TY - JOUR
AU - Frendo,, Evan
AB - Introduction A survey review of Business English (BE) materials has appeared in the ELTJ five times (1997, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2011). In the eight years since the last review, much has changed. For some observers, BE has been (and is still) seen as a subset of ESP, but there is no doubt that research in many different disciplines has continued to offer new insights into BE methodologies and coursebooks. Chief among these are academic disciplines such as corpus linguistics, or research into English as a lingua franca (ELF), Business English as a lingua franca (BELF), business communication, and intercultural communication. Non-academic input has also played a role, ranging from publishers’ marketing research, to authors’ and practitioners’ personal experiences, the world of work and its focus on training and development (e.g. negotiation and presentations skills training), and the sharing of ideas online via social media or at face-to-face events such as the IATEFL BE Special Interest Group (BESIG) Annual Conference. The aim of this survey is therefore threefold: to provide an overview of recent research and scholarship in the field of BE, to present a selection of coursebooks published since 2011, and to comment on the influence of the research and scholarship on those coursebooks. BE and coursebooks What is BE? A clear definition of what we mean by ‘BE’ has always been difficult to pin down, and it continues to mean different things to different people. Nickerson and Planken (2016: 3) describe it as an ‘umbrella term to refer to any interaction, written or spoken, that takes place in English, where the purpose of that interaction is to conduct business’, and it is this perspective that I shall use in this survey. But it is not enough to understand what BE is—coursebooks are tools for teaching and learning it, and here influences from SLA, applied linguistics, and adult education are also key. These are areas of much discussion, and it is not surprising that authors and publishers, faced with potentially inconsistent evidence or conflicting priorities, need to consider a range of issues. The BE context First, there is the teaching context. As teachers we generally use the term ‘BE’ to loosely describe what is taught in education institutes, private language schools, in-company, and one-to-one teaching (Frendo, 2005: 2–5), but these contexts can present quite different challenges. BE in education institutions (e.g. universities) tends to focus on people who will be future managers and decision-makers, so topics such as management and finance might feature heavily in course content. Learners are typically pre-experience, which means they have not yet worked in the ‘real world’. On the other hand, BE classes in language schools might be very different, with groups consisting of people from a variety of education backgrounds and professions and having very general needs. In-company training tends to be more context specific and might be aimed at people who are probably never going to reach senior management positions, or at clerical staff for whom the sorts of topics common in universities will inevitably be less relevant. In other cases, materials may be aimed at very experienced managers whose priority is learning about the language of ‘doing’ business, rather than the language of talking ‘about’ business. This is an important distinction: according to Koester (2010: 46), ‘Language used for talking about business is from texts such as business books, newspapers and interviews; whereas language for actually doing business can be found, for example, in emails, reports, meetings, negotiations and phone calls’ (italics in original). She also explains how ‘in writing or talking about business (usually for public consumption), the emphasis will often be on successes and positive developments, whereas when actually engaged in doing business, the focus is often on problem-solving of some kind’ (op. cit. 51). The world of one-to-one teaching is different yet again, with individual needs being of primary importance, and the types of tasks and activities available limited to what can be done with one person. Understanding these contexts is important if the aim is to design a curriculum and produce materials. To make matters even more complicated, BE classes, unusually in ELT, can be led by teachers who have years of business experience but no ELT qualifications, or by teachers with great ELT qualifications but who have never worked in a commercial setting in their lives, which means that teachers’ books might need to include information about ELT methodology as well as background business knowledge. Local learning cultures, influenced as they are by national and professional beliefs and values, also play a role. Bargiela-Chiappini and Zhang (2013) show clearly how BE in Asia can have very different priorities to those in Europe, with Chinese universities offering an undergraduate degree in BE composed of ‘three core components of equal status: knowledge of business disciplines, business discourse, and professional practices’ (op. cit. 202). There is nothing like this anywhere else in the world. Compare it with, for example, a typical in-company class in Europe, where preparing for next week’s presentation in Rome sets the agenda for what happens in the classroom. In a discussion about coursebooks this characteristic of BE is important: coursebooks that are perfect for one context may be totally inappropriate in another. Despite these differences, however, publishers often claim that their coursebooks can be used in most or all of these contexts (doubtless aiming to sell as many products as possible). The BE content Second, there is the question of what it is we are trying to teach. If we start with language, for example, are we clear about what distinguishes a BE lexicon from other, non-BE, lexicons? Presumably with BE we are talking about the language we would expect to find in trade and commerce (as opposed to, say, conversations in hospitals or in schools), but even here the definition is tricky. Plenty of hospital staff carry out business transactions with pharmaceutical companies on a day-to-day basis, and many school staff have to deal with outside agencies. Is this BE? Rainer (2017) shows how the language of BE is continually evolving, so that what we teach today may appear outdated and irrelevant tomorrow. How many of us need to worry about the distinction between ‘yours sincerely’ and ‘yours faithfully’, for example? Worse still, some teaching situations require the teaching of language which is so new that teachers may not even be aware it exists. Terminology associated with new technology is a good example of this, but innovative language use happens in most communities of practice (CoPs), and is not restricted to vocabulary. Genres change too, as anyone who has looked at online marketing over the last few years can attest. Even where the language is not new or innovative, some of it can be so specific that teachers will never be expected to master it. The problem, of course, is that this language may be precisely the reason the learners are in the classroom in the first place. Despite this vagueness, there is no doubt that we understand more about the characteristics of BE than we did even a few years ago. Part of this is thanks to corpus linguistics