4 Tips to Help You Teach Business English
Chris ParkerTeaching Business English can be an intimidating endeavor for those who haven’t taught it before. Even experienced teachers who have taught it for years may not be using some of the more effective and proven strategies available to them. So whether you’re just starting out as a Business English teacher or have already taught it and are simply looking for ways to improve your teaching practices, here are four tips to help both you and your clients.
1. Always Conduct a Needs Analysis First
At the start of any serious educational approach, you should always begin with a needs assessment. This is especially true when it comes to teaching Business English because your clients are normally adults and often have a general idea of what their needs are.
A needs assessment is basically your way of gathering that information from them while also identifying skills that they may need to learn but might not be aware of. Put simply, you need to know what your clients want to know.
Closing the Knowledge Gap
The area between what your students already know and what they need to learn is called the zone of proximal development, and it’s your job as their teacher to close that gap. So, during a needs assessment, you’ll first gauge your students’ knowledge by finding out what they already know.
By doing this, you won’t cover the things that they’re already knowledgeable in (which is a surefire way to lose clients). You’ll then ask them their reasons for wanting to study Business English, so you can figure out what they still need to learn to be successful once they complete your course.
Creating Your Needs Assessment
While the typical needs assessment process is normally a very thorough and complex one with multiple steps involved, when teaching Business English, this isn’t normally practical, so you’ll want to condense this process.
It should be a quick, simplified process, where you either outright ask your clients what they already know and what they would like to know or have them fill out surveys to demonstrate their current knowledge and interests.
Examples of Questions You Should Be Asking:
Are they studying English so they can work in international sales?
Do they need to know how to use English to ace job interviews in Western countries?
What type of company are they planning on creating or what services will it offer?
Do they need to know how to advertise their services to English-speaking locals?
These are the types of questions you’ll want to ask during a needs assessment, and as you find out more about your students and why they’re taking your course, you can then get an idea of what other types of questions you should probably be asking to improve the findings of your needs assessment.
2. Focus on High-Frequency Vocabulary
When it comes to content, it’s crucial that you spend time covering high-frequency business vocabulary with your students. These are the words that are most frequently used in business scenarios, so this is going to underpin everything else you teach during a Business English course.
Words like “balance sheet,” “forecast,” “cold call,” “brand,” and “start-up” are all examples of high-frequency business words. The Cambridge University Press has published a list of high-frequency vocabulary words used in business, so you should be regularly referencing that list when creating lessons.
Identifying Target Vocabulary
While the aforementioned list is quite long, you shouldn’t be intimidated by it, as you won’t normally need to teach your students every word on that list. Because of time constraints during a course, it’s simply not possible.
Therefore, you should identify target vocabulary words that will be most useful for your specific client or group of students, which can be done through the following three steps:
Utilize the Needs Assessment Results
This is where the needs assessment mentioned earlier can come in handy, as you’ll be looking at what your students need to know while correlating that with the list above. Your needs assessment should show which industries or types of business your students are most interested in, so make a note of that.
Shortlist the Most Relevant Vocabulary
Once you have an idea of what your students are most interested in, you’ll want to create a shortlist of the vocabulary words associated with those interests and focus on these words first.
Expand Outward With Other Vocabulary
After teaching your students the most relevant words first, then, as time allows, you can expand more on all the other vocabulary words starting with those that you feel are most frequently used in everyday business contexts.
3. Teach Correct Jargon
Expanding on the last tip, jargon is a more unique form of high-frequency words and phrases used in business and some teachers simply don’t teach it or aren’t aware of how important it is. Many ESL learners struggle when they encounter jargon in the real world because these are normally words or phrases that are only used within specific professions or industries,
Jargon is rarely covered in conventional English learning courses, so it’s up to you to teach your students this to prepare them for these scenarios. However, the use of jargon can be both beneficial and detrimental in business, depending on which particular words or phrases are used and how they’re used.
This concept of appropriate vs. inappropriate jargon can be best explained by breaking down the two types as follows:
Inappropriate Jargon
Some business jargon is simply inappropriate in most contexts and should only be taught to your students if it’s to familiarize them with it, so they’ll understand what it means if someone else uses it. While teaching this type of jargon, you should explain to your students how it’s inappropriate to use.
For example, the word “synergy” is normally looked down upon in business contexts because it’s often overused, and many people use it in the wrong context. So, simply using a word like this can reflect negatively on the person who says it. “Low-hanging fruit” and “deep dive” are other examples of inappropriate jargon, though these are phrases your students may need to know for familiarity purposes.
Appropriate Jargon
Some jargon can be appropriate and very useful to know, as these are words or phrases that are regularly used and may not necessarily reflect negatively on the speaker. “Thinking outside the box,” “leverage,” “touch base,” and “on the same page,” are all appropriate forms of jargon that you should teach your students, as these are commonly used in business and can save your students from becoming confused later.
You should also teach your students which types of contexts these phrases are normally used in. “All hands on deck” is something a manager might say to refer to a meeting (e.g. “We’re having an all-hands-on-deck meeting at noon.”), and your student may need to know this, but should probably never use it themselves if not in a managerial position.
4. Use Relevant Realia
It’s important to keep in mind that your students are studying English for a specific purpose, to assimilate into the English-speaking business world. You should therefore tailor each course to their needs by using realia to present information instead of textbooks and generic materials.
Realia are any materials that are used in everyday business scenarios, and to prepare your students for the situations they’re likely to encounter, you’ll want to choose realia based on the results of the needs assessment that you initially carried out.
For example, if your student is studying English so that they can work in sales, you’re going to want to incorporate PowerPoint presentations or sales brochures in your lessons to show them how English would be presented within these.
Even if your student doesn’t have a particular industry or business sector in mind and wants to learn general English for business, you should incorporate some common realia that can help them understand business terms in context, such as the financial section of a newspaper.
Using realia instead of textbooks normally helps with retaining clients, as they’ll recognize the relevance of the materials you’re using and will likely appreciate them.
Examples of realia that you can use include:
- Relevant sales brochures
- PowerPoint presentations
- Newspaper finance section
- Business magazines (e.g. Forbes)
- Employee orientation booklets
- Stock charts with word descriptions
Parting Advice
It’s important that your students understand not only the English words and phrases used in English-speaking business scenarios but also the more subtle aspects of business, such as cultural and social norms found in English-speaking countries.This is an often-overlooked aspect that can go a long way in helping your clients and showing them your value. You should therefore demonstrate these when possible, but in a way where it doesn’t take time away from the language-based aspects of the course.