Teaching Business English
 Welcome
 Part 1 What is Business English?
 Part 2 Teaching Business English to groups
 Lunch
 Part 3 Teaching Business English to individuals/ 1-1
 Part 4 Continuing to develop
 To the pub
Teaching Business English Part 1: Task
Hi,
JCD International has just booked a course with us. Would you be
interested in teaching it?
The learners are interested in presentation and negotiation skills,
HR/ finance vocabulary and speaking practice, with some focus
on grammar. Their level is intermediate.
 The course will take place once a week for 20 weeks.
 The lessons are 90 minutes and scheduled for Thursdays at 16.00
at the company headquarters.
 At the end of the course, the company wants an assessment of
learners‘ progress and a levels update.
Please let me know as soon as possible if you are able to take on
the group.
Best regards
Teaching Business English Part 1:
What is Business English?
Who will you teach?
 Business professionals
 Pre-experience learners
 Qualification seekers
Teaching Business English Part 1:
What is Business English?
Where will you teach?
 In a company
 In a language school
 In an institution of higher education
Teaching Business English Part 1:
What is Business English?
What will you teach?
 Business skills
 Business vocabulary
 Language skills
 Grammar
 Phonology
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Activities
 Needs analysis
 A business skill
 Listening and phonology
 Learner progress
NB Shortened versions
Tips for dealing with business English learner
groups
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Needs analysis
Task
Agenda
1. Choose a chair person
2. Read your role card
3. Prepare your role
4. Discuss and agree at least one course objective e.g.
to learn and practise phrases for participating in a
meeting
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Needs analysis

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
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Can be a challenge for groups with mixed needs
But is vital so that everyone feels it is their course
Tips
Give everyone chance to contribute
 Make sure everyone can understand the course objectives you
come up with (easy vocabulary!) and agrees to them
 Other/alternative ideas:
Priority cards, needs analysis interview, tick list or questionnaire
(see needs analysis section of the book)
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Business skills
Business skills will probably form the biggest part of
your course. What do we mean by business skills?
 Writing emails (or other work documents)
 Telephoning
 Participating in and chairing meetings
 Negotiating
 Socialising
 Giving presentations
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
The business of language
As well as business skills, you need to include
 Fluency/speaking practice
 Reading authentic workplace documents
 Listening
 Vocabulary
 Pronunciation/ phonology
 Grammar
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Learner progress
Dictogloss
1. Use a short text learners have read before
2. Read out the text clearly at normal speed. Learners
listen
3. Read out the text again. Learners make notes
4. Learners work together (pairs/groups) and try to
reconstruct the paragraph
lTeaching Business English Part 2:
Learner progress: reviewing
 Include a review of previous content in every lesson
e.g. vocabulary quizzes
 Include a review lesson after every 16-20 hours of
teaching covering the content of the course
 Train learners to do their own reviewing e.g. looking
through course notes, using self-study, learning
vocabulary
Teaching Business English Part 2:
Learner progress: progress checking
Some companies (e.g. JCD International) require an
assessment on the learners‘ progress / levels update.
Get this information from:
 Monitoring during lessons
 Learners‘ self-assessment
 Informal tests
Keep track of information you collect so that you can
easily write a report at the end of the course
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Tips for teaching beginners
 Follow/use a coursebook to provide structure
 But supplement activities with work-related tasks and
company-specific materials
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Tips for teaching advanced levels
 Find out exactly what they want- they came to you for a
reason so they know they have something to learn
 Pay careful attention to what they say and how they say
it. Record them and analyse it together
 Talk about and build on the successful learning strategies
that have brought them so far in their learning
 Use authentic material but take them out of their
‘comfort zone’ with challenging discussions and case
studies
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Tips for teaching large groups
 Do a needs analysis but accept some negotiation and
compromise
 Do plenty of pair and group work so participants have
a chance to speak
 Exploit possibilities for activities which require a
minimum number of participants e.g. role plays,
competitive team games
Teaching Business English Part 2: Groups
Tips for teaching ‘mixed’ groups
 Plan carefully how you will pair learners, set up
groups, allocate roles for activities before the lesson
 Make sure senior group members do not dominate
 Exploit differentiated resources e.g. allow lower level
learners to use bilingual dictionaries or use two
different versions of the same text
 Set a different number of tasks to be completed in
the same amount of time
 Allow pair-checking before feedback
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Task
How is one-to-one teaching different from teaching
groups?
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
The advantages
 You can work on exactly what your learner needs as
there are no other participants to take into
consideration
 You can work with the learner’s own work documents
e.g. emails, presentations
 You can focus on individual problems e.g.
pronunciation, lack of confidence when participating
in a meeting
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
The challenges
 You may need to be very flexible and “think on your
feet” e.g. if learners bring in documents to work on
 No pairwork or changing partners to add variety
 Role plays e.g. for meetings can be challenging
 Learner expectations of you can be high, especially as
these kind of lessons are usually more expensive
 Turning what can appear ‘conversation’ into a
learning opportunity
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Tips for teaching one-to-one
 Add variety by including frameworks, card-matching,
online resources, using the room
 Include both audio and video listening so the learner does
not only listen to you
 Move around - get the learner to stand up and write on
the board or give you a presentation
 Leave the room - let them prepare a presentation or read
an article alone
 Take part in role-plays. It is hard to take notes at the same
time so record the learner as a basis for feedback
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Task
Sort the cards into 3 groups. Words
I know  I think I know ?
