Teach English in Yanchang - Yancheng Shi

5 Vital Points on Teaching Business English 1) Student Variety If you are teaching Business English in any scenario apart from one-to-one by you are getting to get a much wider variety amongst your students than you would if you were teaching to age groups at school Motivation Differences There’s more than one reason a student of Business English might be taking your course. • Company Directive. Its quite possible that the idea is not from him/her at all and he/she is just following what the company has decided. • Improve functionality at current job. They or the company might have decided that to fulfil their current role better a better knowledge of English should be required. • Specific Promotion. • They might be interested in reasch9ing up a level in their current work environment and that roll may require a better level of English as a requirement. • Better Career Prospect. Very generally speaking you have better career prospects and a much wider choice of vocation if you are at a higher level of English. Seniority Differences If a whole department or larger pool of employees are providing students for your course you are very likely to be given students with a wide variety of different levels of seniority. This can prove to be sensitive in terms of how the groups interact. Language Level Differences As in Seniority there will be a vast difference in the level of English the student currently has. Reason for Learning Differences There are also many different situations that students want to learn Business English for • Peer communications. To be able to communicate with their teams od department • Meetings either as a participant or minute taker. To be involved in larger meetings as a contributor or as the audience • Different Role. The English needed might well be specific to roles as diverse as accountancy, coaching, marketing and Human Resources • Presentations and Reporting. To be able to produce reports or understand reports as part of the business operations • Communications Media. Their main form of communication could be face to face, email, telephone etc and the language used may well differ according to which one 2) Pre-course Testing Because of the variety of students there is a need to conduct an efficient level testing and needs analysis. Not only does this allow you to understand the ability of each student in terms of English but it also leads you to understand what the student is looking to get out of your course. If the student count is large enough this will allow you to group the students as best you can so the levels and the needs are similar. This will make it a lot easier for your course design and lesson plan 3) Course Development and Lesson Plans Based on the results of your pre-course testing the course design is a vital part of the process and needs to reflect the needs of the students and create a target outcome at the end of the course. It is important to structure the course to fit the time available and leaving flexible time for any unforeseen circumstances. The assessments during and at the end of the course are important to monitor both students, the course and the teacher. The ALTE document on the Can Do project is a very useful tool to understand targets to have from courses and is often used as a reference to be able to create syllabuses and objectives. Individual lesson planning is a vital part of the process. The content needs to be extensive enough for someone else to take over the lesson as seamlessly as possible as well as a reference tool for you during the lesson. I would also recommend a space for post lesson feedback so any learnings can be carrier for ward to the next time it is used. 4) Use of Materials Your students will probably come from the same company (and therefore involved in the same industry) and might well come from the same departments. They might have the same roles withing the business too. Either way they will all have lots in common regarding their business world This makes it easier to source or produce materials that will be more relevant to them. The more relevant the materials the more interest there is and therefore more motivation. This might be authentic materials such as • trade magazines • company results • competition reports • job description • technical detail This focus might well make it easier for the teacher to produce non-authentic material as well with some help from existing material or imagination. 5) Advantages and Disadvantages of Teaching Adults Advantages • More mature students and (hopefully) less behavioural problems • Better motivation • Better attention spans • Easier to bond with • Most will be there by choice • They can see the point of it Disadvantages • Their work issues may well spill out into the classroom • Adults can e more self-conscious especially with different management levels present • Students must adjust to being students again • They probably are learning out of worktime and therefore not being paid for this time • They might well be learning after a long day at work • They are leaning in their work environment which might make it difficult to adjust Vital then, to keep them motivated, interested and seeing the point