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Course books and Supplementary resources
Sun, 03/15/2009 - 15:04
  Hi all, Business English is becoming a more demanding profession, so many publishing houses have created many resources as course books and supplementary materials. What course books do you use at your end?Do you need to supplement them? Do you believe that there's a perfect Business English coursebook? If yes, which one? looking forward to receiving your comments :-) All the best, Sahar
Sat, 03/21/2009 - 19:01
#2
Hi Anastasia, I agree with you that authentic materials are the key for any successful course but sometimes these are not handy. In the past, there used to be a few range of resources for Business, but now there's a wide range from course books, photocopiable resources, videos, simulations and games. I personally find the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/business/talkingbusiness/the Financial Times and Market Leader excellent sites for authentic resources: http://www.market-leader.net/ We are currently using Market Leader as a course book for the English for Business courses, and I find it very efficient and help learners prepare for BEC exams. But I am not sure about the Advanced level, the topics are being over used, so I have to supplement with other resources. Here's a list of some of the extra resources I use and find effective: In At The Deep End (int above) ● Student friendly and suitable for pair or group work ● Lots of short speaking / grammar activities ● Contains useful/key phrases which are nicely presented Executive Decisions (upper int above) ● Authentic case studies which can be used over a few lessons ● Practices all four skills ● Could be used for group project work and to assess speaking Business Idioms International ● Dictionary with examples ● Some listening practise included ● Good to dip into – could cut and paste parts Essential Telephoning in English (pre-int above) ● Useful for self-study (has answer key) ● Key phrases, language summary, consolidation units ● Logically and nicely laid out New Business Matters (int above) ● Lexical approach – lots of vocabulary ● Contains glossary at the back ● Could use vocab and collocations for revision Business Vocabulary in Use ● Lots of different topics and good visuals ● Good for self-study (answers in back) ● Vocab related readings and exercises
All the best, Sahar
Sun, 03/22/2009 - 08:27
#3
 Hi, Sahar! At my department my colleagues and myself are also very fond of using different textbooks from the Market Leader series, and as an additional source to our courses, we have also used the video series Effective Meetings, Socialising, and Negotiations. I agree with you, Business Vocabulary in Use, together with Business Grammar in Use, make up a terrific sourse for the extra activities in class to brush up on grammar and vocabulary suitable for the business context. I have no idea of the New Business Matters, but we used to rely heavily on the Insights into Business, First Insights into Business, and New Insights into Business, we also used Business Communication a lot. At the moment I am a particular fan of the Business Vision, because all the materials are up-to-date, and the textbook is built rather efficiently. What about the others? Which textbooks do you prefer and which additional sources do you regard to be necessary? We would be happy to hear from you! Anastasia
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 15:25
#4
Hi Anastasia, Unfortunately I haven't used or seen Business vision but I find Business Communication effective and handy. As I mentioned earlier, i am very fond of Market Leader but we have a alot of photocopiable resources, that are skills based and communicative, really user friendly. You might want to order a copy and share in your school: 1. Reward Pre-Intermedaite Business Pack 2. Reward Intermedaite Business Pack 3. Reward Upper Intermediate Business Pack 4. Business Roles 5. Busness Roles 2 6. Bysiness English Pair work 7. Business Communication games 8. Business English Activities 9. Executive decisions 10. NEW English file Business packs: Elementary, Pre Intermediate. Upper Intermediate 11. Team work 12. Talking Business in class 13. Business Builder 1, 2 and 3 All the best, Sahar
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 15:54
#5
Hi, Sahar! Thank you so much for your suggestions, I will surely try many of them. Some sound very familiar, like Business Communication Games (I have trouble reaching those because of lack of time during the class), Business Builder and Executive Decisions. They make up a good addition to the class activities. Reward Business Pack sounds completely new for me, so I need to have a look at it now. I have come across Reward for GE, but not the Business Pack. 'Business Roles' and other texstbooks also are new for me. I certainly advise you on Business Vision. At the moment it is my favourite because it is very dynamic, has a variety and uses up-to-date material. Could anyone else share their preferences of the textbooks for Business English? Your suggestions are of great importance! Anastasia.
