When it comes to Business English, one of the biggest mistakes students can make is to think that their English is good enough. They feel they have already learnt English to a high level or even spent time in an English-speaking country. Taking an English module is an easy part of the course or a simple module. As a result, some students don’t attend the course regularly, if at all, and think they have very little to learn to pass the upcoming exam in Business English. They are taken by surprise when they don’t understand the exam questions and/or do not have the range to answer questions and pass the exam. Sometimes, students even try to gain the credits from a university for a Business English module to avoid doing a course, claiming they have certificates to prove their English is at the appropriate level.
Learning Business English is much more than being able to speak English. Students need to understand and be interested in business, know how companies work, how to communicate in business scenarios such as meetings and how to operate internationally using English as the global language of business. They need to become interesting future job candidates for companies.
Business English involves learning about how companies organise themselves and the functions within companies. Students do not need to know the vocabulary and in the outs of every product and service in the world – they will learn the necessary in-house vocabulary in every company they work in – but they do need to know the basic functions that can be found across companies.
The organisation of these functions varies according to the type of business, the size of the company, the products or services and the corporate culture. But, anyone who learns Business English should know about basic functions such as:
- Marketing
- Human Resources (HR)
- Finance
- Sales
- Purchasing
- Research and Development (R&D)
- IT (Information Technology)
- Customer Service
Students may have experience or knowledge of one or two of these functions or may be planning to work in one particular area. However, they need to know about what happens in other company departments, not just to pass the Business English exam but to be able to communicate in their working lives. A marketing manager might need to understand a presentation about financial strategy given by a finance manager in a meeting for example.
So, students should know what people in various departments do:
What are their responsibilities?
What documents and business tools do they use?
What skills do people need?
Who are their suppliers?
Who are their customers?
Who do they liaise with internally?
Input needs to go beyond the superficial – “Marketing is advertising” or “HR is about interviewing job candidates” – so that students have a deeper understanding. This involves learning lots of business concepts and being able to express and use these concepts in English.
For instance, Marketing involves a whole range of activities, suppliers, customers and internal departments. Let’s take Branding and Brand Management.
In general English, teachers may initiate a discussion about brands that students buy or don’t buy and the reasons for their preferences. This is an interesting discussion to improve speaking skills for general English.
But a student of Business English needs to understand what branding is and what a company is trying to achieve by branding itself and its products or services. The student needs not only to understand concepts such as:
- brand image
- brand awareness
- brand recognition
- brand positioning
- brand repositioning
- brand promise
- brand voice
- brand identity
- brand performance
but to be able to explain these terms and express the concepts behind these terms in English.
Can you explain all these terms?
Can you give examples of each?
And bear in mind that Branding is only one small part of Marketing and Marketing is only one function of Business!
Once students have mastered such concepts, then the teacher can practice using these in deeper discussions, presentations, writing exercises and so on whilst motivating students to use the concepts they have learnt.
Encourage students not to underestimate the demands of a Business English course or module. Learning concepts and vocabulary as soon as possible means everyone involved gets the maximum benefit from a course. Teachers have more time to move on to more communicative activities. Students get a deeper understanding of other subject areas in their studies, become better communicators and improve their employability. They’ll have more fun and probably a better grade.