BE Unit5

ITTT Specialized Course
Teaching Business English
BE 005
Unit 5
Teaching themes
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Unit 5 Teaching themes
Synopsis
In this unit we will consider a number of different
teaching themes. These themes can be applied to a
range of contexts and situations. Within each section,
lesson examples will be given to show the actual
usage of the methodology.
Introduction
In many courses designed for the teaching of

Business English there are sections which deal with
particular language lessons, such as the ‘language of
telephoning’ and ‘the language of meetings’.
This is all well and good and quite a reasonable thing

to do. However it does limit the scale of teaching ideas
and also makes things a little too prescriptive and
predictable. For example “When starting a telephone
conversation you should say ………………?”.
Why?
The business of communication is to get your message across and whilst there may be some cultural formalities that
have to be followed in any conversation, it seems a little absurd to be learning a sentence to open a conversation
with.“What will work” is perhaps more important.
For this reason the ‘Teaching Themes’ unit that follows is not going to look at the microscopic details of particular
conversation but rather some macroscopic techniques that can be applied to many, if not all, of the ‘contexts’ you will
have to teach to your students.
n The first section looks at the use of case studies as a tool.

n The second section considers a process called frameworking.
n The third uses a methodology called ‘Problem based learning’.
n Section four looks at how games can be used in the classroom.
n Section five looks at Computer Aided Language Learning.
n Six is the use of Speech Act Theory.
n The final section contains number of sample lesson plans with materials.
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Case studies
The use of case studies provides for a whole range of
language learning opportunities for your students.
The range of contexts and styles are such that you will
find material which can not only be used to give your
students practice with what you have already taught,
but also to introduce them to new vocabulary and
language structures.
Choosing which case studies to use is obviously the

most important factor and you will find a range of
authentic material available. It is perhaps more
sensible (until you have some experience of this type
of activity) to use the non-authentic resources on the
market, as these have been produced with specific
language learning in mind. (See Castler, & Palmer,
Business Assignments, OUP)
Having chosen your case study you should now think

about how you are going to use it in the classroom.
There is, by their nature, a lot of information
contained within a case study, so your students will
need quite a bit of lead in time to the activity. During
this time you have to run through the usual
techniques that you would apply to any
communicative activity, such as:
1. Introduce and give background to the topic.
You cannot expect students to have an innate desire to complete a complicated activity of this type. You will have to ‘build
them up’ for the task. They are business people so they will understand the purpose and usefulness of the activity, but
they still need to understand the aims and objectives of the exercise.
2. Pre-teach the language of the activity.
This means both the content of the case study and the terminology of the assignment itself. Try to elicit the vocabulary
from the students using pictures, mime, descriptions, etc. If you are unable to elicit, then simply write the words on the
board and ask for their meaning (reverse elicitation), and explain any words for which the class are unable to provide a
reasonable definition.
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3. Set up the mechanics of the activity.
This means arrange your groupings and your roles. It is useful to have assigned roles within your groups as this can give
further teaching opportunities to the activities. Typically you will have a chairperson, who will present the group’s findings,
someone to take notes (minutes) of the discussion, etc.
4. Demonstrate the process of the activity.
While demonstrating, keep it as visual as possible. Follow this up with a check of understanding on the purpose and
process of the activity by asking the students what they are going to do. All of the above will obviously take time. Anything
up to half an hour could be expected.
5. Give students a framework to use.
The students will need to take out the relevant information from the study to discuss the issues and then write out their
findings. The efficiency of this process can be greatly increased by providing the students with a framework to complete,
for example, telling them what the main issues to be addressed in the task are.
6. Let them do it!
It is now time to stand back and let the students complete the activity. Try not to interrupt the flow of the activity and
monitor their language usage, noting common errors ready for feedback.
7. Feedback.
Allow each group time to present their findings. Avoid correction here to allow for fluency, but note common errors that you
can deal with in the next stage.
8. Debrief and correction.
Praise, praise and more praise. Then deal with corrections.
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Case study sample – students’ copy
Company profile:
Company name: Microhard Electronics

Company director: Bill Doors
Annual turnover: $1,000,000
Annual profit: $350,000
Number of employees 22
Products: Computer software systems
Company aims: To expand through organic growth, following an externally raised injection of $2,000,000.
Your task:
Produce a presentation outlining your action plan for:

(i) Raising the capital.
(ii) How the money should be spent.
Process:
In your groups read through the case study several times to identify the main issues.
List the objectives of the exercise.
Come up with at least 3 options to solve the task.
Create a set of criteria for each option.
Discuss the options and decide upon one.
Create a flowchart for the implementation of your option.
Present this information to the class.
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Frameworking
Theoretical Physics and Economics are two subjects
that the general public find difficult to understand.
The reason for this is that quite often it is difficult to
visualize what is happening during many strange
processes.
Frameworking is a term which has been used in the

study of these two subjects for many years and the
idea has made its way into the teaching of Business
English.
To explain many concepts, many physicists and

economists use a model:
Input Process Output
Input: Relates to the starting conditions
Process: Relates to what happens in the intermediate ‘step’
Output: Relates to what you end up with.
So what does this have to do with teaching Business English?
One of the most immediate applications is to study the language of change. At a company level, this means ‘where we are
now (or in the past)’, ‘this is where we want to be later (or in the future)’, ‘so what do we have to do to achieve these aims
(process).’
In order to describe the process of change from past to future we have to use a whole range of language and tenses and
this is how frameworking can help in our teaching.
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Here is a simple example of comparing sales at two points in time:
2004 Now
Sales $5,000 $50,000
Expenditure $1,500 $25,000
Operating costs $1,500 $15,000
Profit $2,000 $10,000
We can present these figures using frameworking:
2004 now
Sales of $5,000 Sales of $50,000
We would then create language based on the further past, the process, and the recent past.
Examples:
Input 1. In 2004 sales were $5,000. (past simple)

