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Social and Business English
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Mon, 03/23/2009 - 16:12
Greetings to everybody!
During my teaching experience I have come across a problem of adapting Business English to the socialising needs of business people. So far I haven't found any textbook which would meet them. There are three types of typical situations:
- It is no secret that managers have to go on business trips a lot, and use their everyday English more than the business one. Very often this is an urgent need and prevails over the business context English. But there is no quick guide to teach them at least some basics in short time.
- Managers have zero level of English, and we have to start with GE for them, and then transfer to BE. Usually it takes a lot of time, because we have to take the GE course first, and only then transfer to BE.
- Managers have received an adequate training in the past, but long time ago, and have forgotten the most of their English. So we have to brush up on social English first, and then turn to BE. Again, it takes much time.
As we know, managers are busy people who don't have time to waste, or more, very limited time for training. All of them aim to reach high level in very short time. Personally I haven't seen so far an efficient course tailored especially for BE which could make a good transition between brushing up on social English and plunging into BE. What would you suggest for training on-site in such situations? Have you had such experience and how did you build your course to make it short and efficient at the same time? Do you believe it is possible?
Your participation is highly appreciated!
Anastasia
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 14:54
#2
Hi, Nataliya!
Thank you for your reply. Tailoring the courses for particular needs and designing syllabus I guess is one of the necessities in our work, so I am sure you are doing the right thing. The point is that I think there is a niche now vacant for some textbook specifically designed for such needs. Or if there is one, then I wonder if anyone could tell us? Looking forward to other opinions!
Anastasia
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 16:11
#3
Hi Anastasia and Nataliya,
I don't think that there is one book that fits all. Years back I used a book called "Business Objectives" and found it quite useful for business situations but as always, there is also a need for GE and different levels in students make it hard to follow as a group at times. At the moment, I am really into setting up 'blended learning' courses. I have recently set up one which involves one face-to-face class per week at the company, individual skype classes (one per student per week) and a wiki to address both common interests and individual ones. I really think it's necessary to be flexible and if I had to follow a book, I probably wouldn't be meeting all of their needs. It's funny too that when I asked the group what their English needs were, they all agreed that they were more interested in speaking and listening to everyday GE rather than learning BE. Of course, I usually try to teach GE that will be of use to them when they are visiting English-speaking countries, attending meetings in English or writing a simple e-mail. I'm sure that there are books around that address these themes in a semi-business way but I haven't discovered it yet!
Susan
Sun, 04/05/2009 - 23:34
#4
Hi Susan,
I like your idea of combining f2f teaching and skype-teaching. I should try it too.
I also often experience this situation when students are generally aimed at learning BE but at the same time there is always a need for GE and vice versa. It is always a struggle between both.-)))
I think generally it is a very important problem in BE teaching. Probably there could be lots of interesting things discovered. I mean why not really try and design such a course (BE plus GE) beforehand (not on the spot while already teaching it) taking into consideration your experience and everything that we've discussed here. I agree that in modern world of teaching BE the lack of "good" books can be very well compensated by some technology.
Nataliya
Sun, 04/05/2009 - 21:21
#5
Hi Susan,
Thank you so much for sharing your ideas with us. Your particular 'blended learning' way sounds technically-advantaged indeed! Maybe really this should be the way to teach the 'busy' businesspeople which could 'cure' the problem of their absenteeism for classes (we are discussing this problem in another BE discussion thread http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2009/forum/sharing-our-experience)
I entirely agree with you that no matter which textbook a teacher is using he/she should always stay flexible in order to meet the students' needs. It is also interesting to find out that your students need GE as well as BE.
Looking forward to hearing more from you,
Anastasia
Hi Anastasia,
This is a challenging question for me too. I think there are two ways this problem can be solved:
1) Teaching GE course before BE course and adding some important business topic while teaching GE. So, I combine two aspects together but GE prevails.
2) Teaching BE course and adding some important aspects from GE when BE prevails.
The first variant is possible when students have time but that doesn’t happen very often. As a rule businessmen wish to develop their (basic) skills in BE a.s.a.p. and don’t want to “waste” time on GE. There are also such cases as you’ve mentioned when people need the basics of BE immediately as they are going to move somewhere, were promoted or their job requirements suggest BE knowledge, etc. Like you I haven’t found a perfect book that could combine BE and GE yet. So, I do it myself. It’s always a very creative process for me as I have to decide in each particular case what, when and how to combine, which teaching strategies to use, etc. I like creating courses very much and not following some particular strict schedule as it often happens in some of our institutes/universities in Russia.
I understand that we are all supposed to follow the course outline but in fact any creativity and any other alternative approaches are more appealing to me. Being more flexible is what I am looking for in my teaching.
Best,
Nataliya