Job Discussion Forums

[Jin]

Hello everyone

Just looking for some advice really.

I have recently, successfully passed a TESOL course , and have been busy sending out my CV etc to different language schools in England and in France.

Due to the lack of experiance, I didn't think I would get a reply for a while. However a miracle has taken place and I have landed a job interview to teach Business English to French executives.

Now I'm biting my fingers (I have no more finger nails) as I haven't a clue how to prepare for the interview, or about the types of questions they will ask etc etc.

Could somebody please enlighten me.

Thanking you all in advance

Jin
xxx

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Dear Jin:

I'm sorry no one has taken a stab at answering your question, so I'll do the best I can based on what I know.

I've taught quite a few corporate clients over the years, including Intel Corp. and Coca-Cola. The first thing to realize is that English is basically English. When you teach a course in Business English, there will be quite a bit of additional business-related jargon which you will need to know and be able to explain. Some of it is self-explanatory; concepts like retail vs. wholesale, for example.

Some of the jargon can be a bit more complex. Here are a few examples from the textbook which I'm using at the moment, Market Leader by David Cotton, David Falvey and Simon Kent:

asset management, acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, subsidiaries, value added resellers, deregulation, globalization, dumping, capital flight, franchising, branding, consumer durables, limited liability companies, protectionism, SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) ... and so on and so on.

Jin: Don't let this stuff scare you. You can learn these terms fairly quickly by getting your hands on a decent Business English textbook, and that's exactly what I'd advise you to do, if you have time to do so before your upcoming interview.

What kinds of questions they'll ask you during the interview is anybody's guess, so I can't really offer much concrete help in that regard.

If you think of Business English as nothing more than normal English on steroids, you'll be pretty close to the mark.

Good luck, Jin
keNt

PS: During the interview, they might ask you to recommend a textbook, so you should be prepared to 'drop a few names', if ya know what I mean. I can personally recommend Market Leader, and they do have their own website, which you can browse and order from. Here's the URL:

http://www.market-leader.net/