Process 2. Sales have been increasing. (present perfect continuous)
Output 3. Sales are good this year. (present simple)
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Problem-based learning
This is a teaching methodology which places you as
the ‘facilitator’ rather than the ‘teacher’. It follows the
same strategies used in ‘task based learning’ and
‘collaborative learning’ where students work in
groups to solve problems.
As with case studies, this method requires a

chairperson and someone designated to take
minutes. There are a series of stages to follow, as
shown in the flowchart below:
Chair and group read the problem.

Any language not understood should
be discovered (dictionary, elicitation, etc)
The group are asked to identify the problem

in their own terms
A brainstorming session on the

subject takes place
Key issues are listed
The group decide on the tasks needed and

these tasks are then appointed to people
Groups/individuals work on their

appointed tasks
Students present their research
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At first sight it may appear that problem based learning and the use of case studies are the same thing and indeed there
are many similarities in the 'processes' of both. Case studies usually make the problems overt, whereas problem-based
learning allows the students to identify what they feel are the problems to be addressed. It is quite possible that they will
decide upon areas that are irrelevant in reality, but does this really matter if the purpose is to communicate in English?
A problem based activity may look something like this:
PGS Marketing Group – a business synopsis

PGS has been operating since December 1999. Initially they offered a weekly
flyer to customers outside supermarkets. The flyers contained details of local
events and some news stories.
These articles were secondary to the real purpose of the flyer which was to offer
advertising space to local businesses and companies for a charge.
After one year the success of the flyer allowed PGS to double its staff, invest in
new printing machines and upgrade the flyer into a 'mini' magazine.
In their second year more staff were taken on and the area of coverage was
increased to five surrounding counties. The magazine now had a new name –
"The Trader".
Over the next two years success continued and operating profits were 35% of
turnover. The magazine currently employs 25 full time staff and 50 distributors.
Annual turnover for 2014/2015 was $775,000.
PGS have recruited your team to help them increase turnover and profitability in
2016.
No current SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) is apparent from the text so the students will
have to deal with the information on face value. This is quite realistic. Often we do not have all the information needed to
get to the answer.
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Games
If you make a list of 20 games that you have played
and enjoyed in your life and then spend a little time
thinking about them, you will find that nearly all of
them can be adapted for classroom use.
We will define a game as any activity with a purpose,

rules and an element of fun.
Obviously you cannot spend all of your time playing

games, but when thinking about your longer
communicative activate activities, you should try to
use games in some adapted form at least some of the
time. Your clients may well spend most of their days
being fairly serious, so a bit of educational light relief
will probably be appreciated.
Here's the start of our list:

® ® ®
Battleships, Monopoly , Pictionary , Trivial Pursuit ,
hangman…
Let us see how these can actually be put into practice:
Take hangman first (this is a guessing game for letters and words). This is a useful warmer activity. It can be used to good
effect to introduce vocabulary when you are not sure if they know the word. Play hangman with that word – you can give
your stickman ears and eyes etc to extend it, until they fill in all the letters and then ask someone to give you a definition of
the word. If they can't then you need to tell them. Hangman can also be used for compound words and short phrases.
The game of Monopoly, whilst it has obvious business overtones can be adapted by making each of the chance and
property squares into a question. The questions can cover any area or topic and therefore it can be used for general
revision. No money needs to be used; instead if you answer a question correctly you get a house, if not you get nothing.
In Pictionary, a word or phrase is guessed by a team from the visual clues drawn by a member of the team on the board.
The vocabulary words can be at any level of difficulty and the harder words could be given more points, the students
being given the chance to choose their level of difficulty.
When thinking about the use of games in the classroom a mistake that is often made is that teachers think of a game first
and then think about how they can adapt it to a teaching point. This is the wrong way round; a more effective approach is
to start with the teaching point and think about which games could be used to cover that point. It is unlikely that any
particular game can be used without some form of adaptation.
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Computer-Aided
Language Learning (CALL)
On the scale of technophobe to technophile our
business students are more likely than most to be
computer users.
This provides us with an opportunity to use a vast set

of resources, not just for classroom use but for
assignment and extension work. It is probably fair to
say that you will not have a computer suite made
available for your classes, but this needn't obviate the
use of the computer as a language learning tool.
As a minimum the internet can:
n Provide a whole range of authentic material for your

teaching.
n Provide lesson planning outlines.
n Provide opportunities for student research topics.
n Aid your own professional development.
The skills that students can practice using the

internet are not limited to reading. There are websites
where you can find business letter and e-mail
formats, which the students can use for writing
practice.
If students are using the internet to research a

