ELT Journal Advance Access published December 20, 2012

Students’ and teachers’ ideals of

effective Business English teaching
Ruth Trinder and Martin Herles

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Learners’ and teachers’ evaluation of what constitutes useful, appropriate,
and goal-relevant English may well shift in view of the globalization of
English and its dominance in non-native contexts, business, and new media.
Against this background, this study explores the extent to which a specific
Business English university programme meets teachers’ and learners’
expectations. We argue that students’ own experiences and goals, including
their past, present, and projected use of English, shape their expectations
and, consequently, their evaluations of the teaching reality. The results of
our study reveal that though learner and teacher beliefs tend to be aligned in
most areas, students’ judgements of effective teaching and learning practices
are highly dependent on personal motivations and specific language use
purposes, and this difference manifests itself most clearly in teachers’ and
learners’ divergent views on the value of grammatical accuracy and corrective
feedback.

Introduction Timmis (2002), referring to the debate about International English,

stresses the importance of listening to students’ and classroom
teachers’ voices. Investigating the attitudes of the main stakeholders
in the teaching process makes sense for other ELT areas, too. Learner
beliefs are nowadays considered a critical influence on what students do
(or refuse to do) in and out of the classroom (Yang 1999; Breen 2001;
White 2008). Ideas about the nature and difficulty of language learning
have been shown to affect students’ evaluation of the effectiveness of
certain teaching methods and learning tasks (Horwitz 1988; Wenden
1999). Studies that have widened the perspective to include teachers’
viewpoints (for example Brown 2009; Ranta 2010) were interested
in similarities and differences between the main players’ views,
pointing out the potentially very negative consequences of mismatches
between beliefs and classroom reality (ranging from demotivation to
discontinuation of study).

Currently, the effects of beliefs on learner actions (or refusal to act)

are quite well documented in the literature. Learners may refuse
or invest little effort in learning activities if these conflict with
their views of how languages should be taught and what particular

ELT Journal; doi:10.1093/elt/ccs080  Page 1 of 10

© The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
 language courses should offer. Less attention, however, has been
paid to the factors shaping a particular teaching approach. Common
sense would suggest that instructors’ own beliefs about effective
teaching, acquired during their teacher training courses or based on
their own learning experiences, would translate directly into specific
instructional practices. However, such a view fails to take important
contextual factors and outside pressures into account; in reality, many
practitioners have to adapt their instructional approaches if they are
to cover an (externally dictated) syllabus despite, for instance, cuts in
contact hours and increases in student numbers.

Purpose of the study In this study, we therefore attempt to present a more global picture of
how teachers’ and students’ views compare against the background

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of a given teaching context, detailing in the first part the factors that
have moulded it. The study was conducted at Vienna University of
Economics and Business (WU) and adopted a qualitative approach
(interviews and mini-essays), addressing the following aspects/facets of
language learning beliefs:

1 What do students and teachers at a business school consider good and

useful English?
2 What are students’ and teachers’ beliefs concerning the nature of
language learning?
3 How important are NS norms to students and how useful do they
find communicating with NNSs as opposed to NSs?
4 Reactions to the learning environment: How do students’ and
teachers’ notions of goal-relevant teaching and learning practices
compare? To what extent are these practices facilitated by the Business
English programme? How do they deal with mismatches between their
beliefs and the actual learning situation?
Over a period of four semesters, we asked more than 200 advanced
(third year or higher) students for their opinions, using open-ended
questions to give them the opportunity to think about and expand on a
given point. The entire departmental teaching staff (n = 28) was then
interviewed to provide an insight into the ramifications of context and
beliefs from the faculty’s perspective.

Factors that shape Learner and teacher practices are determined not only by their
and constrain individual beliefs and motivations but also by outside forces that may
the teaching and curtail or extend their flexibility. Thus, before we analyse how the two
learning reality groups responded to the way English is taught at our university, it
makes sense to refer to developments shaping the learning context.
Here we found it useful to distinguish between global, national, and
local influences.

