I'm a young English teacher having just little experience in teaching students at school. Recently, I've been puzzled by the question how to organise a corporate Business English teaching process with a company. The aim is to gain listening and speaking skills to lead telephone conversations as well as face-to-face discussions. I'm thinking about what methods to use, what material to choose, as all the workmen have no English experience. Would you please be so kind to take my question into consideration and drop some valuable ideas.
What's your opinion?
This question is from Olga Shashkina, Russian Federation
Comments
rebecca1
Suparyo, Indonesia
When we are talking about 'Business English' most of the time we come across a broad idea of business which doesn't meet the need of the student. My experience in teaching Business English is mostly to private students. First of all I ask them whether they (will) run a business or work at a certain company that sells a certain product, if so I will focus on that product or other similar products as the main classroom discussion, starting from preparing company profile, making presentation, writing (technical) specification, making request for quotations, techniques of negotiation, writing contracts, etc, etc. that are really needed by the students. In this case I would utilise Yellow Pages Telephone Directory or Merchandise Brochures as realia. However, when the students just want to know general ideas of Business English, I just pick up commercial books available in the market, the most recent ones if possible, so we can meet their demand.
Anthony, Germany
I've taught at a company for years. The first step is to do a thorough needs and learning preferences analysis. Once you've done that, you can work out how many groups you have and what they want - and what per cent of the course will be General and Business English. Good Business English resources are, of course, the Market Leader series, the Business Builder series - but you will probably have to make up a lot of material yourself to meet their exact needs. You'll need to spend time familiarising yourself with their field.
Jean Stocker, Germany
I have around 28 years of teaching experience, first in general then in business English. When I was starting to teach BE there were no books on the market - now you have hundreds. I would recommend your sticking to a book for the time being. This is for both you and your, I presume beginners, the best. Your learners will have to learn a few basics before they can lead telephone conversations, and I hope youhave made it clear to the company that learning a language takes more than a couple of hours from scratch. I would concentrate on as much speaking as possible, as well as listening. It will be a while before these people can discuss very much if I have understood "all the workmen have no English experience" correctly. Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press have a good selection of beginners' books with business content.
Devon Lin, China
The Cambridge University Business English Certificate (BEC) preliminary preparation books has a telephone use lesson, meeting and conferencing. The whole BEC course books are excellent - I have not found better for a progressive interactive business English course! Although its for people with English skills each lesson has an essential vocabulary which you can adjust down to their level and then bring back up as they progress.