research, which is providing solid evidence for how we really use language. Handford (2010: 251), for example, describes how ‘certain language may be highly unlikely in real business contexts’. He gives examples of modals such as ‘must’ and expressions such as ‘I disagree with you’, arguing that ‘by presenting language such as you must or I disagree with you as unmarked, effective and appropriate examples of communication … learners are in danger of acquiring linguistic behaviour that may be highly detrimental to their professional career’ (Op. cit.: 251–252). He also criticizes coursebooks for the prioritizing of ‘unequivocal communication’ rather than the vagueness than exists in many real business interactions, and the overlooking of the ‘intertextual nature of naturally occurring discourse’ (op. cit. 252). Similarly, Koester (2010: 150) argues that ‘words referring to business topics are not actually that frequent in spoken business transactions’. Handford and Koester are not the only one making these sorts of criticisms—many other researchers have commented on the apparent gap between what we know about the language of business and what is published in coursebooks. Nickerson and Planken (2016: 5) state that a ‘mismatch continues to exist in many of the published textbooks that are intended to teach business English’. Chan (2017: 87), discussing the use of authentic transcripts in teaching spoken BE, suggests that ‘the link between research and pedagogy is considered regrettably weak’. However, researchers are not only criticizing; they also make solid suggestions on what should be included in BE materials. In a discussion on business discourse teaching, for example, Ilie et al. (2018: 76) argue that materials should ‘reflect business people’s reliance on intertextuality and multimodality as well as their need to effectively manage business relationships, potentially across different cultures’. Koester suggests that given the ‘weight of evidence demonstrating the importance of interpersonal language in the workplace, developing interpersonal skills should clearly be given a prominent place on a syllabus for teaching English for occupational and business purposes’ (Koester 2010: 156). She then goes on to list four ‘broad areas of interpersonal meaning’ which need to be covered: ‘1. expressing stance, 2. hedging and politeness, 3. referring to shared knowledge, and 4. showing solidarity’ (ibid.). Holmes and Stubbe (2015: 173) also present data which show just how important relational/interpersonal skills are at work, and in a short discussion on how best to train people to deal with this in the workplace, conclude that: No pre-packaged course can hope to prepare people for such communicative diversity and the associated challenges. Rather people need assistance in developing their observational and analytical skills, so that they can identify for themselves the appropriate ways of interacting in their specific community of practice on any particular occasion. Similar messages about interpersonal communication skills are coming from the business community. In a recent investigation into the teaching of soft skills to business students, Anthony and Garner (2016: 360) define soft skills as ‘nontechnical skills such as listening, communication, teamwork, time management, self-management, empathy, integrity, flexibility, emotional intelligence, and related social skills’. They recognize that ‘the term soft skills is multidimensional and relates to a plethora of different aptitudes, so teaching it as one concept is challenging’ (op. cit. 361). In their research they investigate possible pedagogical approaches, arguing that ‘assignments that engage students or have practical application are the most helpful’ (op. cit.: 366). Specifically, they investigate five distinct pedagogical strategies: self-analysis, an interview, a guest lecturer, a journal article, and a soft skills video (op. cit. 360). All such approaches would find a place in a BE classroom, and indeed many do. ELF and BELF research is also helping us understand more about what it is BE learners need. English is widely seen as the lingua franca of the business world, but this is not a specific variety of English (such as British English), nor is it dominated by ‘native-speaker’ varieties. In a business context, mutual intelligibility and effectiveness of the communication, in terms of meeting the business goals, are more important than adherence to native speaker norms. Nickerson and Planken (2016: 24) write about ‘a shift away from native-speaker models towards the accommodation of different ways of using Business English as a Lingua Franca in multilingual business interactions’, although it is not clear that all authors/publishers have embraced this research quite as wholeheartedly as some researchers would like. Many would argue that even if authors and publishers do embrace it, taking an ELF/BELF approach is not simple. First, how do we decide what to put in our coursebook? Traditionally one of the key roles of any coursebook is to provide language examples/models for learners to work with, and this becomes difficult if there is no definite model. There are methodological implications too. When is a non-standard form acceptable, and when is it an error to be corrected? This is of course a traditional perspective of coursebooks, and Galloway (2018: 476), writing about materials in an ELF context, reminds us that: [I]t is important to point out again that the purpose of ELF research is not to establish a teachable model and to prescribe what should be taught in the ELT classroom. GELT (Global Englishes language teaching) simply requires that we consider the learners’ context and their needs when thinking about what target language to include. This sounds to me like ELF and BE have a lot in common, but the difficulty is not only in moving away from coursebook language as ‘model’. In ELF and BELF contexts communication strategies such as accommodation and code-switching become key, as does intercultural competence. Creativity is acceptable and part of the process. These are not areas traditionally taught in ELT classrooms, so taking ELF and BELF research into account requires publishers and authors to adopt a different mindset. As Galloway puts it: ELT materials writers may fear that daring to be ‘different’ will harm sales, but it is hoped that they will soon realise that offering something groundbreaking and cutting edge, something that equips learners to function in today’s globalised world, will lead to improved sales in the long term. (op. cit. 478) As we shall see, such innovation is already happening in BE coursebooks, but there is still a way to go. BE materials So far, I have looked at issues to do with the teaching context and the content that is being taught, but we also need to look at the materials themselves. One important notion that is discussed in materials for language learning is authenticity (Gilmore, 2007), but there is no consensus about how it should be approached in materials development. For example, publishers continue to put ‘authentic’ on their publications and catalogues, but it is not clear exactly what they mean by the term. Are they referring to where a text comes from, or how it is used? On the one side there are those who emphasize the value of using texts and tasks not originally created for the language classroom, arguing that this brings