particular topic or company, then the most useful
form of feedback from this research is in the form of a
presentation. This provides opportunities for
speaking and listening.
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Let's now consider some of the ways that we can use the internet.
Business letters, faxes and emails
To see quickly what is available first open a search engine such as www.google.com.
1. Type 'business email' in the search box, and take a look the variety of results that will appear.
2. Do the same thing with 'business letters practice'.
As you will have found there are numerous sites that we can visit. Take a little time to research these sites and you will
quickly find the ones that are most useful.
Bear in mind that there are copyright issues here, so be careful what you download and how you are going to use the
material.
Company reports
Should you do a search for company reports as your keywords, you should find a number of websites offering free
company reports.
You may find the process a little more efficient by going to a dedicated site such as www.annualreports.com.
.
You can then download company information such as the example for ICI shown on the next page. This type of authentic
material provides a lot of useful information. (Please note that certain details and links in the ICI information may no
longer be current.)
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Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ADR): Company Report
Company Report Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ICI) is a Quick Facts

specialty products and paints company that develops products
and ingredients for a range of consumer and industrial Location 20 Manchester Square
markets. The Company's specialty products and paints London EN W1U 3AN
businesses (the International Businesses) consist of National
Starch, Quest, Performance Specialties and Paints. These
Phone: (207) 009-5000
businesses serve diverse consumer and industrial markets Website www.ici.com
through approximately 80 strategic business units, which make Industry Chemicals - Major Diversified
up approximately 180 operating units. In addition, ICI has a Employees 36,210
number of Regional and Industrial businesses in its portfolio, Exchange NYSE
which consist of the Company's operations in India, Pakistan
and Argentina.
Stock Price History Financials

Relative
Change Last 12 months Five-year growth
strength
Last 3
18.1% 83 Sales 10.6 bil. -3.0%
months
Last 6
30.3% 71 Income 378 mil. NA
months
Last 12
19.4% 70 Dividend rate 0.51 -28.46%
months
Dividend yield 2.50% 5.7%
All financial data in U.S. dollars
Stock Activity Financial Ratios Earnings Estimates

Qtr(3/05) EPS
Last price 20.39 Fundamental data NA
estimate
FY(12/05) EPS
52-week high 20.75 Debt/equity ratio 2.01 1.71
estimate
52-week low 13.59 Gross margin NA Current P/E 12.30
FY(12/06) EPS
Volume 191,900 Net profit margin 3.60% 1.84
estimate
Average daily Total shares
65,900 298 mil. Forward P/E 12.9
volume (13 wk) outstanding
50-day moving Market Next earnings
18.10 6.08 bil. NA
average capitalisation release
200-day moving
16.45 Earnings/share 1.66
average
StockScouter
Volatility (beta) 1.5 NA
rating
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Authentic reading materials
For authentic reading materials, you may want to visit some business biography websites. Two good sites are
www.infoplease.com and www.woopidoo.com/category/people/.
This is an extract from the Jeff Bezos biography page at www.woopidoo.com/jeff-bezos-biography/:
Jeff Bezos Biography
Jeffrey Bezos is an American Internet billionaire, aerospace entrepreneur, media owner, and philanthropist. Best known
for the wildly successful Amazon.com website, but he also owns the aerospace company Blue Origin and the Washington
Post newspaper. Best selling books published by or about Jeff Bezos include “The Jeff Bezos Letters: 14 Principals to
Grow your Business like Amazon“, “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon“, and “The Space Barons:
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos“.
Jeff Bezos is the president, founder, and CEO of Amazon.com where he also acts as chairman of the board.
Jeffrey Preston Bezos was born on January 12, 1964 in Albuquerque, NM. He and his mother relocated to Houston, Texas,
when Bezos was five to live with his new stepfather. Jeff Bezos attended River Oaks Elementary School in Houston until
the sixth grade after which he attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School when the family moved to Miami, Florida.
Bezos spent many summers of his childhood on his grandfather’s 25,000 acre ranch in Cotulla, Texas helping perform
various duties necessary for upkeep.
He showed early mechanical aptitude and eventually turned his parents’ garage into his own personal laboratory. He
eventually attended Princeton University where he joined the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity and graduated with a major in
computer science and electrical engineering. He graduated with a grade point average of 4.2, higher than the “perfect
score” of 4.0 due to his overwhelming number of “A-pluses” that earned him 4.3 points each.
With his new degree, Bezos began working with computers on Wall Street. He helped create a computer network for Fitel
for use in international trade and later worked for D.E. Shaw & Co. He founded Amazon.com in 1994 and was criticized by
many in the industry who projected that his fledgling business would fail. Since Amazon’s original goal was to sell
anything, starting with books, many believed that the rival website launched by Barnes and Noble in 1997 would quickly
put him out of business. Bezos, however, remained eternally optimistic, even after Amazon shares dropped from $100 to
$6 as a result of these criticisms.
Amazon.com flourished and quickly led the market for online retailers. Jeff Bezos has been known to work by numbers
and spreadsheets and is well known for his ability to quantify data and statistics into his marketing and business goals.
Amazon.com continued to be profitable and grew to sell a wide range of objects both new and used. Bezos has profited
from his venture and made it onto Forbes list of the world’s wealthiest people for many years.
Jeffrey Bezos was ranked the richest person in the world in 2018 according to several media publications. With an
estimated net worth of $112 billion USD he knocked off Bill Gates of Microsoft and stock market investor Warren Buffet to
claim the number one position.
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Speech Act Theory

