From Campus to Career – Mastering Formal English

Before you dive into teaching formal English, it’s essential for students to understand why formal English is so crucial in the business world. Using the wrong style and tone can greatly impact career opportunities as I outlined in this blog.

However, teaching students to understand the tone and degree of formality necessary in different contexts and develop the precise and sophisticated vocabulary required in professional communication is challenging. There is so much to learn and teachers often have to teach large classes in a limited period of time.

Activities

1. Encourage students to access real business materials that expose them to formal language use to see how formal English is applied in a business context. This does not necessarily have to be done in valuable classroom time. Many resources exist online, e.g. company accounts and other reports. Point out to students that they need to access more formal materials as soon as possible on a regular basis – even if it is just 30 minutes a week – in order to be successful in Business English, i.e. they have to add a new level to their use of the English language that goes beyond accessing social media and other informal content.

2. Additionally, reviewing business magazines, newspapers, news articles or reports about companies and business leaders helps students familiarise themselves with formal writing and language.

3. Set realistic targets. Think about what can be achieved within the limitations of the curriculum, the time available and the size of the group. Do you want your students to master 10, 30, 50, 100 or 500 words and phrases? If time is limited, it is best to set a small realistic achievable target than to be wishy washy and vague. Give the students the words and phrases that you want them to learn and test these in the final assessment or exam.

For example:

require instead of need

assist instead of help

subsequent instead of next

purchase instead of buy

provide instead of give

4. Practise writing formal business correspondence, reports, and memos in various scenarios:

• • Job application

• • Reply to a customer enquiry

• • A follow-up to a formal meeting

• • A short proposal

• • A mini report 

Feedback

When you give feedback, be specific about certain words and phrases linking these to the targets you have set. Avoid changing every word and sentence that the student has written. If a student receives a corrected report and it is full of red corrections and remarks, this can be daunting and very demotivating. 

Choose 3 or 4 informal words or phrases that the student tends to use in his or her writing. Consistently replace these with the formal alternatives in the piece of writing the student has submitted. The student should be encouraged to use this feedback and make changes in the next writing exercise he or she completes. 

You can then give positive feedback on these changes and choose 3 or 4 new informal words or phrases to replace in the next exercise the student hands in. A student who works on the feedback in this way – step by step – takes responsibility for his or her learning and makes consistent progress.

If you teach very large classes and/or have limited time, individual feedback for every single student may not be possible. Peer feedback, self-assessment and group feedback reduce the load on you as the teacher and also encourage students to engage actively in the learning process.

Peer Feedback

 

After students complete an assignment, pair them up or have them form small groups or study groups where they can give each other feedback. Provide them with a feedback checklist based on formal language criteria, such as “Check for these 5 informal words and phrases and replace them with formal words”.

Self Assessment

 

Encourage students to self-assess their own work. Provide them with checklists to help guide them in correcting their own writing. Self-assessment helps students become more independent in spotting their own errors and reflecting on how they can improve, which in turn makes the feedback process more efficient. Such students can perform well in exams and assessments as they have learnt to self-assess quickly and accurately and to rely on their own judgement.

Group Feedback

 

Rather than providing individualised feedback to each student, you can use group feedback sessions to address common errors. After reviewing a few assignments, identify common issues that many students are facing. Use examples from students’ work (without naming them) to demonstrate typical errors and how to correct them. This method ensures that you address the needs of the entire class while saving time.

Set up activities where students practise specific areas that need improvement. For instance, you could have students rewrite sentences together to transform informal language into formal language. This way, the class learns collectively and you can offer feedback to many students at once.

It is crucial to encourage a growth mindset in your students, especially when feedback might feel overwhelming or critical. Reinforce the idea that feedback is a tool for improvement and learning. Reassure students by emphasising that making errors is a natural part of learning a language, particularly in a professional context like Business English.

With large classes, feedback may not always be as individualised as students would like or expect. Let them know that their overall progress is the goal, and that each piece of feedback is meant to guide them to that.