TEFL White New Mexico

A businessman was interviewing applicants for the position of divisional manager. He devised a test to select the most suitable person for the job among a lawyer, journalist, engineer and accountant. He asked each applicant, "What is two and two?" First three applicants calculated straightforward. The last applicant was an accountant. When the business man asked him the question, the accountant got up from his chair, went over to the door and closed it then came back and sat down. He leaned across the desk and said in a low voice..."How much do you want it to be?"…… Not always two and two is four and not always we, english teachers, need to be straight, orderly, linear in the process of teaching ESP, and namely, business english. But.., “how can it be?”- some teachers might exclaim – “so many trainings on how to strictly follow lesson plans (CELTA course), not to digress from syllabus, to be consistent in teaching”, “how can we design business english course material from different course books and resources, not knowing the business world?”. Such issues frequently become obstacles for many english teachers and consequently, they find teaching business english a daunting experience. The teachers are concerned about their level of knowledge of the business world, lack of specific vocabulary, and experience in business communication skills. Indeed english teachers are neither business administration graduates nor economists and have not thorough knowledge of business issues and processes taking place in the world. And still, the demand for learning business english is growing worldwide due to rapid progress of a global economy. That is why learners want their learning to be oriented not only on improving general skills of reading, listening, writing and speaking but also on skills of communication in the international environment. Hence, more and more teachers are moving to teaching business english stating plenty of advantages which this teaching can offer them. Firstly, english teachers get a lot of amazingly interesting information about business world and develop new skills as teachers (business communication skills – giving presentations, taking part in meetings, describing technical processes, etc); Further, teachers get familiar with teaching methodology which is considerably different from the one of General english. While teaching business english, pair or group work can successfully be substituted by case studies, role plays and simulation activities. Besides, students are mostly motivated and aware of their own needs for learning business english. Hence, it is easier for teachers to cater to learners' requirements presented in the forms of “needs analysis” and then, design their own syllabuses. The task is simplified by the fact that there are lots of online and offline resources (authentic and graded) available. Finally, for me teaching business english means thinking critically and analytically, drawing meaningful conclusions on the basis of the material available and giving purposeful meaning to each utterance said or presented. As business english teachers, we should remember that we do not need to teach learners business even if we might have some experience in this field. Besides, in most cases, learners know a lot of specific business vocabulary (boston matrix, etc) which teachers might not be familiar with. However, what we are obliged to do is to help them use these words and phrases in a right context. Obviously, while completing the sentence “business english is………”, the versions can be as diverse as people worldwide are. But all answers will have one thing in common – business english comprises all humankind activities – from Education to Commerce – and has become the demand of the 21-st century. ….. the businessman looked at the accountant and said: “You got the job”. Let us, at least sometimes, allow two and two not to be four and I do believe that we will get excellence in teaching business english?