In this section we will look at a language acquisition
theory known as the ‘Speech Act Theory’, usually
credited to Austin and later Searle.
The theory itself is still the cause of much debate and

has its detractors and proponents in approximately
equal number.
Here is a quick outline of the four level Speech Act

Model:
The model works from the outside in and each level forms the foundation for the next level. What does each of these
levels mean?
Utterance An utterance is saying a word or short phrase with no particular meaning. It is

considered a reflex action. For example if you were about to go to the shop and looked
out of the window and noticed that it was about to rain, you might say “Aw no!“ There may
well be no-one else there at the time, so obviously you are not trying to communicate
with anyone. So why did we speak? It was purely a reflex action.
Propositional utterances This is an utterance that identifies something and involves interaction, i.e. a speaker
and a listener. They don’t have to mean anything. A propositional utterance and an
utterance are parts of the same category, but a propositional utterance is a specific kind
of utterance. As an example, you might say to someone you’re with “Oh, look at that
dog”. You would never expect a response.
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Illocutionary utterances Illocutionary utterances contain propositional phrases and are used with an intention of
communicating with a listener. At this level the meaning of a set of words depends on the
speaker’s intention. As such an illocutionary utterance of the same set of words could be
a question, a statement, a request etc. For example, “You like two sugars in your coffee,
don’t you”, depending on the speaker’s intention and resulting intonation, could be a
\ statement or a question.
Perlocutionary utterances The most important aspect of this level of speech act is that they intend to affect the
behaviour of the recipient. Each of these acts could be followed by a response, which in
turn leads to another speech act and so on. Most normal conversations fall into this
category.
So how can we put this theory into practice?
It would appear that the most appropriate settings for this theory in the teaching of Business English would be in the
areas of:
n Making offers and requests

n Negotiating
n Questioning
Speech act theory can be used to help overcome problems created by cross cultural mistakes. Even students with a high
standard of a second or foreign language can say things which can appear culturally insensitive. This is often due to the
fact that they have directly translated a phrase in L1 into L2, without knowledge that to the recipient it is an illocutionary,
or worse still a perlocutionary utterance, when there was no intention (i.e. it was made as a propositional utterance).
As this sounds so complicated, it’s probably easier to give an example. Consider the following (true) interaction:
A trainee teacher asked a group of Thai Intermediate students to think of questions to ask her, to which one student
replied “Why are you so fat”? The cultural significance of this question to an American female was completely at odds to
the culture of the Thai man who asked the question.
So it is useful when teaching the three areas above during a lesson to give the students scenarios and ask them to think
of responses in L1 and then translate them directly into L2 to see if there are cross cultural differences in ‘speech act‘
meaning.
This can actually be fun!
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Putting it all together

We have now considered a whole range of teaching
structures and models, and how to create lesson
plans in the ESA format. It’s now time to see how this
all fits together in realistic lessons. The following
series of lesson plans cover a series of topics and
levels.
The first lesson is for Intermediate or Lower Advanced

level. The topic is agreeing and disagreeing in a
negotiating forum. The vocabulary is based on a scale
from total (100%) agreement to zero (0%) agreement.
The second lesson is for Pre-Intermediate level

students. The topic is modal verbs. Examples being
will, would, might, may, can, etc.
The third lesson is for Intermediate level students.

