Job Discussion Forums

sharpe88 · Joined: 21 Oct 2008 Posts: 226

Can anyone reccomend some good videos to use for a business English class ?

I was thinking of using The Office (US version) to help with the kind of informal office English my trainees might encounter.

Would the humour be too specific and strange as to be off-putting for them ?

LongShiKong · Joined: 28 May 2007 Posts: 1082 Location: China

Last time I taught business classes, I had my dad back in Canada record a few episodes of Venture, a weekly documentary style TV show about business in Canada. It's sort of like the business equivalent of Cops. Have a look. Type 'Venture' under 'TV programs' for a selection of archived clips at this website: http://archives.cbc.ca/search?ITy=2 That's only one program from one broadcaster--I'm sure there's a wealth of similar stuff out there. Trouble is, how do you download and save streaming video? Perhaps someone can help us with that?

father Mackenzie · Joined: 10 Oct 2008 Posts: 105 Location: Jakarta Barat

Have you tried the BBC? They have busines english videos and a huge library of resources. You Tube is always a favourite of mine. John Cleese management videos or Fawlty Towers seems to get a the message over about communication and the language is always spot on.

sharpe88 · Joined: 21 Oct 2008 Posts: 226

^ Good suggestion. Can't find those John Cleese videos anywhere though

father Mackenzie · Joined: 10 Oct 2008 Posts: 105 Location: Jakarta Barat

The Two Ronnies are also good to view. The four candles sketch for pronunication, the goodnight from me and its a good night from him news sketches.
" a lorry carrying a cargo of hairbrushes overturned on the M1 this morning, police are said to be combing the area!" awful jokes but great idioms!!

They can be used for great warmers to a lesson.

alexcase · Joined: 26 Jul 2007 Posts: 215 Location: Seoul

I sat down with pen and paper to rewatch The Office (British version) Xmas special for an Advanced Business class of mine and reconsidered after 5 minutes and went back to good old Friends videos. The humour in The Office was too difficult to understand, and a bit too off colour to want to explain. Did recommend them to go out and get it with Japanese subtitles to understand British office humour though.

The only specifically Business English video worksheets I created myself was based on TV advertisements and seemed to go down quite well:

http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/worksheets/videos/marketing-video-fluency-lesson/