I'm writing to express my deepest appreciation to the GLSI Board and community for honoring my book in Brno at the 17th GLS Conference. This award means more to me than words can say, but I’ll try to find the words to explain why that is so.

The first edition of Getting to Yes (GTY) was published in 1981, and ever since, millions of readers around the world have learned and practiced its four-step process for principled, win-win negotiation. Principled negotiation uses specific, teachable communication techniques for preventing and resolving disputes by increasing our understanding and empathy for our counterparts – and ourselves.

Many GLS colleagues have expressed the need and determination to bring these same values and practices into our classrooms and into the world. In fact, in my experience, empathy is at the heart of the GLS conference and community.

The book that received this year’s recognition is my effort to make it easy and enjoyable for our students to put those values into practice, in English. I believe it will serve its purpose because of its origin story: Many years ago, as a new instructor in UC Berkeley’s Summer English Studies program, I confidently assigned the introduction and first chapter of GTY as light weekend reading in my dispute resolution course for international students. I had appreciated the book as both a popular, accessible bestseller and as a key resource for serious negotiators, so I was looking forward to Monday morning.

However, on Monday morning, I learned that my students had not enjoyed their weekend, not even a little. GTY’s vocabulary, idioms, examples and references had not been accessible to these high-intermediate to advanced ESL/LL.M. students. On the bright side, they nevertheless grasped the main ideas and were excited to learn more about them, so I prepared some sorry-looking vocabulary guides and exercises and other materials for an even sorrier-looking course reader to guide them through GTY. Thanks to the University of Michigan Press, those efforts have been transformed into the beautiful (if I may say so myself) book that GLS has honored.

If you’ve never read GTY, I hope that you’ll be inspired to take a look at it now. Perhaps you’ll find ways to use it for your own teaching purposes with or without my guide for non-native English speakers.

Again, many thanks to GLS for this recognition and for this opportunity to bring GTY into the GLS community.

What a perfect match.

Getting to Yes- Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, Roger Fisher and William Ury:
https://lnkd.in/dVa4FNCv

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The Getting to Yes © Guide for ESL Students and Professionals: Principled Negotiation for Non-Native Speakers of English, Barrie J. Roberts:
https://lnkd.in/drfZJhH4