Global developments, for instance, include the predominance of

English in international, non-native business contexts (as witnessed
by the emergence of acronyms such as BELF for ‘Business English
lingua franca’) and the ubiquity of the internet and social media (such
as Skype and Facebook), where, again, much of the interaction takes

Page 2 of 10 Ruth Trinder and Martin Herles

 place in English between NNSs. At the national level, constraints on
the teaching context in the narrower sense include open university
access (in contrast to neighbouring countries), the change from a
four- to a three-year system, and budget cuts. Effectively, these factors
have meant highly unfavourable student–teacher ratios and reductions
in contact hours. The strongest local influence is departmental policy
arising from the necessity to justify a separate language department
at a business university, which dictates a strong emphasis on content
and terminology. These conditions interact to produce substantial
restrictions on what is actually feasible in terms of instructional
approaches and testing and have led to teaching situations that may
be at odds with teachers’ as well as students’ aims, motivations, and
expectations.

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Thus, it could be argued that for this particular student community
(and probably for many other university contexts, too), external factors
have conspired to produce enhanced learning and communication
opportunities ‘in the real world’, whilst effectively placing heavy
constraints on what happens in the classroom. Most of the open
questions we asked directly or indirectly tapped into students’ and
teachers’ perceptions of this conundrum.

Findings Student responses

Question 1 In answer to the introductory question of what constituted, in their
eyes, ‘good and useful English’, we found that the vast majority of
students assessed communicative competence, or at the very least
intelligibility, in a wide range of communicative encounters to be the
main benchmark. In particular, respondents mentioned ‘being able
to express yourself’, ‘being able to talk about a variety of topics’, and
‘fluency’. To give some examples:

Useful English means being able to communicate freely on an advanced

rhetoric level, in a professional manner and about complex issues.
In my opinion good and useful English refers to the ability to express
yourself and be understood by the listeners.
Obviously, overlapping with communication skills, but separately
mentioned as signs of a good command of English were, in order
of frequency, ‘extensive vocabulary’, ‘good pronunciation’, ‘good
knowledge of Business English’, ‘appropriacy’, and, to a lesser extent,
‘accurate grammar’. Student comments included:

Good and useful English ... is the ability to speak fluently and with a
good pronunciation and vocabulary.
... is correct English and also the English which is used in everyday
life as well as Business English.
In general, what they termed ‘inferior’ pronunciation and
pronunciation mistakes were seen as a greater impediment to
intelligibility than grammatical errors:

Ideals of effective Business English teaching Page 3 of 10

 There are people who make grammar mistakes, but at least they
know how to express themselves. However, the correct pronunciation
is essential, since if a person mispronounces a word, he might be
misunderstood.
Despite their emphasis on oral communicative competence, most
students also showed awareness that different situations require
different skills, registers, and levels of accuracy:

Good English is the ability to communicate in a proper way, either

written or oral. You have to be able to adapt your English to different
situations, such as business talks, writing emails, talking to a friend
and so on.

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Written texts should be correct; in presentations you should speak
correctly, but for informal communication—it’s not so important.

Question 2 Student responses

The strong emphasis on oral communication reflects students’ conceptions
of the nature of language learning. Many respondents considered exposure
to the target language, as well as the readiness to exploit communication
opportunities, to be the prime drivers of language acquisition, at least at
a more advanced level. This belief that ‘speaking equals learning’ is quite
central to the student cohort. Asked how they could improve their English,
many students gave answers along the lines of:

The best solution is to go to an English speaking country for some

months.
The best way to speak good and fluent English is to communicate
regularly with a native speaker.
I am convinced that speaking would be much more helpful than
simply writing emails or communicating via a chatroom.

