Should business experience/training be a requirement?

[dwinet]

Our administration is trying to tell us an M.A. in TESL is not enough to teach Business English -- we need experience in business or training too.

Has anyone ever heard of another school doing this in the U.S. ?

Thanks for any info.
Dave

[James Trotta]

I've heard of this sort of thing. The reasoning is that a language teacher has to help students use English, and if you don't know how English is used to conduct business...

I worked as a secretary in a car dealer for about 6 months, but that doesn't make it onto my resume and I've been asked to teach business English.

Despite my lack of business specific experience, I'm extremely good at it. You just have to be willing to do some research and preparation.

[Dodger]

It's only logical,

if you have neither knowledge of business nor Business English, then as a teacher, please stay out of the classrooom.

People such as yourself are one of the main reasons why people such as myself make so much money teaching Business English in the first place!

[keith]

It is possible to be a very effective business English teacher without a business background. I think it depends on how you view the role of the business English teacher. I don't think we are there to teach them how to do business - if you are teaching a one-to-one class with a company CEO with 30 years of business experience, it's not very likely that you'll be able to teach him or her much about conducting business! What you're there to do is to help them conduct their business in English.

We can draw a parallel with general English - if the topic of the class is "extreme sports", for example, you might introduce it by asking if any of your students practise any extreme sports, and maybe have them tell you something about it if they do. You may not know anything about "wakeboarding" (one that came up in a class one time) but your student does, and is therefore a valuable sorce of information for relevant input. You're not there to tell your student about wakeboarding - he/she has the experience, not you - you're there to help him or her tell you about wakeboarding in English.

Now of course a background knowledge of business helps, just as a background knowledge of wakeboarding would help in the above example, but it doesn't need to be a prerequisite for teaching the class. Most business English teachers acquire astounding amounts of knowledge about business from the students themselves in the course of their teaching careers!

Keith
http://www.eslbase.com

[sbourque]

I´ve found that business knowledge is helpful, as is professional attire and maybe an over-30 (or in my case, over-50) appearance...maturity counts here. However, I've also found that some schools may WANT someone who can teach business in English, but are only willing to PAY for a Business English teacher. (Sadly, language teaching is still at the low end of the pay scale in most places.)

I taught Business English at a university in China where the course coordinator insisted that it was our job to teach the students about SWOT analysis. I argued in vain that it was the business instructor's job to teach this concept, and that we should be concentrating on the language. She had prepared an assignment which was incomprehensible to the students (who of course were too polite to complain). I gave my classes a list of useful vocabulary--collocations and set phrases--plus some short examples, and they were able to do a decent job.

[Amy_H]

Hi

I agree, business background is quite helpful. My courses take place in companies. Of course, there are tons of standard business phrases, etc. that can be applied to most any business. But there is no business degree or previous business experience that can prepare a Business English teacher for all industry-specific vocabulary or for every type of business situation. That's been one of my biggest challenges - despite the fact that I had 10 years of business experience prior to my change to teaching. I've had Business English courses for everything from insurance to automobiles to irrigation systems to medical devices to publishing to PCs. And "students" ranging from the assembly line to the boardroom. So, it's been a fascinating, on-going learning experience for the teacher as well.

[tigertiger]

Business background is very useful. It helps you understand what the student is trying to say. If you can't understand them, there is a barrier.

Also some theory is a very good springboard to getting them to open thier mouth and talk about thier industry. It help sif they are engaged on more than one level. Once they are talking about something they know it is easy to correct their grammar, or get them to use targeted grammar structures to describe what they do.

In theory there is no such thing as business English. However the use terminology and the correct use of terminology needs to be recognised. Having just completed my MBA I can give so much more in the classroom to high level corporate clients, and I can do it congruently. Students can smell lack of knowledge.

The trap not to fall into is free speach or the teacher delivering a lecture on business. They must talk.

[emile]

It's only logical,

if you have neither knowledge of business nor Business English, then as a teacher, please stay out of the classrooom.

People such as yourself are one of the main reasons why people such as myself make so much money teaching Business English in the first place!

The way Dodger put it sounds quite rude, but basically I agree.

I have taught Business English both before and after having business experience, and I can clearly see the difference that the experience makes.