The topic is transitive and intransitive verb forms.
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Lesson plan 1
Intermediate – Negotiating, agreeing and disagreeing
This lesson is designed for a one-hour class. It can be adapted for longer sessions incorporating the vocabulary listed at
the end of the lesson plan. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to use complex words and phrases to
indicate a level of agreement or disagreement, and use the language learned independently.
ENGAGE: (10 minutes)
As most of your students will be working adults or young adults, a good way to start introductions is of course, to find out
what they each do for a living – where they work, what type of position they hold. As you go around the room, board all
their answers so you have some jobs vocabulary. From there, start expanding your list. In pairs, have students come up
with a description of who the most important person is in their company and why – what are they in charge of, what do
they decide, etc. Then ask students what happens if you disagree with your boss, how do you talk to them, what can you
say – give a prompt scenario if students get stuck, such as – what happens when you want a raise? What happens if
people aren’t satisfied with working hours, schedules or benefits?
(You will have to do a back-check for the words in italics – when you put these example questions up on the board, see if a
student can give you a definition and see if another student can then use the word in their own sentence – hopefully a
response to your question)
STUDY: (30 minutes)
Erase the board and put up disagree and agree on one side and on the other side of the board list the vocabulary words
you just elicited a response to – raise, satisfied, benefits. Any other language that fits into these divisions that your
students were able to give you in the engage phase should be listed as well. To elicit agreement and disagreement
vocabulary put a scale of total agreement to total disagreement on one side of the board:
agree disagree
See if your students can fill in some words or phrases that fit in between here – what would you say to someone if you
agreed, disagree, or weren't quite sure.
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You should end up with the following words – if you cannot elicit them from your students, give them the word or phrase
and see if they can place it on the scale:
I totally agree/disagree
I accept that
I fully/completely agree/disagree
I agree up to a point
I'm in favour of that
I would agree, but…
I don't accept that
I don't agree
you could be right
you might be right, but…
I see it differently
Now that you have your scale on one side of the board, start to put this together with the other half – the vocabulary. Start
by asking students, what are some things we agree or disagree on relating to work: the short list of vocabulary that you
have on the board is a good starting point: raise, benefits, what else? Elicit some more things from your students. If they
get stuck, ask them about unions in their country – what do they do for the workers? Negotiate – what do they negotiate?
– salary; overtime; perks/benefits; earn; minimum wage; tips; commission; bonus; pension; company car; fringe
benefits
When you have a list up, you can move into your first study practice activity:
To introduce your first study, tell students that you are now going to look at how these things fit together in a business
environment when people disagree or are trying to come to an agreement… Be sure to review your exercises to see if
there will be any vocabulary that is necessary to pre-teach outside of your lesson language.
Study 1: Match the response to the statement according to the level of agreement/disagreement in brackets.
Study 2: Using the words from the vocabulary box, complete the sentences.
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ACTIVATE: (20 minutes)
Tell your students that you are now going to a meeting of union representatives and business owners. Brainstorm for a
few minutes about what kinds of things you would discuss at such a meeting and board all the ideas they give you. Then
let the students choose a company name and what product it is that they produce. Tell your students that the topic of the
meeting is: an hourly wage rather than a salary.
Divide the class into two teams. Team A will be union members and Team B will be the company owners. Give each team
a few minutes to decide what their position is: have two prompt cards for each side to work from:
The Union:
n The union wants their workers to earn a set salary because hourly wages are too low and don't include overtime pay.
n The union wants their workers' hourly wage increased and benefits should include overtime pay.
The Company:
n The company feels that if they provide overtime pay in their benefits package that workers will slow production during
working hours in order to stay and collect special overtime pay.
n The company can't afford to put all workers on salary because of the high numbers of people they employ – rather than
single out a few that will earn a salary, it is better to keep everyone equal and everyone on an hourly wage – they are
willing to negotiate overtime pay to make up for this.
Your students have five minutes to brainstorm which position they want to negotiate. Then set up the classroom in rows
and tell the students you will be moderating – you will be in charge to make sure that negotiations don't get out of control.
Any more advanced students in the class could come up with their own ideas regarding points for negotiation on both
sides, and write these ideas in the empty boxes in the course material cards on page 22.
Students can read from their notes if they need to but you also want to encourage a dialogue that flows from ideas each
side puts forth.
Make sure you have left the language of agreement and disagreement up on the board so students have prompts to work
from.
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l
m es

at s
er o
ial n
s
Additional vocabulary items for extended sessions:
Compensation, remuneration, share options, performance-related benefits/bonuses, collective bargaining, tactic,

agenda, bargaining position, objectives, fallback position
Choose the best response to the statements given. Be sure it matches the level of agreement or disagreement shown in
brackets!
1. Traffic fines are bad for promoting tourism. (it could be true)
2. If too many tourists get ticketed, fewer people will rent vehicles and overall the economy will suffer more. (partially
agree)
3. Since tourism is the most important business here, we need to find a solution that will keep tourists happy. (you might
agree, but you have another idea)
4. We should increase the amount of required insurance tourists must purchase when they rent a vehicle. (agree)
5. People expect to have to pay insurance costs on their vehicles anyway. (agree)
6. This increase in insurance fees should make up for the loss in actual numbers of rented vehicles. (disagree)
7. Tourists will continue to rent vehicles and not worry about being stopped by the traffic police and we will continue to
collect extra revenue. (partially disagree)
8. This is the only solution that keeps our economy strong and will keep tourists happy. (disagree).
a. You're right. I agree. People do expect to pay insurance costs whenever they rent or buy a vehicle.
b. I agree up to a point. I think that the traffic fines are so cheap that the number of people who would choose not to rent
just because of a possible fine is very low.
c. It's true that we need to continue to promote tourism. I see it a little differently though. We need to focus not only on
what the tourists want, but also what is best for the people that live here. They often rent vehicles as well.
d. That's a good idea. I'm in favour of that. I think this will help take care of many traffic disputes between tourists and
locals, though I'm not sure tourists will appreciate having to pay extra charges.
e. I completely disagree. I think we need to spend some more time thinking about our options and research other
possibilities before we make a decision.
f. That's where I don't agree. I think the insurance fee would have to be very high to take care of the loss to the rental
businesses. We have to consider the business owners as well – not just our local city finances.
g. You might be right, but traffic stops are necessary to help stop people from driving drunk and having accidents or from
bringing illegal items into town.
i. I would agree but like I said before, the revenue we would collect would have to be dispersed to local business owners
as well, not just go into general city funds.
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Two friends are talking about their new jobs. Choose the best word from the vocabulary box to
complete the sentence.
salary overtime perks minimum wage