the real business world into the classroom, allows the practice of real-world language, and adds to motivation and realism. The counter argument is that teaching materials are not meant to replicate real speech, or imitate real-world tasks, but are there simply to help people learn a language. Real texts in a classroom, out of context and often very specific, might be too challenging or simply irrelevant. And this is especially so with authentic audio and video recordings, with all the overlaps and messiness of real conversation, which are almost never ideal in a classroom environment. As ever, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle, with the teaching context being the deciding factor. A group of pre-experience students learning BE at university would probably benefit from access to real written texts such as extracts from annual reports or financial news articles, but using such texts in a company context, with in-work learners who have to deal with other types of texts, might be very inappropriate. And simulating a contract negotiation, which might be incredibly useful for a group of French engineers in a company about to go on a business trip to Japan, may be far too specific or technical for a group of students in a university who have never been in an office. What seems authentic and credible for one learner or group may be inauthentic for another. Finally, there is the question of business content. Some coursebooks, particularly in a tertiary education context, are aimed at increasing employability, and here a focus on transferable soft skills may be relevant. But all the BE and soft skills in the world will not help someone do their job effectively if they are not good at that job. If they work in marketing, they need to know about marketing concepts. If they work in finance, they need to be able to understand financial models. These are the hard skills, the ‘B’ in BELF, where technical expertise is required, and which arguably form the context for almost everything our learners need to do in English. Kankaanranta and Louhiala-Salminen (2018: 316) see business knowledge as ‘an integral component of the concept of BELF and as the glue that ties the members of the business community of practice (CoP) together’. Their conclusion about this relationship between language and business knowledge is particularly significant for anyone teaching BE: ‘[A]lthough business dominates many spheres of life today and as consumers we are all automatically involved, it is only the insiders—business practitioners and business faculty—who are in the know’ (op cit. 318). The notion of CoP is key here. If our job as BE teachers (and BE materials writers) is to help people communicate more effectively in their workplace, it makes sense that part of this role requires us to give our learners the tools to integrate into, and become effective members of, their CoPs. Materials need to enable learners to practice the business knowledge, language, and communication skills they need in their communities, rather than in a predefined sanitized version of what we think they need to be able to do. In other words, what they learn in the classroom should be based on language use in their own specific contexts. The problem is that we as teachers and writers are not members of these communities, which makes understanding this language use very difficult. And how do we incorporate these very contextual issues in coursebooks which are aimed at learners in undefined contexts, as is inevitably the case in pre-experience classes? BE and technology Unsurprisingly a lot of what has been happening in BE materials is driven by technological change. Part of this involves the research tools now available, and the corpus studies mentioned above are examples of this. But technology is also playing an important role in how materials are designed and delivered. A few years ago, digital course content was typically delivered as an adjunct to the main coursebook. Now the main coursebook and the digital content often go hand in hand. From a pedagogical perspective this has allowed delivery of course content in ways unimaginable only a few decades ago. For example, many courses include software which automatically corrects practice tasks, freeing the teacher to spend time on other issues. And, perhaps most importantly, the content needs to reflect what is happening in the world of work, where digital communication has become the norm. As Ilie et al. (2019: 22–23) argue: [I]t is important that business discourse teaching promotes learners’ multimedia awareness, including an understanding of when and how various tools and media can be used to support different communication functions in organizations, and, in addition, how they can be used—often in combination—to achieve specific work-related tasks. The implication is clear—BE materials need to include digital elements not only because they make the teacher’s life easier, or because they deliver content efficiently, but because such tools have become part and parcel of everyday business communication, and using them has become part of the skills learners have to master. Teachers need to be able to explain the pros and cons of using specific translation software, for example, or how to effectively communicate in a virtual environment. BE coursebooks: a pragmatic overview All these issues might make the task of writing BE coursebooks appear overwhelming, but it is worth remembering that coursebooks are not only designed to help people learn a language and do their job more effectively. Publishers need them to make profits, which means market research cannot be ignored, and books that sell in large numbers will almost inevitably be given priority over the needs and wishes of a niche market. Teachers have a different perspective too, perhaps looking for something that will help make their job easier. It is relatively easy for researchers to focus on one very specific aspect and criticize coursebooks, but as we have seen, some of the criticism does seem fair. It makes sense that coursebooks should reflect the language of the workplace, for example, and that this should include the types of language and genres one might expect to meet. We should no longer have to rely on intuition and experience, but should also look at the evidence. It also makes sense that in a globalized world, different varieties of English should be included, and that choosing a ‘native speaker’ model as standard, or simply having a non-British accent, is not enough: variety is more than accent. Tied into this is the need to cover not only strategies for communicating in different contexts and in different CoPs, but also tools and skills for analysing and learning how such context-specific communication actually works (Holmes and Stubbe 2015). One last point: those who criticize coursebooks should also remember that they represent only one of several resources a teacher has at his or her disposal. BE classrooms are full of discussions, role-plays, and so on, and all these allow the language of meetings, of interrupting, of turn-taking and all the other aspects of spoken interaction to be practised in a realistic environment that is relevant to the learners’ own context. The coursebook is only part of the story, just one of the many ways that learners can access the language. Any coursebook evaluation must therefore ask questions about how