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February 23, 2007
Teacher Development- Business English
Hello Readers,
Are you looking for a way to make you become a more marketable teacher? If you've got a good grasp on teaching general English, then it might be time for you to spread your wings and ...
... become involved in teaching Business English. As we mentioned in a previous post: while it isn't essential that you have a business background, you might find that you will initially have to do some extra preparation for your classes. However, that preparation will pay off (literally) as many business English students are willing to pay extra for English lessons with a professional.
So, what are business English students looking for? Many Business English Teaching professionals suggest that they will want to get down to business and that in order to live up to their expectations, you might want to try to model the classroom activities after what takes place in an office. So, to start, you might want to put on a suit and think of yourself as a business trainer. You might also think about making power-point presentations for your class (especially if it's a large class).
So you don't have any experience in the business field? You might want to consider inquiring about doing some observations in the workplace, reading business magazines and news articles, picking up a used business 101 textbook, investing in some good business english textbooks, or even taking a business class, if possible.
Go here to read about one teacher's philosophy on teaching Business English: http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Baron-TeachingPhilosophy.html
Good luck!
Carol Rueckert
Writer, ESL Lesson Plan
E-mail: crueckert@eslemployment.com
Blog: www.esl-lesson-plan.com
"I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand." - Chinese Proverb
*Looking for more articles that spotlight Teacher Development in the ESL industry? Click HERE!
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About the author of this entry:
Carol, a native English-speaker who hails from the small town of St. Joseph in Minnesota, USA, and lived and worked in China for more than 7 years. During that time, she worked with students that range in age from three to more than sixty years old. She worked in universities, private language schools, grade schools, international schools, as well as private tutoring. Besides teaching, she also worked as a head teacher, an education manager, and a material development manager. In addition to working on this newsletter, she currently writes a monthly column for Time Out Beijing. Carol is also currently working on her MA in TESOL at the Oxford Brookes University in England. Look for her posts on the ESL-Jobs-Forum discussion boards!
Posted by crueckert at February 23, 2007 02:51 AM
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Comments
Dear Samantha and all other readers,
I read your posting about your worries regarding TEACHING BUSINESS ENGLISH. You know what I do when I have a new course at hand? I do it for free for a semester. I did this thing for the first time 12 years ago when I was supposed to teach Business English to some friends of mine back then they were 4th year students at the Faculty of Economics , University of Belgrade and they had tough curricula with their Business English modules. So I was asked to teach them GENERAL and BUSINESS ENGLISH and we struck a deal for them to pay only for GENERAL ENGLISH or to have one 90min class per week for free so that I can learn from them. It turned out that I was very good. Then I went on. I bought some more books in teaching Business English or borrowed from my students. I was only 23 back then and perhaps they liked my enthusiasm and effort.
The reassuring fact is that BUSINESS ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS by almost all publishers are NOT THAT DIFFICULT TO MASTER ...Most of the contents in LONGMAN, CUP, OUP.........coursebooks are taken from everyday corporate experience and it does not go to say that you have to graduate from prestigious SCHOOL OF BUSINESS to teach it. Always remember that linguists write these books together with business experts so they are not oblivious to the fact that we the teachers have to have something "palatable" and easy to grasp and useful for teaching.
Most of the lessons or units in Business English coursebooks deal with "buzzwords" in business or "household names" i.e. franchising, mergers, acquisitions, share price, market share, loss leaders,brand image, brand stretching, brand awareness, counterfeiting, pricing strategies, 4 Ps, NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE, NASDAQ, about letter of exchange and letter of credit and bank overdraft .....and you have to admit that an adult no matter how non-economist he/she is should keep up with these things and normally the latest news and burning issues which always border with business, economy, marketing. You can learn a lot by just watching the BBC news or CNN or EURONEWS and there you are. You ll be a success. Then when you start teaching it , do not bother to prepare the whole textbook well ahead but do your selfstudy and preparation and googling gradually for the UNIT 1 and then UNIT 2 and UNIT 3 and so on. I do strongly recommend MARKET LEADER series by LONGMAN at five levels ....There is a great series of pocket DICTIONARIES by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS in ECONOMY, BUSINESS, MARKETING,FINANCE and they are affordable...around 15 euros .......Mind you........these are not typical dictionaries but every entry has a long description afterwards...for you to get a broader picture....so you can even xerocopy for your group the entry on for e.g. FRACHISING and prepare questions for them..or "scratch out" the verbs from the text or adjectives or suffixes ..and let the students put them in as a GAP FILLING TASK . .You can ask them to make questions and ask their partners and while doing so , you will be the one to gradually start acquiring necessary corporate knowledge .Then you could bring texts from business magazines THE ECONOMIST, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, THE NEWSWEEK.....and exploit the usual teaching procedure i.e. use the resources in the more or less the same way as you do with general english. .......you can record BUSINESS NEWS from CNN and BBC and play it for them and then make them write down the new words they hear as a writing storm task and make questions for each other and your role as a teacher is only to supervise and correct their grammar and style and elicit words in a discussion and not to be an expert in MBA. You could use the books
MARKET LEADER by LONGMAN /there is a special MARKET LEADER website with additional resources, placement tests for every level, listening material.......
INSIGHT INTO BUSINESS by LONGMAN
NEW INSIGHT INTO BUSINESS by LONGMAN
BUSINESS CLASS by LONGMAN
CAMBRIDGE BUSINESS ENGLISH CERTIFICATE preliminary vantage higher PAST PAPERS
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IATEFL Business English SIG
I ll post some more later on.if you like my ideas.........you can always ask me ..........when you come across a stumbling block in Business English and I ll ge only too glad to help. I have a lot of tests as well so I can send them.
Always remember and make sure that A GOOD PROJECT CAN BE DONE IN TEAMS which are comprised of EXPERTS in different realms of expertise and in your classrooms you and your students are a team and you share knowledge and complement each other.
Warm regards,
Natasa Jovanovic
els language school Belgrade, Serbia
office@els.co.yu
natasa@els.co.yu
www.els.co.yu
Posted by: Natasa Jovanovic at March 4, 2007 07:05 AM
Need advice
my class is fairly riotous, what can i do to sort this problem
Posted by: felicity at March 6, 2007 01:04 PM
