This proof reading exercise from Rus Slater aims to teach delegates – in this case managers – some lessons in spelling and grammar.
Get a relevant piece of written work, for example a report, tender response or sales document, and amend it to have a series of "deliberate mistakes", some purely spelling and grammar of a "quality" nature, and some that are errors of a spelling and grammatical nature that render the work ambiguous or inaccurate.
Send this out as a piece of "pre-course reading" asking delegates to highlight the offending sections.
Then when you get together for the actual training you can get them to:
a) compare and contrast their discoveries,
b) discuss the effect the errors have on the efficacy of the document and
c) the delegates own reaction to the more basic errors.
This makes it appear to be more of a critiquing exercise than remedial training for them, thus hopefully removing/reducing the oppositional reflex.
You can generate a "marked version" at the event for disemination afterwards as an aide-memoire or you could give them each a copy of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" or similar.
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Communication/grammar skills training
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