good a resource it is in the classroom, just as much as how well it replicates real business language. The survey: scope and limitations One common feature of ELTJ surveys is that they all seem to struggle to do justice to the sheer volume of publications available for survey, and compromises are inevitable. As we have seen, with BE coursebooks this is exacerbated by the fact that there is no clear agreement about what the term actually means, so that what is obviously BE for one BE teacher might be totally irrelevant to another. And as so much of BE teaching involves specific needs and contexts, materials tailor-made by the teacher are widespread and innumerable. I have therefore had to place limits on what this article is about. To help with this decision I decided first to divide what is available on the market into the following categories: General BE coursebooks Supplementary materials Specific business communication skills (e.g. negotiating, presenting) Specific language knowledge (e.g. vocabulary, grammar) Specific language skills (e.g. writing, listening) Coursebooks for specific business-related professions or industries (e.g. accounting, finance, marketing) Test preparation (e.g. TOEIC, LCCI English for business) Resource books (e.g. photocopiable materials, teaching ideas). The boundaries between these categories are somewhat blurred, in that some books might fit in more than one category or may at least overlap. So, for example, the language of presentations might appear in any of the categories, but the treatment would depend on where it appears. As a rule, the language in the second category, supplementary materials, might also appear in any general BE coursebook, but the supplementary materials would provide more focus. The third category covers books which many teachers and publishers might prefer to describe as ESP books (see discussion above about the definition of BE), while the fourth targets a very specific type of learner with specific needs. The fifth covers books that are simply collections of different teaching activities. To keep things manageable, I decided to focus just on the first two categories, and even then, limited myself to books appropriate for pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. Originally, I had intended to include books from different parts of the world, but it has proved quite difficult to find such books which are completely in English. Many books published for local markets contain a lot of L1, either in the students’ pages, and/or in the introductory pages/teacher’s books. Because of this, the first part of the survey focuses on global multilevel coursebooks aimed at the international market. The last book in this section is not part of a multilevel offering, but offers many of the features of a global coursebook. The following section looks at two books taken from the German market to provide a comparison; what makes these useful as a comparison is that both can easily be used in other non-German-speaking contexts/markets. In the next section I provide comments on three books that are targeted at the professional/adult market, but contain much of what has traditionally been seen as BE. I have tried to make sure that all of those I consider to be the major international BE publishers are represented, but as this is a personal opinion, some will no doubt find it possible to challenge my final selection. As regards supplementary materials, there are again too many to list here, so I have opted instead to focus on just a few in order to show some of the range and thinking that is being offered in this type of book, and how they contrast with the world of the global coursebook. Some of them are innovative, and others show good practice which I think is worth recording in this survey. General BE coursebooks Global coursebooks These books share several characteristics. First, they are all designed for an international market, and indeed can be found in BE classes anywhere in the world. All the publishers (except one) are well-known names in the market and established—these coursebooks are expensive to produce and require deep pockets. They are examples of what is known as the ‘global coursebook’, a phenomenon sometimes criticized for a lack of ‘cultural appropriateness and/or relevance for many of its target markets’ (Mishan and Timmis 2015: 46). All include a variety of resources designed to supplement the main coursebook, ranging from online content, to additional supplementary materials, to DVDs, teacher’s books, workbooks, to video content, and so on. All have multistrand syllabuses, covering all the things you would expect in a general BE coursebook, from useful lexis and grammar, to communication skills and intercultural training. Many include case studies, which are an excellent way of practising many of the skills people need when they communicate in the workplace. I have chosen only to look at books at pre-intermediate and intermediate levels for reasons of space and ease of comparison. Finally, all are aimed at both in-company and university learners, although as we shall see, some are better suited one or other of these groups. The Business 2.0. B1 Pre-intermediate student’s book J. Allison with P. Emmerson Macmillan 2014. 160 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 43780 7 This second edition of The Business has eight units, each divided into six modules. One of the best features is its very simple format, which is very easy to follow, with an introductory section fulfilling the stated aim of helping the user to do business in English by including information on basic business principles. Each unit then has vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and writing modules before finishing with a case study. So for example in Unit 2 on customer satisfaction we start with an article on ‘How to keep your customers happy’, and follow it with collocations related to customer service, work on the present continuous, telephoning expressions, formal letters and emails, and then a case study which looks at a range of problems and issues within the context of a rock group on a world tour. The ten pages of glossary at the end of the book are taken from the Macmillan dictionary, and provide definitions and example sentences for selected words used in the units. Many of these words are marked to show that they are high-frequency items and ‘among the 7500 which native speakers use for 90% of what they speak or write’ (p. 150). There is also an eWorkbook which contains additional language practice and various other resources, including audio and video recordings. A nice feature are the regular internet research tasks, where learners are given suggestions to help them find out more about the unit topic. Business Result, 2nd edition: Pre-intermediate student’s book D. Grant, J. Hudson, and J. Hughes Oxford University Press 2017. 160 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 473880 4 This second edition of a popular book has much to offer. There are 15 units covering a variety of business topics, from products and services (Unit 3) to travel (Unit 7) to entertaining (Unit 11). Each unit contains language practice, both spoken and written, as well as a ‘Talking Point’ section designed to get learners to discuss the topic in their own context. So the unit on entertaining focuses on corporate hospitality, with lots of practice on relevant language, and ending with the ‘Talking Point’ section introducing a discussion on ‘hospitality or bribery?’ Discussions like this would go well in most BE classrooms. A nice touch in this book are the video units which appear after every three units, and which contain short video clips and information about real companies, brief interviews with various employees, as well as activities designed to get learners listening to authentic speech, taking notes, and discussing various issues which arise. Much of this is the language of talking about business rather than the language of doing business, and as we have seen in the discussion above, useful in certain teaching contexts. The online component offers additional practice exercises and email exercises for each unit. Business Advantage B1 Student’s Book A. Koester, A. Pitt, M. Handford, and M. Lisboa Cambridge University Press 2012. 192 pp. ISBN 978 0 521 132206 This is one of two new offerings in this section by a major publisher. What sets this book apart is its use of the Cambridge English corpus, perhaps unsurprising since two of the authors, Almut Koester and Mike Handford, are well known for their research in corpus linguistics. Each unit is divided into three parts: theory (key business principles and ideas); practice/case study; and skills. The first section typically sets the scene, providing a warm-up activity which is designed to discuss the theme with reference to the learners’ own context, and some language work, focusing on lexis and grammar. Section 2 is a case study, with input in the form of listening and reading texts, plenty of language work, and finishing with an output activity such as a role-play of a meeting, a negotiation, or a presentation. Section 3 focuses on communicating skills in a particular context. The book comes with a DVD containing real case studies from the Cambridge Judge Business School, with additional worksheets provided in the teacher’s book and the accompanying website. Interviews with real business people, and the real problems discussed, give the materials a very authentic feel, although many teachers would probably find them more appropriate for students at management levels rather than in-company, where classes might include people from all sorts of professional background. Business Partner B1 M. O’Keefe, L. Lansford, R. Wright, E. Frendo, and L. Wright Pearson 2018. 160 pp. ISBN 978 1 292 23354 3 Business partner B1+ I. Dubicka, I, M. O’Keefe, B. Dignen, M. Hogan, and L. Wright Pearson 2018. 160 pp. ISBN 978 3 868 94805 9 This is the second new offering from a major publisher (readers will realize that I am one of the authors of the B1 volume). Each unit has five lessons. The first two use a PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production) approach, with input texts, either video, audio or written, followed by familiar comprehension exercises, vocabulary and grammar work, and finishing off with a task designed to focus on language just covered. The innovation comes in the third lesson, with the way soft skills are presented and handled. Here Pearson uses a storyline approach, with the same characters appearing throughout the book as they are faced with different situations in an ongoing project. Each unit offers two similar videos showing different ways of dealing with these situations, and it is up to the learners to discuss the approaches and decide what may be the most appropriate strategy to follow. The fourth lesson in each unit provides content on familiar practical business skills such as negotiating, and the fifth lesson is on writing skills. Each unit also includes a case study, and there are plenty of online resources which complement the coursebook content. Business Partner also ties up with Pearson’s Global Scale of English, a detailed scale of proficiency designed to help teachers and learners measure their progress through the course. In Company 3.0. Pre-intermediate Student’s Book Pack B1 S. Clarke Macmillan 2014. 160 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 45088 2 In Company 3.0. Intermediate Student’s Book Pack B1+ M. Powell Macmillan 2014. 160 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 45520 7 This popular book is now in its third edition. It contains 20 units, 15 of which focus on business communication, and five interleaved shorter units on people skills, divided into functional language and interpersonal skills. There are an additional five workplace scenarios containing case studies. The website provides an online workbook and a student’s resource centre containing video, audio and extra practice. Most publishers go for a standard unit design, but, interestingly, in this book, although the 15 business communication units share some characteristics (e.g. they all end with extra practice activities), the type of content of the units varies considerably, depending on the topic. So, for example, in the pre-intermediate book, Unit 3 (Telephone Talk) is full of telephone conversations to listen to, role-plays to take part in, and short texts about telephoning, finishing off with extra practice activities focusing on lexis and grammar. In contrast, Unit 5 (Internet Histories) has no conversations to listen to, but has two long listening texts (one on the app Angry Birds and one on the history of the internet) and written texts, such as a timeline, an article, and a quiz, which provide lots of language input and discussion opportunities. Many of the topics in this book are not those you would expect to find in a typical management studies course at a university but are designed to replicate the sorts of interactions found in real companies. Likewise, many of the activities focus on the language of spoken conversation, and some of these are very close to the real workplace. The pre-intermediate book is the only coursebook I know which has a unit on office gossip, for example, the importance of which is well researched (Koester 2010; Holmes and Stubbe 2015). Widgets Inc.: A Task-Based Course in Workplace English 2nd edition M. Benevides and C. Valvona Atama-ii books 2018. 110 pp. ISBN 978 1 94 114000 0 This book is a bit of an anomaly in this section, in that it does not offer several levels, nor is it any longer published by a big-name publisher (the first edition was produced by Pearson). It deserves a place because it covers a wide variety of language work and skills, and because it can be used anywhere in the world. This second edition of Widgets Inc. describes itself as a task-based course in workplace English. Learners take on the role of an intern working through a series of tasks designed to simulate a product design and promotion cycle in a fictional company. These tasks include brainstorming ideas for a new product, preparing and delivering an ‘elevator pitch’, carrying out market research, doing a product presentation, applying for a permanent position at Widgets Inc., and so on. Much of the input for the tasks comes via video, specifically from instructions and conversations with company management. On the way learners become familiar with different departments in the company, including functions and roles. Following the principles of task-based learning, assessment is done primarily by task outcome. This is a course which seems best suited to a group of pre-experience learners in a university context, although it will no doubt find a place in some in-company contexts too. Widgets Inc. won the Award for Excellence in Course Innovation at the 2019 ELTons. Coursebooks for the German market Unlike the coursebooks examined so far, the two books in this section are not aimed at the global market, but nevertheless share many of the features we have already seen in global coursebooks. Some of the contexts do come from German-speaking countries, but despite this, I see no reason why such books, with relatively minor tweaking, could not be adapted for use anywhere in the world. I have included them as examples of what is possible in smaller markets. Simply Business B1 A. Lloyd Cornelsen 2015. 