Teacher Discussion Forums

Is there a certifciate that Cambridge offers to learn how to teach Business English?

Cambridge don't, but there is an LCCI Certificate in Teaching English for Business which you can take once you have the CELTA. It's a great course, but not many people know it and it can be difficult to find centres that offer it.

A centre in London used to offer a Teaching One to One course that I also heard good things about, but I think that disappeared as well.

The University of Central Lancashire used to offer a graduate program in Business English, but I don't see it on their current calendar. You may want to contact them to see if/when it is available:

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/courses/factshee ... CH1270.pdf

I don't know what your present situation is, but a combination of a CELTA and either some business experience or a business qualification is normally quite acceptable for teaching business English. Most of my business clients want business experience rather than paper qualifications.

James

P.S. If you want any business English teaching material, please feel free to have a look at: http://www.jamesabela.co.uk/bus/ It should give you some idea of what clients want.

Teaching business English is not that much different than teaching English. There are many books and websites that can help you prepare. There are also certification courses available as well. Take note that not all certification courses are created equal i.e. do some research.

Consider reading this article: http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues ... agons.html

In my experience of teaching business students, I've find that there's not actually any need to teach specific business vocabulary. I'm saying this for two main reasons:

1. Which area of business are your students in?
Each area has its own particular vocabulary which is often generally used vocabulary 'repurposed' for their particular needs. Learning the particular vocabulary for each of your students' needs is impractical.

2. Why would you want to try to teach business to businessmen/women?
Unless they are university/college students on a business studies course, you'll find that they pretty much already know all the specialised vocabulary in their particular field. In fact, they'd be better at teaching it to you!

Cambridge offers the BEC exam which is more or less at the same level as FCE (upper-intermediate). There are plenty of course books that cater for preparing students to take this exam. They contain all the most general vocabulary related to sales, marketing and business administration.

I think the most important thing for a teacher is that he/she understands the concepts that his/her students are talking about. Theoretical knowledge in this case would be pretty inadequate which is why most EFL/ESL schools opt to recruit teachers with some direct hands on experience of working in the business world.