Business English fun? It is if you're motivated
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The world of teaching business English, is, well, serious business. But Michael Jones finds his business English courses can also be fun, and he says his students often get a kick out of them, even in intensive courses that can sometimes go for 12 hours a day, six days straight.
For Jones, who is the director of studies for ALC Education Inc., the language education firm best known for its wide variety of language-learning books, teaching students business English is indeed fun.
"Part of the enjoyment is that I visit lots of kinds of businesses," he said. This includes teaching new hires fresh out of college, airline cabin crew and even globe-trotting managers and other employees who already have English skills so advanced they could be mistaken for being native speakers.
But for both the advanced students needing a leg up on the language and those just starting out on their careers, Jones employs a similar methodology to get his students to communicate.
"[At] the lower level, more input is required," he said. "But we focus on output...and getting people to build their confidence in speaking and making mistakes in English."
"Have the confidence to fail in English," he said.
"A majority of Japanese students are shy to speak--worried about making mistakes, overly self-conscious of their language, their grammar errors or their politeness level," he said. To overcome this, and to toss the elements of business education into the mix, Jones emphasizes group projects and getting the participants to work and communicate together. From there, the energy and the learning snowballs.
"Generally, if they're communicating, don't interrupt. If they're actually speaking, that's half the struggle--and let them finish," Jones advises.
Classes vary in style and content from company to company, and Jones is often shuttled to company offices and hotel conference rooms to hold intensive courses. Even though it depends on what the client wants and despite skill levels, the overriding emphasis is on business and helping students communicate in the international business world.
"Generally, the focus when we are teaching is not so much, say, speaking British style or American style, but survival English," Jones said. "English to express yourself, English to question when you don't understand--that's what's necessary.
"In the regular business English course, we don't subscribe to a one-textbook-fits-all approach. That's really not the way to do it."
A key element, especially for already nervous new hires, is overcoming these jitters, mostly by getting them to talk about things in the business world that interest them.
At the higher levels, "It's not English so much. It's business skills," he said.
For the 35-year-old Jones, who, among his many credentials, has a master's in archaeology and anthropology from Cambridge University, these skills include lessons in adapting to different cultures. How to swap business cards, properly sit through a meeting or start up a conversation at lunch, even the delicate nuances of communication through body language, all come up in Jones' classes.
But for 12 hours in one day? How does a teacher teach and a student study for for such an intensive period?
"It seems like a lot," Jones said, "but...in the actual course, it goes very, very quickly." And if you keep it active learning, "Then the brains are buzzing."
Jones says he's lucky to have students that earnestly want to learn from him. "That's one thing I like about teaching business English--the guys I teach are seriously motivated."
How's that for serious business?
--Brian Chapman
(Apr. 27, 2007)