Question 3 Student responses

Though many students found it easier to communicate with NNSs
as they often used simpler sentences and spoke more slowly, it was
for these very reasons that interaction with NSs was preferred: only
from NSs, they reasoned, could they learn how to speak fluently and,
as they saw it, ‘correctly’. Students’ notions of correctness seemed to
include pragmatic, lexical, and structural aspects as well as ‘correct’
pronunciation, with only few respondents referring to the peculiarities
of particular regional NS accents. Despite a strong awareness of English
as a Lingua Franca (ELF), most still aspired to NS norms:

I do communicate a lot with speakers of other languages but too little

with English native speakers. I’m fully aware that this is a problem,
because you can learn a lot more from a native speaker (for example
pronunciation).
I think I benefit more from native speakers because I can always ask
them something. With a non-native speaker I will not enhance my

Page 4 of 10 Ruth Trinder and Martin Herles

 English skills, but a native speaker can always correct me and tell me
how I could say something.
Although students universally insisted on the dominance of fluency
over grammatical accuracy, those respondents who particularly expected
to work in an environment where English is either the corporate
language or at least used regularly in international negotiations also
considered ‘good’ (ideally, in their view, ‘native-like’) pronunciation and
good grammatical competence indispensable for their future careers.
Students thought that error-free language would give them more
credibility and status on formal (business) occasions:

You seem more competent when you speak correctly.

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I put a lot of importance on a right pronunciation in order to sound
less German to international business contacts, which might be a
sign of professionalism to them.
In modern business it is necessary to be able to write business letters
and to participate in conference calls in English. An inferior level of
English is not only embarrassing for oneself but can even harm the
whole company’s image.
I think that most business people should apply better grammatical
structures and fluency in their expression, because that simply
conveys a more professional image of the speaker.
To sum up, students are aware of and use communication
opportunities with NNSs as a matter of course, whether in the form
of social media to keep up with international friends, face-to-face at
university, or during travels. However, in view of their professional
aims, such NNS interactions are considered ‘inferior’ learning
opportunities as they cannot guarantee ‘correctness’ of expression;
NNSs thus cannot serve as models.

Chavez (2007) investigated four possible language use purposes

that potentially might motivate students towards accuracy in oral
production:
■■ deriving a personal sense of accomplishment;
■■ being comprehensible to a NS;
■■ sounding pleasant to a NS;
■■ getting an ‘A’ in class.
The first three considerations were implied in a number of our
responses, too; however, our students seemed to be motivated most by
the sense of getting a competitive edge in business encounters, at least
as far as phonological and lexical accuracy was concerned.

Teacher responses to If anything, teachers were even more adamant in stressing the
Questions 1–3 importance of effective communication. In contrast to the majority of
students, they see individual features such as grammatical correctness,
extensive vocabulary, and ‘accurate’ pronunciation generally only as
means to an end, namely getting the message across successfully,

Ideals of effective Business English teaching Page 5 of 10

 rather than as ends in themselves. As pointed out earlier, students—
quite in contrast to today’s ELF idea—still seem to strive for NS
pronunciation, as this, for them, signals competence. Teachers,
however, show greater awareness that, in a global environment, most
communication actually takes place in NNS settings, which makes NS
standards less pertinent:

Decent pronunciation is nice, but less and less important today,

I think.
Given that teachers, quite in line with students, assume that the latter
use or will use English for practically anything, from their studies to
private life to their prospective jobs at international companies, this

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seems conclusive. Thus, elements such as accuracy and an extensive
vocabulary, though doubtlessly important, are only interpreted as
relevant in their contribution towards achieving the communicative
goals and avoiding ambiguities and misunderstanding.

Basically, you just have to make yourself understood and react

adequately.
This is clearly in some contradiction to what is expected of students in
most exams, which effectively shows the discrepancy between externally
determined conditions and the teaching staff’s own beliefs.

The teachers’ and students’ diverging ideas about the importance of

accuracy also led to an interesting discrepancy between their attitudes
concerning overt error correction in class. Students mostly appreciate
having inaccuracies corrected, in particular when mispronouncing a
word, choosing the wrong word, or using an expression inappropriately.
They generally consider this the most effective way of improving
beyond simply ‘getting their meaning across’. However, the majority
of teachers deliberately try to avoid individual error correction in most
cases, in order not to embarrass students in front of their peers. Making
teachers aware of this mismatch can thus eradicate this particular
source of dissatisfaction without great effort.