120 pp. ISBN 978 3 06 520456 9 Simply Business B1+ A. Lloyd Cornelsen 2015. 120 pp. ISBN 978 3 06 520459 0 This book is clearly designed to cater for in-work adults who are looking to improve their language skills in order to work in a global market. The content does not attempt to explain business concepts and management practices but focuses instead on language use and communication in international business contexts. I could find only one text which looked like it came from the business press, which was refreshing (many books focus primarily on press articles in every unit, to the detriment of other written genres). Each unit contains language input and practice, a Global English section which focuses on potential areas of miscommunication, as well as plenty of opportunities to think about how the language might be used in the learner’s own context. The book comes with an audio CD as well as a DVD containing unscripted video recordings which contain authentic language. As the blurb in the book says, ‘These speakers’ English may not always be perfect, but they still communicate their messages effectively to an international audience’ (p. 3). This is a very different approach to many of the other books in this survey, where actors (perhaps with ‘foreign accents’) are used in the video recordings. There is also an online workbook, apps to access the video and audio on the move, a vocabulary app, and a teaching guide. Real Business English B1 H. Grünewald and A. Bradbury Ernst Klett Verlag 2017. 144 pp. ISBN 978 3 12 501670 5 This book is also aimed at in-work learners, with some of the content most appropriate for pre-experience learners who have recently joined a company. There are 16 units, each focusing on a particular business topic such as processes, trade fairs, or business trips, with each unit offering plenty of personalized language practice. The book does not include grammatical explanations (which are left for the accompanying workbook) but instead focuses on presenting and practising the lexis and phrases needed to talk about the various issues and topics. The accompanying CD contains all the audio recordings. The final few pages of the book provide a wordlist with phonetic transcriptions and German translations. BE and professional English This section discusses books which, although aimed at adult professional learners rather than BE learners, nevertheless incorporate content that is clearly relevant to many BE learners. Such books recognize that BE may be too narrow a focus for some learners and that general communication strategies and topics may be more useful. Keynote Pre-intermediate Student’s Book D. Bohlke with S. Parker Cengage Learning 2018. 176 pp. ISBN 978 1 337 27392 3 Keynote Intermediate Student’s Book P. Dummet, H. Stephenson, and L. Lansford Cengage Learning 2016. 176 pp. ISBN 978 1 305 39909 9 Cengage’s Keynote series is aimed at students wishing to study English for their professional or personal lives. Each book is designed to exploit 12 TED talks, but the series also includes 40 additional online worksheets which focus on talks that have a specific business or industry focus. The appeal to teachers and learners is obvious: TED talks not only cover a wide range of interesting topics and issues, but from a design perspective the course is extremely flexible, and it is easy to pick and choose which TED talks to use in a specific teaching context. This is real language in action, and the books provide plenty of activities which practise and extend the language introduced in the videos. It is not surprising that Keynote won an ELTon award for excellence in course innovation in 2016. BE teachers will be aware that most TED talks are a style of presentation rarely seen in companies, so these books are probably best suited to general presentations skills training. Another potential downside is that the books focus on a genre which represents a very small part of BE; there are no negotiations or meetings to observe, or emails to analyse, so such language has to be created via discussions and classroom activities. International Express Pre-intermediate, 3rd edition K. Harding and R. Appleby Oxford University Press 2014. 160 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 459759 3 International Express Intermediate, 3rd edition K. Harding and A. Lane Oxford University Press 2014. 168 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 459760 9 OUP’s International Express series, now in its third edition, is also designed to cater for adult professional learners. The books follow a very simple format of ten units each, each having four sections: grammar, vocabulary, work skills, and functions. All the sections follow a PPP model, an approach to language teaching that has been used for many years, and seems to offer what many teachers and learners want from a coursebook. Although aimed at professional learners, a quick glance at the topics in the work skills sections shows that this is very much aimed at what would have traditionally been seen as BE learners – both the intermediate and the pre-intermediate books have sections on meetings, emails, presentations, telephoning, job interviews, and so on. The book also comes with a DVD which contains video recordings and additional exercises. Open Mind Intermediate Student’s Book Pack B1+ M. Rogers, J. Taylore-Knowles, and S. Taylore-Knowles Macmillan 2014. 176 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 45709 6 Open Mind describes itself as a general English course for adults, but like the other books in this section, it includes content which has a BE flavour, and which might be of interest to BE learners. Each of the 12 units is divided into sections which focus on language skills such as reading, listening, speaking, writing, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary, and these sections sometimes include BE content. So, for example, Unit 3 looks at the language of advertising, products, and customer service; Unit 4 focuses on language useful for setting up a business; and Unit 12 is on work and jobs. The communication strategies covered in the speaking sections look particularly appealing, with topics such as ‘politely insisting’, ‘asking for clarification’, and ‘using softening language to give criticism’. The final section of each unit is titled ‘LifeSkills’, and here the content emphasizes soft skills such as critical thinking and learning skills, often within a context that would not be out of place in a BE course: topics include presentation skills, reporting information, responding to feedback, talking about graphs and charts, and job interviews. Although the rest of the content is ostensibly not BE material, much would still be appropriate for BE learners. For example, Unit 9, ‘Body talk’, covers