commission bonus pension company car
raise benefits union negotiating
Susan: My job pays for my health insurance. I can go to any doctor or hospital that I want.
James: Health insurance isn't one of the benefits my company offers. I do get
____________________________ to use for running business errands though so I don't have to use
my own.
Susan: It sounds like they do have some ____________________________ that they offer to keep you
happy.
James: We also get a ____________________________ at the end of the year if the company has earned a
certain amount of money.
Susan: I get a ____________________________ every 10 months if the review of my work is positive. That
will help since right now I am only earning ____________________________.
James: We get paid every month. So our ____________________________ is set from the beginning.
Susan: Do you get paid ____________________________ for extra hours that you work?
James: No. But I think our ____________________________ is ____________________________ for that right now. They
have been discussing it for a long time.
Susan: Our company has offered to pay us an additional ____________________________ for every 10
products we sell. That way we have a reason to try and sell more.
James: Our job descriptions sound very different. Good luck to you!
Susan: Good luck to you also!
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Activate materials
The Union
#
Our workers need to earn a set salary because
We want the hourly wage increased. We are
hourly wages are too low. They do not receive
willing to negotiate an appropriate hourly wage
extra pay to make up for all the overtime hours
only if the benefits package were to include
they put in. Overtime pay should be included in
overtime pay.
their regular salary contract.
The Company
#
We can't afford to put all workers on salary
If we provide overtime pay in a benefits package because of the high number of employees we
our workers will slow production during working have. Rather than single out a few that will earn a
hours in order to stay and collect special salary, it is better to keep everyone on an equal
overtime pay. hourly wage; we are willing to negotiate overtime
pay to make up for this.
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Lesson plan 2
Pre-intermediate – Modal auxiliary verbs for degrees of formality
This lesson is designed for a one-hour pre-intermediate class. Additional items are included at the end for extended
sessions. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to use modal auxiliary verbs to indicate varying degrees
of formality.
Start by asking all of your students who uses social media. Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? What else? Ask what other
kinds of things they use to communicate with people – their friends, family, etc. Who do they talk to the most? Does
anyone still write physical letters and post them? What did people do to stay in touch before computers and
smartphones? What do you think communication will be like in the year 2050? Be sure to board all of the different types
of communication devices and activities they give you for use in the first part of your Study phase. Ensure telephones and
message/answering machines are included.
STUDY: (20 minutes)
Erase everything you have on the board from your communication vocabulary except telephones and
message/answering machines. Ask how many of your students have to use these things every day and if they use them
for business or mostly just personal reasons.
Most likely, some of your students will be receptionists and some will be business owners. Ask what kinds of things they
say when they answer the phone. Board their answers. Ask what kinds of things they say when people ask them
questions or want to make an appointment, what happens when the person they want to talk to isn't there. Board their
answers. Hopefully you will have some of your phrases like “Can I help you?” “What time would you like to come in?” “The
manager might be available next Tuesday.” Etc…
Underline words like can, may, would like to, might. See if you can elicit from your students what kinds of words these
are: modal verbs. There are several kinds of modal verbs. Start a chart on the board – one column has
permission/prohibition, one has possibility and one has polite requests. Make sure your students understand what
each words means by eliciting a definition or an example sentence. Put can, may, would like to, might in their appropriate
column and then see if you can elicit other phrases from your students to fill in the chart. You want to end up with: will,
would, may, might, can, could, must, mustn't, shall, need to.
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Now ask your students to use each in a sentence they might hear or say during a telephone conversation. Which words
do we use when we need to very formal or polite, like when we talk to a boss or someone important? Which words do we
use when we talk to friends? This will get them thinking of the levels of formality and help solidify the business aspect of
telephone conversations.
Study1: Choose the correct modal verb to make the sentence formal or informal depending on the person you are
speaking to (in brackets). Bear in mind that there may be cultural differences, so the students' answers may
differ to yours.
Study 2: Put the dialogue in the correct order.
Arrange the class in a semi-circle or U shape if it is not so already and re-arrange the students so that there are no spaces
in between. Tell students that we are all going to be part of the same telephone conversation and you will start the phone
call. Each person must add one new sentence to the telephone conversation and use a modal verb whenever necessary.
You will keep going around the classroom until the conversation has been resolved.
You can expand the time by using new scenarios – the first being an angry customer, the second, someone trying to
schedule an appointment with another person who is out of town, the next being, someone trying to make hotel and
plane reservations, etc… After two or three rounds, divide your students into pairs. Give them each a scenario card and
five minutes to act out the phone call according to what the card says. Be sure to leave time at the end to feedback and
see how each scenario was resolved.
You will need to pre-teach and back-check for understanding the following vocabulary:
faulty, previous, complaint, advertising campaign, willing, court case, postpone, finalize, confirm, apologize
Note: To expand this lesson for longer sessions, you might want to add some work on sequencing of events such as: a s
soon as, already, yet, still, immediately, as soon as possible, at your earliest convenience.
This material can easily be added into work on telephone dialogue – Please get back to me as soon as possible; I
have phoned three times already and am still waiting for a response; I will have her call you back immediately, etc.
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Choose the correct modal verb.