Question 4 Student responses

We have so far established that, corresponding to their language
learning beliefs and their present and projected language use purposes,
students strive for excellent communicative competence and a good
grasp of General and Business English vocabulary. The question is now
to what extent the Business English programme, and the teaching reality
with all its constraints detailed above, can help them achieve those aims.
The views concerning learning and professional aims put forward
by the student sample obviously have ramifications on the type of
teaching they would value. Virtually all respondents agree that smaller
groups, discussions (also of non-economic current topics), group work,
more lectures in English, conversation classes, and different types of
assessment (for example oral examinations not focusing on Business
English) would improve the quality of the WU offering.

Page 6 of 10 Ruth Trinder and Martin Herles

 As far as goal relevance was concerned, there was some consensus that
the emphasis on business topics was obvious and necessary in a business
school. However, possibly depending on the level of General English they
had already attained, individual students differed in their judgements
concerning the usefulness of the strong business focus and on how much
General English (ranging from grammar to small talk) should be taught:
Classes are too specialized in business topics. For me it is more
important to improve my every-day life English, for getting into
contact with people. Also within business life it is important to be
able to talk about different topics, not only about business and work.
If you’re having lunch with your partner it’s important to be able to
do small talk.

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Yet though a large majority would welcome a more communicative
approach to teaching that ‘gets students to speak’, we find two distinct
schools of thought. The first group puts the responsibility for providing
opportunities for improving speaking skills firmly in the teachers’
court, criticizing the strong focus on business and the lack of oral
interaction:

Being prepared for the world of business does not necessarily mean
holding presentations on business topics or writing memos, but also
means entering oral negotiations and going out to dinner with a
partner. And we do not get trained for that.
Day-to-day speaking is neglected in class, I can’t do it, I can only
discuss economic concepts.
This group suffers most from a mismatch of their expectations and the
actual situation at university. The frustration these students experience
causes them to adopt a surface, syllabus-bound, exam-oriented
approach to studying:

I concentrate strictly on studying business vocab by heart because the

exam is like that; I then easily forget words learnt for exam.
The second group of students shows greater awareness of the
constraints teachers operate under. They have a more realistic outlook
and a more autonomous approach to their learning, perceiving the
remit of Business English classes to be limited (i.e. to provide/transmit
specialized knowledge) and accepting responsibility for complementing
their content-based classes by looking for communication opportunities
in the real world.

WU classes are very much business oriented but as we are a business

school it is all right.
It’s the responsibility of the WU to teach business vocab; it’s the
students’ responsibility to find opportunities to speak.
The second group in particular is adept at finding measures to make
up for the shortcomings of the WU setting. Strategies frequently
mentioned include:

Ideals of effective Business English teaching Page 7 of 10

 ■■ stay/study abroad;
■■ online media (news, American television shows) and ‘old media’
(books, films, and newspapers) for vocabulary development;
■■ social media to communicate (often ELF);
■■ NS assistance;
■■ strategy adaptation for WU programme (formal practice).
In view of the above, it is not surprising that it is particularly those
students who actively look for and exploit out-of-class learning
opportunities who have very different expectations of the kind of
benefits they are seeking from formal and informal learning: a firm
grounding in business language versus fluency and general vocabulary.
This dual approach is also reflected in many students’ notions of error
correction; whilst in informal communication situations, respondents

