Transcript Using texts in the business English classroom

Using texts in the
business English
classroom
Karen Richardson
April 14th 2014
Agenda
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Types of business texts
Where to find them
What you can do with them
Staying on the right side of the law *
• Tips
• Free resources
• Useful links
Headlines (of articles)
a lesson in their own right!
some ideas:
• 1. deciphering what they mean
• 2. parsing the language
• 3. after looking at a few, decide which article
to read
• 4. guessing which words will appear in the
article - followed up by article in a word
cloud*
• 5. cutting them up into individual words and
reassembling them*
Eurostar stake up for grabs in
£10bn state asset sell-off
(Guardian Weekly, Dec 2013)
[1 & 2]
• Eurostar = Company name (background knowledge)
• stake = biz vocab
• up for grabs = idomatic phrase
• £ = currency symbol
• bn = billion abbreviation (in Germany false friend alert)
• state = noun not verb
• asset = biz vocab (pronunciation)
• sell-off = biz vocab
[3&4]
The big picture 1
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Summarizing & retelling
Practise skimming & scanning skills
Read aloud – students or you
Set as pre-class reading task
Set as post-class reading task
Write comprehension questions
Extend, research & present
Discuss & give personal opinions
The big picture 2
• Get the scissors out - reassemble, jigsaw
reading / information exchange, missing
sections, … *
• Write headings for sections
• Invent new (better) headlines & titles
• Word frequency / word clouds *
• Genre, length, style
• Required pre-knowledge
• Images & graphs
The small picture 1
• Keywords
• Certain types of words – compound words,
adjectives, phrasal verbs, prepositions……
• ESP & vocab fields
• Abbreviations, short forms, accronyms
• Collocations / word pairs
• Fixed expressions
• Idioms, metaphors, alliteration …
• Tenses & structures
Purpose & emotions
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Purpose- advertising & marketing
Information - ingredients, source, company
Quality assurance
Instructions
Style - personal & caring, signature
Formality – neutral to informal (ps. ….)
Language – soothing, calming, nourishing …..
Company materials*
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Analyse (as above)
Translate
Discuss images
Explain how machines
work
• Write requesting more
information / catalogue
/ appointment …..
Students‘ writing
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Peer feedback
Correct
Improve
Analyse (see above)
Needs analysis
How would you feel…?
Write a response
Further sources of BE texts*
Ready-made & legallyphotocopiable lesson plans with BE
texts and articles
Teaching tips
Teaching tips 2
Resources & links
• www.onestopenglish.com
• http://www.businessenglish
online.net/
Copyright laws: state schools & Unis
[US, UK, DE]
• http://www.copyright.com/Servic
es/copyrightoncampus/content/i
ndex_class.html
• http://mag.digitalpc.co.uk/
Olive/ODE/ELGAZETTE/
• http://www.copyrightandschools.
org/
• http://www.eltpics.com/
• http://www.schulbuchkopie.de/in
dex.php/fotokopie-was-geht-wasgeht-nicht
• http://www.eltteacher2writ
er.co.uk/
Contact & free worksheet
www.compass-elt.de