issues such as health problems and injuries, and provides language which would be very relevant to the workplace. The book comes with video and audio recordings, as well as online components such as extra language practice and word lists. Supplementary materials So far I have looked at general coursebooks, designed to cover a wide range of skills and language which BE learners might need. By their very nature these books are not specific, and supplementary materials, designed to provide additional content not covered in detail in a general coursebook, might be needed to fill the gap. The supplementary materials discussed in this section may be used in one of two ways—as supplements to the main coursebook, or, where such a general coursebook is considered inappropriate, as a key resource in a course targeting very specific needs. Some supplementary materials, such as those aimed at vocabulary practice or speaking skills, are common throughout ELT, but some, such as those targeting business communication skills like negotiating or presenting, are specific to BE. Vocabulary Business Vocabulary in Use Intermediate 3rd edition B. Mascull Cambridge University Press 2017. 176 pp. ISBN 978 1 316 62998 7 Business Vocabulary in Practice 3rd edition W. Capel, J. Flockhart, and S. Robbins Collins 2012. 176 pp. ISBN 978 0 00 742375 0 These books have much in common. Both are third editions, building on the success of previous editions, both are corpus informed (spoken and written), and both are suitable for both classroom use and self-study. The layout of both is very similar, with each unit consisting of two pages. In each book the new vocabulary is presented on the left page, and the exercises on the right. Collins have gone for 15 business topics, each with five double-page spreads. Cambridge divide their presentation into topics (46 double pages) and communication skills (20 units). This is an important difference: the Cambridge book offers useful spoken English phrases—for example, in the meetings section we get phrases such as ‘Would you mind taking the minutes?’, and ‘Let’s talk about this calmly’ (p. 120). This sort of functional language is not easy to find in the Collins book. On the other hand, the Collins book has many more topics to choose from. Another key difference is in the way each publisher presents language. Although both use the left-hand page for this presentation, Collins have chosen to present its words in boxes, each containing a definition, an example sentence, and a part of speech label. This has quite a sterile feel but provides a useful reference resource. There is a maximum of eight words per unit, and sometimes collocations boxes are included to give additional information. Cambridge, on the other hand, have opted to present its new key words within short texts, in context. Many more words are presented in this way, and the colour pictures give it a much more user-friendly feel. However, there is less part-of-speech information given, and it is not as easy to find example sentences. In summary, both books do a good job of presenting new vocabulary and providing plenty of exercises. If you want a book which gives you a lot of useful spoken language examples, go for the Cambridge. If you want to cover a wide range of business topics, the Collins book is preferable. Writing Email English 2nd edition P. Emmerson Macmillan 2013. 112 pp. ISBN 978 0 230 44855 1 This is the second edition of a popular book on email writing. The book offers 32 two-page units on a wide range of themes related to email writing, ranging from grammar to dealing with specific situations such as arranging meetings, to communication styles, to standard phrases for opening and closing emails. This edition provides a social media supplement which introduces platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and gives examples of language used in these contexts. The blurb on the back of the book claims that the exercises are based on hundreds of real examples, but there is no information given about where these examples were drawn from. There are plenty of controlled practice activities in the shape of gap-fills, matching exercises, reordering, reformulating, and so on, and the user can pick and choose according to where the need is. Having said that, what makes email language effective is not only the phrases used, but understanding what is appropriate in a given context, and this element is missing. For example, there are no activities which overtly tackle the intercultural nature of email writing, such as how to make decisions about appropriate forms of address, or how different an email might look if it came from different cultural contexts/CoPs. Likewise, work on intertextuality, identified by researchers such as Handford (2010) and Ilie et al. (2019) as so important, is largely limited to activities that require the learner to put a series of emails into the correct order. Nevertheless, the power of this book is in its flexibility and its ease of use, and there is no doubt that many learners and teachers will find it useful. Writing for Impact T. Banks Cambridge University Press 2012. 96 pp. ISBN 978 1 107 60351 6 This book focuses on general BE writing skills, and includes materials on typical business documents, such as emails, minutes, and reports. Recognizing that context is important, tasks in this book typically require the learner to think about a situation or problem before being asked to produce an appropriate written solution. Banks has clearly taken research into intertextuality on board, and the result is a good example of how this can be taught in practice; the book comes with an audio CD which provides plenty of material to link up with writing and speaking tasks. Hence, a task might involve listening to a recording of a conversation, and then deciding which of two letters might be the most appropriate follow-up, or working through a case study which includes listening to oral input, reading texts, and role-playing meetings before writing an appropriate report. The second of these case studies concerns interactions between a manufacturing company in the UK and its Asian office, and there is plenty of chance to think about intercultural communication issues. According to the teacher’s book, many of the examples in the book, including many useful phrases and fixed expressions, are taken from the Cambridge English corpus. Learners will find the bank of model answers at the end of the book particularly useful. Communication skills Working Virtually J. Black and J. Dyson Delta Publishing 2013. 120 pp. ISBN 978 1 905085 69 9 Many BE learners have to communicate virtually, and this book is aimed at a group of learners who are not well catered for in other coursebooks. Each unit focuses on one aspect of working virtually, with the first units, ‘Understanding virtual communication’ and ‘Preparing for successful communication’, setting some of the basic ground rules. Each unit focuses on useful language, but there is also a lot of focus on the skills involved in using technology effectively in an international context. Professional skills sections in the units typically contain texts which would fit well in a university management course, but less so in a course for general managers in a company who might prefer to focus on the language of doing business (e.g. the text on using diversity for effective collaboration discusses cognitive diversity, identity diversity, and preference diversity); this is not a problem, however, and the trainer is free to pick and choose according to the needs of the group. I particularly liked the intercultural competence sections in each unit, which focus on raising intercultural awareness, and offer case studies designed to encourage group discussion and group problem-solving. Often there is no right answer—each group of learners will make this relevant to their own context. The book is accompanied by an audio CD which has plenty of different accents to listen to. One slight niggle: the Delta catalogue mentions trainer’s notes which can be downloaded from the website, but I was unable to find them. Listening I. Badger Collins 2011. 