Look at the name or situation in brackets ( ) to decide how formal the correct answer needs to be.
1. (your best friend)

a. Call me back right away.
b. You must return my call immediately.
c. Could you call me back when you have a moment?
2. (your boss)
a. I might be late for work this morning.
b. I am going to be late for work this morning.
c. I may be late for work this morning and will make up the time next week.
3. (doctor's office)
a. Would it be possible to reschedule my appointment?
b. I cannot make my appointment time and need to reschedule.
c. I can't make my appointment tomorrow.
4. (your mother)
a. Would you like to join us for lunch?
b. Can you come to lunch tomorrow?
c. Is it possible you might join us for lunch tomorrow?
5. (at a job interview)

a. May I have some time to read the contract before I sign it?
b. Do I have to agree to the contract now?
c. Do I need to sign a contract now?
6. (your secretary)
a. I would like you to file these papers please.
b. Can you file these papers?
c. I need you to file these right away.
7. (an important client)

a. Shall I get you some coffee?
b. Would you like some coffee?
c. Can I get you some coffee?
8. (a co-worker)
a. We need to get this report finished.
b. Could you help me finish this report please?
c. Might we work on the report now?
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Write this on the board:

An angry customer has called and would like to speak to your boss. Put the dialogue in the correct order.
Cut up the worksheets and give each pair a set.
#
C: Good morning. I have tried to call your office several times and nobody has returned any of my
messages.
R: I'm sorry sir, our office has been very busy. Is there something I might be able to help you with?
C: No, I would like to speak to the manager.
R: The manager isn't available right now; I would be glad to give him a message if you'd like.
C: No, I have already tried that. Is there someone else I could speak to please?
R: I can try to connect you to the supervisor sir, but I need to tell you he is very busy and might not
be able to answer your call immediately.
C: Is he the only other person who can help me?
R: Yes he is, but I would be glad to give him the message myself, to see that he calls you back as
soon as he can.
C: I can wait on the phone while you try.
R1:Alright sir, please wait one moment, I shall try to connect you.
R2:I'm sorry sir, but he is not answering his phone.
C: Thank you. I appreciate your help.
R: No problem sir. I hope that we may be of help. Would you like to leave him a message as well?
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Activate materials
#
Receptionist: The production supervisor is away at a
Customer: You returned a faulty product to a company
business meeting and won't be back until next week. There
expecting to get your money back but have received nothing.
are several people you could direct the customer to speak
You have tried to call the office several times and left
with, including the department head, the customer service
messages. No one has called you back and now you would
team or the complaint department. You have no record of the
like to speak to the supervisor in charge of production.
customer's previous phone calls.
Department Head Company #1: You would like to schedule

a time to meet with Company #2 to discuss how you might Department Head Company #2: Company #1 has been
work together on a new advertising campaign. Your calling your office to try and arrange a meeting. You have
schedule is very busy (you have meetings Monday and been out of town and haven't been able to call back. You
Tuesday all day, Wednesday evening and Thursday and have all of the following week free and are willing to meet with
Friday mornings) but you are willing to make changes to suit Company #1 either on Monday or Friday.
Company #2.
Law Firm Client: You have a very big case in court this Lawyer: Unfortunately, as soon as you decided to help your
coming week. Two people have been assigned to help you client, a very big case was given to you by your boss. You
but no one has called you in the last four days. You are haven't had time to prepare your client's case and will not be
getting very nervous and would like to speak with someone able to meet with him until next week. You will try to
today. If not, you will come in and wait for whoever is postpone the court date until you are prepared. You do not
available to help you. have time to meet with him if he comes in to the office.
Superstar's Representative: You are trying to book one Spa Manager: Many famous people stay at your spa and
week at the area's most famous spa for your superstar client. because it is high season now, your rooms are full. You would
She is a very famous actress and normally gets very special like to book the superstar for another month, when she will
attention. The spa manager has not been returning your receive all the special attention she needs. Until then, you
phone calls to finalize the arrangements. cannot ask any of your other important clients to leave early.
Secretary at Doctor's Office: You have been trying to