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would find it unbefitting to have ‘incorrect’ grammar or pronunciation
corrected, they welcome it in classes, with some even claiming that
overt correction of mistakes ‘was one of the main points of classes’.
Teacher responses
Interestingly, in many respects teachers feel quite similarly about the
shortcomings of the current situation. Almost unanimously, they feel
that there is clearly too little focus on communication, in particular on
oral communication skills. They also consider the exams as too difficult
and believe that they do not always test language skills but only content.
Furthermore, given students’ often less-than-impressive level of General
English, they broadly think that there is too much emphasis on Business
English, especially terminology, while the learners would actually need
support in more basic language skills. In addition, they also feel that
they generally have very little room for creativity as they have virtually
no choice regarding the textbooks used for the course. Moreover, they
consider the non-compulsory attendance in first-semester classes as
counterproductive to effective learning. Finally, regarding the learners,
teachers criticize the students’ rote-learning attitude. Of course, and in
contrast to at least the first group of students discussed above, teachers
are aware of the main reasons why the situation looks the way it does:
the local (excessive content orientation and no legal limit on the number
of students) and global (shortened curricula and reduced funding)
constraints on the learning/teaching environment. Potentially, the
awareness of this substantial mismatch between pedagogical beliefs and
reality makes their experience all the more frustrating.
Nevertheless, the teaching staff does try to make the best of an
unsatisfactory situation. Some of the more commonly applied strategies
to make up for the shortcomings are:
■■ including more interactive exercises, pair and team work,
presentations, projects, and ‘role play’;
■■ making modifications to coursebooks and other course material by,
for example, making selected cuts and adding extra material;
■■ focusing on explanations, feedback, and repetition;
■■ using a broad variety of media;
■■ trying to establish a rapport and encouraging more contact with
students (for example by offering more and extended office hours).

Page 8 of 10 Ruth Trinder and Martin Herles

Conclusion First, results indicate that in many relevant areas, students’ notions
concerning parameters that hinder or promote effective learning and
studying are broadly in agreement with the teachers’ perspectives.
For instance, the importance of both ELF and the need for good
communicative skills are universally acknowledged. There is also
overall agreement on the flaws in the design of the classes and how the
situation, ideally, could be improved.
There are some aspects, though, where teachers’ and learners’
opinions diverge, such as the role of accuracy, which teachers deem
much less significant, and the usefulness of explicit error correction,
where teachers apparently err on the side of caution. These findings,
especially regarding the issue of corrective feedback, are of relevance

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for teaching practice for two reasons. Very specifically, disappointing
students’ expectations about error correction by erroneously assuming
that the students’ beliefs are in accordance with one’s own could be
counterproductive and have a demotivating effect. More generally,
the question can be raised whether a specific group of students in
a particular setting might have different assumptions, and hence
needs, to what research-driven pedagogy recommends. The findings
thus add to the body of research analysing whether specific teaching
recommendations from second language acquisition (SLA) research
can universally be applied to particular, often very specific, contexts.

Second, what clearly transpires is that the main conflict students

and teachers experience is due to top-down pressure and contextual
limitations, and in the case of some students, a lack of autonomy and,
concomitantly, an overreliance on teacher-provided learning (and
speaking) opportunities. The major local constraining factors are, on the
one hand, a strong focus on content-based teaching, born of tradition
and the fact that language teaching constantly has to stress and justify
its integration into a business school environment, and on the other, the
legal situation that does not allow any restriction on student numbers
on the part of the university. Global constraints are, first, the ongoing
tendency to unify European university systems and the accompanying
reduction in curricula and, second, budgetary pressures resulting in less
funding for teaching programmes. Thus, contextual parameters can
easily render teachers’ ideals and insights from research impracticable.

The study uncovered how academic institutions may fall short of

fulfilling students’ (and teachers’) needs, and, furthermore, how
students’ studying orientations may be dysfunctional in a given
context. The contextual limitations are unlikely to change and cannot
realistically be influenced by learners or teachers. One step towards at
least addressing a part of the problem, i.e. some students’ unrealistic
expectations and their teacher dependence, would be to draw upon their
metacognitive knowledge and explicitly address curricular goals and
constraints, as well as discuss their restrictive beliefs and underused
strategies; in short, to point students in the direction of autonomy and
independent learning.
Final revised version received October 2012

Ideals of effective Business English teaching Page 9 of 10

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Wenden, A. 1999. ‘An introduction to
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The authors
Ruth Trinder is Associate Professor at WU Wien,
Vienna University of Economics and Business.
Her main research interests include ICT in
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language learning, learner beliefs, and SLA theory.
Email: rtrinder@wu.ac.at
Martin Herles is Assistant Professor at WU Wien,
Vienna University of Economics and Business.
His main research interests include Business
English terminology, discourse analysis, academic
writing, and British cultural studies.
Email: martin.herles@wu.ac.at