124 pp. ISBN 978 0 00 742321 7 Winner of the 2012 IATEFL BESIG David Riley award for Innovation in BE and ESP, this book is certainly different. First, it focuses exclusively on listening skills, which is unusual for a BE book. And second, again unusually, it provides a wide range of authentic recordings exemplifying different varieties of English, all in a business context. In this case authentic means ‘unscripted’ and recorded on location, as opposed to a studio. The language is full of slips, errors, hesitations, repetitions, different accents, and so on, all things which make real spoken language so challenging. Even if similar authentic recordings of BE relevant conversations were easy to find on the internet, (which they aren’t), what makes this book especially powerful is what accompanies the recordings. Here Badger has used the COBUILD corpus to provide lots of examples, observations, and exercises, and these can be used either as supplementary material or for self-study. Conclusion So what does this survey show? Although I have only included relatively few books in the survey, perhaps one conclusion we can draw is that there is plenty of variety, from very traditional PPP, to TBLT (Task-based Language Teaching) and case studies. Insights from disciplines such as corpus linguistics, ELF and BELF research, and business communication studies are clear to see, and we are no longer relying on an author’s intuition and experience to see us through as much as we did in the past. Likewise, more and more books are focusing on intercultural/soft skills, as well as on digital communication, and there is no reason to think that this trend will disappear anytime soon. Most importantly, the distinction between print and digital has become so blurred that this might be the last BE materials survey ELTJ publishes which places paper coursebooks so firmly at the centre—in future digital products may be the main way to think about BE materials. Many of the books I have looked at are compromises, aimed at serving teachers and learners in a wide variety of contexts and situations. Many are generous with their content, which is wonderful. But the onus is very much on the teacher to adapt such books to his or her own context and needs, selecting and adapting as necessary. Some books (e.g. The Business 2.0) make this task relatively easy, offering a clear overview and built-in flexibility. Unfortunately, quite a few make the task more difficult, offering so much content that teachers may miss it simply because they do not know it exists. This is a real problem, particularly in cases where the coursebooks, accompanied by a plethora of workbooks, teacher’s books, online activities, DVDs, and so on, also include different versions of each depending on how much you are willing or able to spend. (Perhaps this is as good a place as any for the writer of this survey to own up to feeling overwhelmed at times, and to apologize for any overlooked content.) Part of this compromise relates to target markets. We have already seen that there is a difference between in-company and tertiary education, for example, yet, as we have seen, many publishers continue to conflate the two. The bottom line is critical, which leads me to conclude that BE coursebooks are very much a publisher-driven resource. This point is emphasized by the sheer number of second or third editions in the survey. This could imply that teachers and learners like what is on offer, and only minor tweaks are required. It could also imply that publishers are less willing to invest considerable amounts into new and innovative products in a market that is being so challenged by the advent of digital products, e-learning, and so on. Whatever the reason, the result is that even some of the new books seem rather traditional in terms of methodology or perhaps even naïve in terms of awareness of research findings. One area which I think publishers do need to look at is the treatment of grammar. Here too many books seem to follow approaches which we have seen all too often in the last few decades, but which now seem a little dated. For example, we still see the tired old division of conditionals into first, second, and third conditionals, which is an oversimplification at best, or misleading at worst, with fairly strong evidence to suggest that these categories are not particularly useful or accurate. Likewise, the differences between spoken and written grammar are rarely covered. Of course, publishers could take refuge in the observation that although there are many discussions about how best to teach grammar, there is really no consensus (Mishan and Timmis 2015: 152–58). However, I am not convinced that authors and publishers are as aware of the research as they should be. Or perhaps, even worse, they prefer to ignore it. In a previous ELTJ survey Steve Flinders wrote: Entering the BE coursebook world feels more and more like patrolling the supermarket shelves, where so much attractive confectionery is on display. Somewhere you know you can find the product which is just right for you, and hopefully for your learners too. Nearly all the products will satisfy your needs, and some are really tasty. But it could take a while to find exactly what you want. (Flinders, 2005: 160) Something similar could perhaps be said today, but instead of a supermarket we are now also trawling through the pages of an Amazon or an Alibaba. And while many BE learners and teachers are still satisfied with ready-to-go supermarket fare, perhaps more and more are becoming aware that home-cooked food is sometimes more attractive. More importantly, many learners are becoming more demanding about what we as teachers serve up, and as the technology continues to evolve we might see a time where BE coursebooks as we know them are simply no longer on the menu, either because they are just not tasty enough, or because they use old and tired ingredients rather than fresh produce. Evan Frendo is a freelance trainer, teacher trainer, and author based in Berlin. He has been active in BE and ESP since 1993, mostly in the corporate sector. A frequent speaker at conferences, he also travels regularly in Europe and Asia to run courses or to work as a consultant. More details, including information about his publications, can be found at his website: www.e4b.de. 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This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Business English materials
JF - ELT Journal
DO - 10.1093/elt/ccz037
DA - 2019-12-28
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/business-english-materials-AwWgQhgH0c
SP - 1
VL - Advance Article
IS - 
DP - DeepDyve
ER -