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 17:54
#6
 Hi All I believe you will hardly ever find a perfect Business English coursebook if not create your own materials for the specific group of learners. Even in this case you will need to revise it as soon as a new group of learners appear. My idea is very easy to understand: everything we are doing in the classroom is rooted in our own concepts of teaching Business English + needs of the particular group of learners. That is why I can’t recommend you the best or perfect coursebook in Business English, but readily share what I use at my classes:
All these coursebooks correspond to my concept of teaching and learning BE. In addition to them I design my own materials or select supplementary materials from other coursebooks. I also widely use real life materials taken from various sources including Internet. Hope I was of any help to you.
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 07:23
#7
Dear Zira, Thank you for your interest in our thread. Your contribution is really helpful. Personally I have never heard or used the textbooks you have mentioned, so I should definitely look at them now, because they sound very promising. You are right indeed that there is no perfect textbook, and the tutor always has to add more materials in order to adapt the course to the students' needs perfectly, but some textbooks have more 'meat' in them, and others have less. Some are more motivating and cover more topics than the others. So that's why it makes sense to discuss the materials we are using. Thanks to everyone who are participating here and to Sahar who has created this thread. Anastasia
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 18:17
#8
 Interesting posts here. I do think that for Business English the intercultural issue should be included since when they perform in the real world they will encounter speakers of English with different cultural and linguitic backgrounds. Is this strand dealt with in these textbooks?
Mon, 03/23/2009 - 19:18
#9
Nahir, You have picked up on a very important strand to keep in mind while teaching BE and EFL in general. The textbooks I've mentioned reveal very interesting things in social and corporate cultures in different countries. I think intercultural and sociocultural issues are worth being disucussed as a seperate thread. As for textbooks to be used as additional materials I'd like to recommend: Sharman, E. (2005) Across Cultures. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited.
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 01:46
#10
 Hi everyone, I am also using Intelligent Business and The Business in my teaching. I like these courses a lot, especially Intelligent Business. It is aimed at BEC, there are very good dilemma & decision tasks at the end of each unit for the group work. I like the Style Guide to writing skills, etc for this book. It is very helpful. The articles are great as all the texts are from The Economist. The Business course is very up-to-date too. Case studies are a little bit different there, but they are very effective. I especially like Speaking and Writing parts of the units and the layout of the units themselves. In my institute teachers use Market Leader course books and additional series like International Management, Banking and Finance. We also use the book English for Business Studies by I. Mackenzie, but I am afraid it is rather boring for students and the audio materials are not very motivating. I personally adore the course book Business Class by David Cotton. Yes, it is not new and it is not aimed at BEC, but what a marvelous vocabulary!! Great texts! Audio materials are excellent too. And there are case studies. As far as I know David Cotton was the first to introduce case studies in teaching English. I also use Reward Business Packs and Business Roles a lot. They are excellent additional materials, especially for such things as group discussion, role-plays, group work. I agree that every group is different and we have to adapt our materials all the time. One and the same task can be prepared by students and organized by a teacher absolutely different in every group. For example, I always ask my student to change some information in role plays to make the tasks more interesting for them. I found it very motivating for the groups to let them video their role plays for a kind of a competition to compare later (especially if the role play was the same). Best,
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 07:25
#11
Dear Nahir, You should definitely have a look at the newly-created thread in our Business forum which is called "Culture and Business". We will be happy to hear the ideas from you there! Anastasia.
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 07:19
#12
Hi, Nataliya! Thank you for your valuable addition here. Your choice of textbooks is a bit different from the one I am using, so this is especially interesting - it makes the experience sharing more worthwhile. The only textbook I have used as well, and I also consider it a good choice, is Business Class. It is great, I completely agree with you! Anastasia
Thu, 07/23/2009 - 10:37
#13
 hello, I am a graduate student, and ı must research an english course book which includes mostly group work and pair work, if you advise me one, I will be very happy, thank you..
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Hi Sahar,
Many Business English courses at the Universities in Russia rely heavily on the materials, adapted by the Russian tutors for the Russian settings.
As for me I am an advocate of the authentic materials, so I have chosen to work at the University with the people who also support the idea of using the up-to-date materials in ELT. At our workplace we are used to rely heavily on such textbooks which cover different aspects of grammar and vocabulary in application to BE, and business communication, like effective meetings, negotiations, and the such. Of course we also adapt them somehow to our students' needs and our realia.
As for my style of teaching, I like to combine different materials, print-outs with the online materials for the class, and not just stick to one particular course, but it is usually not easy to do so. But at the same time there are no perfect courses, so we are always in the search of something new and efficient.
Anastasia.