSE” no contexto político significa “câmara (dos deputados)”? Então “WHITE HOUSE” é “Câmara Branca” por acaso? Eu respondo: não caia na mesma armadilha! É claro que “WHITE HOUSE” sempre foi e continuará sendo “Casa Branca”. Não se esqueça, no entanto, de que “HOUSE” pode ser “casa” ou, entre outras acepções, “Câmara”. Jamais se esqueça de que as relações entre os elementos de um conjunto com os do outro conjunto são muito voláteis. Em outras palavras, são relações de curtíssima duração. Está começando a entender onde quero chegar? Observemos mais um quadro:

Ao encerrar uma carta para parente ou amigo próximo é comum usarmos a palavra “LOVE”. Nesses casos, podemos afirmar que “LOVE” é equivalente a “beijos”. Consulte os posts Vocabulário: Abraço e Curiosidades: XOXO para ler mais sobre o assunto. Em frases como “Oh boy, it’s cold in here!”, “BOY” passa a ser uma interjeição que indica surpresa, indignação, alegria etc. Poderíamos traduzi-la por “caramba”, “minha nossa” ou outra locução sinônima. Eu até poderia adicionar mais um ingrediente a essa salada se eu fosse falar de regionalismo, ou seja, “BOY” poderia, nesse caso, ser “Vixi!”, “Rapaz!”, “Caraca!”, “Meu!”, “Bah!”, “Eita!”, dependendo, é lógico, da região do Brasil em que você se encontra. Mas regionalismo fica para outro post.

Se a tese é válida até mesmo para palavras elementares como “LOVE”, “HOUSE” e “BOY”, o que dizer então de “POWER”? Como traduzir “POWER BOAT”, “POWER DRILL”, “POWER OF ATTORNEY”, “POWER STEERING” e “POWER SUPPLY” só com uma palavra em português? Simplesmente não dá. Há ainda “BREAKTHROUGH”, “EMPOWERMENT”, “TAKE FOR GRANTED”, entre muitas outras expressões que acabam gerando dificuldades quando são transpostas para o nosso idioma. Acontece que todas, invariavelmente, têm tradução! Clique nos links para conferir as soluções dadas por Isa Mara Lando, em seu excelente VocabuLando, ferramenta indispensável para quem leva a sério o estudo de inglês e a tradução. Infelizmente, não é sempre a mesma palavra, como acreditam alguns. As traduções serão feitas cada hora de um jeito, cada hora com uma solução diferente.

Espero que você tenha compreendido que os idiomas não são códigos que possuem símbolos análogos que podem ser simplesmente substituídos uns pelos outros. Se fosse assim, os softwares de tradução automática já teriam dado aos tradutores de carne e osso o mesmo destino que a calculadora deu ao ábaco. Em suma, estudar inglês é muito mais do que criar uma tabela de duas colunas no Word!

Lembre-se, portanto, das próximas vezes que perguntar o significado de palavra ou expressão no “Fórum Tecla SAP“, de dizer em que contexto você a ouviu/leu ou em que situação gostaria de empregá-la. Faça o mesmo na hora de guardar os significados de palavras e expressões novas no seu banco de dados mental.

Se até a matemática, uma ciência exata, tem um símbolo para indicar aproximações (aquele sinal de igual com o til em cima, lembra?), é loucura imaginar que as línguas, maleáveis por natureza, são precisas e estáticas. Mas são justamente a aparente incoerência e a constante imprevisibilidade suas características mais encantadoras. Qual seria a graça de somar 2 + 2 se o resultado sempre fosse 4?

segunda-feira, 3 de maio de 2010

Your CV or Resume In English

When you apply for a job, employers ask for two important documents:

1.A CV or resume
2.A covering letter
This month we look at your CV. Next month we will look at your covering letter.

Why you need a good CV
Your CV is a summary of your professional and academic life. It usually concentrates on your personal details, education and work experience.

Your CV's job is very simple: to get you a job interview. To do this, your CV must be:

•clear
•well-organised
•easy to read
•concise
•relevant to the job offered
Content
You should include everything that is relevant to your employment or career and nothing that is irrelevant. There are usually 5 general headings of information to include:

a.Personal details: name, address, email and telephone number (and sometimes nationality, age/date of birth and marital status)
b.Objective: a headline that summarises the job you want
c.Work experience: your employment in reverse chronological order
d.Education: details of secondary and university education
e.Personal interests: showing that you are a well-balanced person with an interesting life outside work
Sometimes, you may need to give additional information for a particular job or because you have special qualifications.

Format
In the English-speaking world your CV should be word-processed, for several reasons:

•a hand-written CV is unprofessional
•some recruitment agencies and employers like to scan CVs electronically
•it will be easier for you to update and modify your CV later
It is usually best to limit your CV to a maximum of 2 pages. You can usually put everything you need on 1 or 2 pages.

DO NOT USE ALL CAPITALS LIKE THIS!!! CAPITALS ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO READ AND CAN BE CONSIDERED IMPOLITE IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD.

There are basically 2 standard paper sizes, depending on your part of the world:

•A4 (297 x 210 millimetres) - as used in Europe
•Letter Size (8 1/2 x 11 inches) - as used in the United States
Vocabulary
Your language should be simple and clear.

Use short words and short sentences.

Do not use technical vocabulary (unless you are sure that the reader will understand it).

Talk about concrete facts ("I increased sales by 50%"), not abstract ideas ("I was responsible for a considerable improvement in our market position").

Use verbs in the active voice, not passive voice. Which of these two sentences do you think is the more powerful?

•active: "I organised this exhibition."
•passive: "This exhibition was organised by me."
Use "power words". The most powerful words are verbs. And the most powerful verbs are action verbs. (Action verbs describe dynamic activity, not state).

Here, for example, are some typical power words for Management and Sales skills:

•Management skills: assign, attain, chair, co-ordinate, delegate, direct, execute, organise, oversee, plan, recommend, review, strengthen, supervise, train
•Sales skills: sell, convert, close, deal, persuade, highlight, satisfy, win over, sign
So you should use lots of action verbs matched to your skills, and use them in the active form, not the passive form.

Source: http://www.englishclub.com/