Job Discussion Forums

[PAULH]

From next term I have to teach a Business Class to Economic Majors at my university and have been given a business ESP textbook to use.

Although the language itself is not a problem I have little 'real world' experience in corporate life and business and there is a lot of jargon. Can anyone teaching business English give me any hints on how they structure their classes? What kinds of activities do you use and how do you set up an ESP class?

the class is lower intermediate and the text is "New Insights into Business".

Thanks for any feedback.

[freddie's friend daniel]

Paul,

I can only give a few tips about other texts that you might use to supplement the materials you already have. Have a look at the OUP Passport to Work (I think it's called). Also, I used to use a text called "In At the Deep End" for business classes, although it might be too difficult for your students. I'm in a bit of a hurry right now but I taught business classes for five years; I'll try and remember what sort of stuff I did and get back to you.

[madeira]

What do you mean by jargon? I wouldn't worry too much about language specific to Economics.

You know what the students need already, I'm sure. Greeting skills, telephone skills, describing, complaining, negotiating, meeting skills (chairing/presenting/interrupting/note-taking/summarising/analysing), basic functions such as ordering a meal or asking for directions... pronunciation work,lots of work on reading and listening for gist/detail... and they all will probably need decent TOEIC scores for job placement. Nevermind vocabulary specific to their field, they probably don't know 'warehouse' yet and say 'stuff' instead of 'staff'.

If I was planning for a similar course, I'd mix some grammar and function lessons in with some TOEIC and lots of mock meetings. Have the students run the show; giving presentations, taking notes, asking questions and reporting.

Of course, it helps if you have a text marked "business" English to start out with. Loads of students and administrators seem to think businesspeople speak a totally different language from regular people. I've used Business Objectives and Business Opportunities many times. Not bad books, lots of function work, a bit difficult to chop into 40-minute segments. Probably fine for your students if classes are 60-80 minutes.


Which reminds me... I'm supposed to be planning a 4-month course for mid-career diplomats.. I haven't level-checked them yet, but they are probably advanced speakers looking for a 'serious' speaking and listening program... and boy, I hate the whole 'Raise the Whatevers' books... I'm thinking about mostly using the newspaper, but what about listening? Where can I buy newscasts or recordings of speeches? (I really don't want to break any copyright rules.)

[Jizzo T. Clown]

madeira's right-

I'm not too sure about sararimen, but I taught and planned two BE courses in China and the students there already knew the technical terms relevant to their field. They were more worried about carrying out transactions and presentation skills. We also spent A LOT of time on meetings and negotiating...

I would focus mainly on situations/contexts in which they may be required to use more *formal* language, such as welcoming visitors or written correspondence. I gave an email assignment once a week (I only had a class of 10, so it wasn't too bad) so they could practice their formal English writing skills, i.e. reserving a room, requesting information, asking about an order, etc.

In Business 1, I had them write CVs and then we did mock job interviews. In Business 2, we focused mainly on negotiating, which they were very keen to practice.

http://www.onestopenglish.com

has lots of useful resources for teaching BE.

Keep in mind that business students are EXTREMELY aware of how class time is spent, so it's best to cater to their needs whenever possible. I would begin with a Needs Analysis if you can, that way they feel like they're taking an active part in their learning.

Teaching BE can be more work than teaching regular ESL classes, but you'll come away knowing a lot more, and you'll make some good friends in the process!

[freddie's friend daniel]

Paul,

Sorry to take so long in getting back and I see that in the meantime you have had two replies that say what I was going to anyway!

I agree with the others- if the students are economics majors, they will probably have a lot of the "jargon" they need already. Add to that the fact that they are lower intermediate in English and it's probably safe to say that they will need to concentrate more on non-ESP language, if you see what I mean. (I have a private student at the minute who is a biologist; he is also at a lower intermediate level and has problems expressing himself when talking about everyday matters but get him started on test-tubes and petrie-dishes and there is no stopping him.)

I have taught some lower intermediate level business English classes in the past and the most useful thing to do was just what the other posters suggested- we did a lot of mock-telephoning (if you can get your hands on one of those telephone/ tape recorder things, you might find it useful) and business correspondence. My students at the time weren't interested in doing negotiation- or presentation-practice but as econ majors, yours might.