What Every Teacher of Business English Needs to Know
Business English Students need access to authentic material to increase their vocabulary and comprehension.
This is easily achieved if they read English language newspapers, watch news reports and access the websites of major companies and read their blurb. However there are also some great websites that teachers can introduce to their students. These websites will help it all make sense and are often fun at the same time!
7 Great Websites for Your Business English Students
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1
Macmillan In Company
This is a great website for teachers with Business English students. You will find great lesson plans which cover levels from pre-intermediate to upper intermediate. These In Company worksheets address grammar points, functional language and vocabulary. They are designed for classroom situations but many of them can also be used for one to one classes. They deal with areas such as meetings, negotiations, sales, presentations as well as emailing and telephone language and are a great fund of material for teachers. In The Business there are PowerPoint presentations available that teachers can use and these include Dealing with Customers and Stockmarkets. Macmillan also offers podcasts. The Business podcasts can be downloaded and are accompanied with a worksheet and tapescript. All levels are catered for and they feature students talking about many different topics.
Again Macmillan In Company comes up trumps with their great range of eLessons. These are updated on a regular basis and current news stories are featured. You can even sign up so that you receive new lessons as they are produced. All the lessons are written by Peter Sharma and include a worksheet with links to relevant websites. They are great lessons to kick-start a project or discussion lesson.
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2
Business English Resources
This site offers sections for teachers and students; the lessons are a great resource to use in a classroom with media as many of the lesson ideas include videos, for example there is a great lesson on using Signposting language in Presentations which includes an authentic video of Steve Jobs giving a presentation on the Apple iPhone. For students who want advice as to what to use for self-study the students section includes printable vocabulary sheets which tie into the lessons.
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3
Breaking News
Breaking News offers great resources for speaking lessons however the lesson plans cover a lot more. They take current news reports and create a lesson plan from them. For example a recent addition is an article about the sales of bicycles overtaking that of cars in many parts of Europe; out of this one article teachers can choose from a 26 page lesson or a mini 2 page lesson. The printable lesson plans are extensive and cover every aspect of English Language learning including grammar, listening, reading and spelling. There is a massive archive where teachers will be able to find lessons on many topics and many of these lessons provoke great discussions!
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4
The BBC Learning English website
This wonderful website includes resources for teachers and students. There’s a Talking Business section with downloadable worksheets and Words in the News looks at recent news reports that your students can listen to and read with the key vocabulary featured. They used to produce lesson plans for Words in the News but unfortunately this has been discontinued; you can access the lesson plan archive however.
Another great resource to use as a class or in eLessons is the wealth of material that is in episodes of the TV programmes Dragons’ Den and The Apprentice. These are great programmes to use in class as they provoke a great deal of discussion and cover Business English topics such as presentations, negotiation, sales and meetings. They can be accessed through BBC iPlayer around the time when the series are being shown or you will find episodes on YouTube.
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5
Business English Materials
The lessons on this website are focused on multi-national companies such as Blackberry, Adidas, Amazon and many others. The lesson plans include MP3 files and a variety of different exercises built around the listening. The listening is available in British English or American English and the exercises include gap fills, games and role plays.
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6
Business English Pod
This site features YouTube videos focusing on Business English vocabulary – it’s a great self-study resource for your students and many topics are covered.
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7
English Page
English Page provides links to listening material from the BBC and American National Public Radio programmes on varied topics.
There is a wealth of material out there for Business English Teachers and the above websites are some of the best.
The material on these websites is free and can be used as it is or adapted to form great classes. Students cannot fail but benefit from access to this great material.