I don’t know 
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Financial statements activity
 Current assets = Cash and other assets expected to be converted to cash within a
year
 Marketable securities =Securities that are easily convertible to cash because there
is high demand allowing them to be sold quickly
 Trade accounts receivable = Money that a customer owes a company for a good or
service purchased on credit.
 Inventories = The raw materials and the products made from them that a company
possesses and intends to sell in short order
 Equity method investments =A method of accounting for an investment in another
company in which the book value of the investment reflects a share of the acquired
firm's increases in retained earnings
 Intangible assets = In accounting, any asset that cannot be seen or touched.
Included things like patents and brand recognition, which add value to a company,
but are difficult to price.
 Accounts payable = Money owed for a good or service purchased on credit
 Current liabilities = Any liability expected to be paid off in one year or less
 Reinvested earnings = The amount of a publicly-traded company's post-tax
earnings that are not paid in dividends
 Total equity =What the company has to its name if all debts were liquidated.
Because of this, it is an alternative term for a stock
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Financial statements activity
This works well with a one-to-one learner because:
 Card matching activities add variety (good for
kinesthetic learners)
 The financial statement can be from your learner’s
own company (personalised/relevant)
 You don’t need to be an expert in the figures- get
your learner to explain it to you. An excellent
opportunity to find out more about their company
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Work materials
Documents and materials learners produce, use and
need to understand for their jobs e.g.
Promotional brochures
Emails
Flyers
Contracts
Videos
Action plans
Adverts
Reports
Manuals
Company websites
Minutes and agendas
Presentations
Financial statements
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Tips for using work materials
 If possible, obtain them in advance so you have time
to prepare
 Ask learners relevant questions- why do you
want/need to look at this? What do you need to do
with it: Read and understand it? Write something
similar? Reply to it? Learn the vocabulary? Discuss it?
 Exploit the materials in the lesson e.g. agendas
generate vocabulary to prepare for a meeting,
promotional brochures generate vocabulary for
product presentations, financial statements generate
vocabulary for a report
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Fluency/Grammar at work framework activity
This works well with a one-to-one learner because:
 Learner has time to prepare and make notes, so their
reply will be full and detailed
 Teacher finds out more about the learners’ company
 Learner needs to use a variety of tenses to do the task.
Teacher take notes while they are speaking and:
- Use them for feedback that lesson
- Use the information to inform future lesson planning
 All information comes from the learner so it is
personalised, relevant and interesting for them
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Framework materials – why use them?
 Frameworks are worksheets with space for the
learners to add their own ideas and information
 They provide guidance and structure for learners in
speaking activities
 They are very learner-centred
 They demand little preparation from the teacher
 They can meet learner expectations of getting “a
worksheet” and are helpful for visual learners
 They are particularly good in one-to-one situations
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Personal Action Plan
Things I will do in English
Date I will do this by
What I need to do
Read Business Spotlight
magazine
December
Go to station and buy one
Listen to BBC World
Business Report podcasts
The end of next week
Look at website
www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series
/wbnews
Read a novel
My next holiday
Join the international library
Teaching Business English Part 3: One-to-one
Action plans work well with one-to-one learners
because:
 They are often too busy to do ‘homework’. Offering
them choices of things to do out of lessons which
interest them is more likely to be successful
Teaching Business English Part 3: feedback
Scenario
You have a 60 minute lesson with a Senior Manager who
wants to focus on speaking/fluency.
Task
What kind of
 spoken,
 written and
 non-verbal
comments/feedback can you give to help this learner
improve his/her English?
Teaching Business English Part 3:
Giving one-to-one feedback
 Immediate feedback: echoing, reformulating ,
gesturing work well
 Take notes. You can go through them on paper after a
fluency activity. Note down good language, missing
language and language to be improved
 Record learners and go through it together. These
recordings can also be used later in the course to
determine how much progress has been made
Teaching Business English Part 3:
Giving feedback to groups
 Give immediate feedback while monitoring e.g. if you
overhear something good or something which needs
immediate correction
 Take notes. Use the flip chart / whiteboard to share
good language, clarify missing language and work on
language to be improved
 Peer feedback e.g. using a list of performance criteria
while watching another learner give a presentation
Teaching Business English Part 4:
Continuing to develop
Task: What have you learned today?
What activities can you use in your own teaching?
 Part 1 What is Business English?
 Part 2 Teaching Business English groups
 Activity ideas for groups
 Part 3 Teaching Business English to individuals/ 1-1
 Activity ideas for one-to-one
Teaching Business English Part 4:
Continuing to develop
Reading:
 Business news
 Teaching resource books
 Management self-help books / biographies
 Professional journals and websites for teachers
Writing:
 Writing and sharing classroom materials
 Publishing in journals or online
Teaching Business English Part 4:
Continuing to develop
Other
 Conferences and training e.g.BESIG, MELTA
 Qualifications in teaching business English e.g.
CertIBET
 Online forums for business English teachers
 What else can you do?
Teaching Business English
For more ideas and information
www.helblinglanguages.de/?pagename=product&product=50-85347
http://www.amazon.de/Business-English-Teacher-Delta-Development/dp/1905085346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320612317&sr=8-1