I have also found, however, that a lot of executives ask for Business English when what they really want is general English.




My site: www.roadtogrammar.com

[Showem]

Funny, when I started teaching Business English, I certainly didn't have a typical corporate background. I had worked of course, but in enviroments far removed from an office. In fact, it was only when I started teaching that I started coming even remotely close to a M-F, 9-5 job.

I found the biggest things I lacked were specific examples from my own experience to share with the group. I can't say how meetings used to be run at my old company in comparison to how they are here. But I can ask my students to compare different companies they have worked at. The other thing missing was a feeling for some business functions like negotiations or responding to enquiries. But reading lots of material on it helped cover that for the most part.

Now I would say that 8 years experience working for myself and teaching BE the entire time has made up for my previous lack of corporate experience. I think it's helpful to have, but if you have a good teacher who is on the ball (not stuck in academialand or teaching like they are working with 8 year olds), there's no reason they can't teach business English.

[www.english-test.net]

Well, do you really think that terms like teacher, classroom and students should be used when we are talking about business? How do you define business anyway? After all, any exchange of information and experiences is some kind of business situation, isn't it? I'm convinced that you can't teach Business English. What you can do is team up with a business professional and share ideas and resources. So, there is this company and they want to communicate their goals more effectively. Your English vocabulay is larger than theirs so you get together and they start explaining to you what they want to say and you start making proposals as to how they might express their ideas and get their messages across. I think what you need to a good job here is the ability to listen and the willingness to try and put yourself into their shoes.

[hallo]

i think it's very important for anyone teaching business english to have business experience. the higher the level, the better. and i mean, beyond the secretarial level. there are specific ways for conducting business. and there are terms that you can look up like mergers & acquisition or arbitration, but a student will always bring up a topic that you haven't prepared for in advance.

i recently met up with an student of mine. she had enrolled in another course with the school i USED TO work with. this time 'round she was taking business english. since most of the people who came through the school were business executives, no matter which level the students were on, i tried to incorporate some element of business into their course. my student told me that the new teacher had absolutely no experience in business and could not effectively answer any of the students' questions.

[sayshamwari]

If the college/language centre needs someone with excellent business skills they need to pay a higher salary than standard ESL teachers salary!!

[tigertiger]

If the college/language centre needs someone with excellent business skills they need to pay a higher salary than standard ESL teachers salary!!

They should do. But they will do what they can get away with. Even if they have a high staff turnover.
I have just decided not to renew my contract with a brand leader who pays peanuts. Staff turnover is about 200%, but there are more and more business people, who have downshifted, getting of the plane every month.
I will get a 50% payrise for moving, and soon I will be working for myself.

But I had to be on the ground to find this out.

[tigertiger]

[quote="How do you define business anyway? After all, any exchange of information and experiences is some kind of business situation, isn't it? I'm convinced that you can't teach Business English. What you can do is team up with a business professional and share ideas and resources... I think what you need to a good job here is the ability to listen and the willingness to try and put yourself into their shoes.[/quote]


Disagree, sorry.
The exchange of information is a discussion. This kind of free talk is not good teaching.
Empathy is also not teaching.

The idea that 'there is no such thing as business English, just English' is a very traditional view.
Systemic functional linguitics (SFL) has the concept of 'register'. Register is how the topic under focus (field), the relationhip of the interactants (tenor), and the channel of communication (mode), will effect the different language choices that we make.
The field of business has its own experiential meanings.
The tenor of business relationships vary from the social forms. Business etiquette is based on power, social etiquette is based on chivalry (in the West). And there are specific expressions used in business contaxts that are not used generally.
The mode of commucations mostly shared but a business email is different to a social email. But presentatins, meetings, business letters are different.

These effect our choice of language. Presentations are not a normal form of communication and there is a 'language' of presentations, a language of negotiations, and others. Some words and expression in a meeting, or a negotiation (for examples), have specific meaning in their contexts.

SFL would suggest that there is indeed a business English. It is not just a market whim, or a matter of semantics.

PS Sory aboot spellin, it be layte.

[tigertiger]

...there are terms that you can look up like mergers & acquisition or arbitration, but a student will always bring up a topic that you haven't prepared for in advance... my student told me that the new teacher had absolutely no experience in business and could not effectively answer any of the students' questions.