Patient A: You have been very nervous about seeing the
contact Patient A for three days to confirm a very important
doctor and that is why you have not called back to confirm
doctor's visit. The doctor is very good and a lot of people wait
your visit. You will keep the appointment time and date and
a long time for an appointment with her. If Patient A does not
apologize for not returning the secretary's phone calls. You
want to keep their visit time and date, you would like to give
would like to know if it is possible for the doctor to call you
their spot to someone else. If Patient A needs to speak to the
back before your visit date.
doctor before he decides, that can be arranged.
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Lesson plan 3
Pre-intermediate – Transitive and intransitive verb forms to describe actions
This lesson was designed for a one-hour pre-intermediate class. The learner objectives are for the students to be able to
use transitive and intransitive verb forms to describe actions in the form of a presentation. Additional vocabulary and
activate ideas are included at the end to extend the session.
Have students, working in pairs, write down as many words as they can make from the following word by re-arranging the
letters: alphabet soup.
Give them a two minute time limit. Then, go around the room and get a few answers from each pair and board their
words. From their list of words, have them tell you which are verbs. Erase all but these words. Have them put each verb in
a sentence – this will start to target the transitive/intransitive issue of subject/object verb order.
STUDY: (20 minutes)
From the sentences you have on the board from the engage phase, elicit from the students the different parts of speech
of each sentence so you can start to look at subject/object/verb word order. Today you are going to look at new kinds of
verbs: transitive and intransitive verbs.
Start by putting up the verbs, rise, raise, and arise on the board. See if you can elicit from students what each of the words
mean. Rise means to grow or go up – tax costs rise every year. Raise means to make something higher or to increase
something – raise a salary, for example. Arise means to happen, for something to come up – difficulties in learning arise
when students don't study.
Put one example sentence on the board for each of your three verbs and elicit from the students what the subject, object
and verb is in each sentence. Then, tell the students that these verbs have special names: transitive and intransitive.
Elicit the difference: Transitive verbs, such as raise, need a direct object after the verb. For example, The city raised
traffic fines to bring in more money, where traffic fines is the direct object. The city raised on its own could never work, for
that reason. Intransitive verbs (arise, rise) aren't followed by a direct object – A problem arose at the meeting. Here, arise
has to be intransitive because you can't “arise” something!
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Give them the new verbs and have them use each in a new present simple tense sentence until you have got all the
present tenses out. This will also be a back-check to test that everyone understands the new verbs. You want to try and
keep them to present tenses because you are now going to look at these words as they relate to business growth.
Before you begin combining this first part of your study with the business aspect, you want to elicit from your students the
following vocabulary, or pre-teach what each of these words mean. Vocabulary: flow chart, figures, growth, revenue,
target, turnover, forecast, restructuring, bankrupt, peak, boom, demand
Go around the room and ask your students if they have heard or used these words in their daily business environments.
If not, see if you can elicit sentences from them combining the new verbs they learned with some of the vocabulary in
present tense form. Your first study activity will be on the vocabulary itself and the second will combine the two so it is
helpful if you can spend a few minutes to see what the students are capable of to begin with.
Study 1: Match the word to the correct definition. Note that there are two different words with the same definition.
Study 2: Choose the present tense to make the sentence correct
Two teams have been hired to help a company whose profits have been decreasing for the last year. Each team has to
design a presentation of their plan to research and attack the problems. Whichever team has the most thorough
presentation of ideas, wins a bonus for helping to solve the problems.
Pre-teach: vitamins, alertness, target group, accommodate the growth of, supplier
Tell the students that the Energize Company produces all natural vitamins. They have been mostly marketing to
university age students. They claim that their vitamins aid memory and alertness. For the last five years, they have had
the same advertising campaign for this same target group. Last year's profit report showed that the company has
steadily lost money in profits and are no longer the number one supplier of vitamins to the university age group. While the
cost of their advertising has increased to accommodate the growth of the university-age market, new technological
advances in the production of vitamins has been ignored because it has been too expensive. Your team is assigned one
chance to help solve the problem and save the company.
You need to design a flowchart of your ideas on how you plan to restructure the company and its spending in order to
raise the company's profitability once again.
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Choose the correct present tense form to make the sentence correct.
1. Company turnover rates have risen/rise to a new level since our last meeting.
2. A problem is arising/has arisen between employees who are not happy with the
restructuring plans.
3. We raise/have raised our target for next year due to a new market report.
4. As you can see from our flowchart, if we lower taxes, we raise/are raising demand for our
product.
5. Our chances of going bankrupt rise/are rising every time we invest in more equipment
without any use for it.
6. Our new television commercial is helping to have raised/raise revenues from product
sales.
7. A new opportunity has arisen/arise and we should take advantage of it.
8. The boom we are experiencing in sales now, arises/has arisen from the continued efforts
of all of our employees.
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Match the word to the correct definition:
flow chart how much sales have increased
figures numbers, information, data about sales
growth profit earned from sales
net revenue a sequential outline of a (company) plan
target reorganization of a company or departments within

a company to maximize profit
turnover a huge growth in profits
forecast money raised from sales
restructuring amount a company hopes to sell OR a specific

group a company is trying to sell to
bankrupt the amount of product people want to or will buy
boom prediction on amount that will be sold/made
demand when a company has no money – what they spend

is more than what they earn
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Task sheet
Check your knowledge before attempting the unit test.
Please note that this task sheet is solely for checking

that you have understood the course unit content. You
do not need to submit this task sheet – just use it to
check you have understood the major points.
Note: not all the information needed for the answers can be found in the unit, so you may need to do further research from
other sources.
Task 1 – Think about five games you've played in the past and explain, in detail, how you would adapt them to five different
teaching points (e.g. present simple for routines):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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Task 2 – Using a biography of a well-known business person sourced from the internet, create a study phase worksheet
for reading comprehension (8 questions):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Task 3 – Based around the same biography, describe an appropriate information-gap activity for the Activate phase of the
lesson:
Task 4 – Give the website and URL for the biography you used:
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Task 5 – Choose a theme that you would typically present in a business English setting, and construct a full ESA lesson
plan as per the model on pages 7 to 8 of unit 4.
Lesson Plan
Teacher: Observer: Date and time:
Class level: Room: Expected number of students:
Language point:
Teaching aids:
Learner objectives: For the students to be able to Personal aims:
Anticipated problems for students: Anticipated problems for teacher:
Solutions: Solutions:
Procedure Phase Timing Interaction
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Procedure (continued) Phase Timing Interaction
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Task 6 – Explain the theory of the teaching methodology 'Total Physical Response', and how it could be used in a business
English classroom.
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ITTT Specialized Course

Teaching Business English

In many courses designed for the teaching of

This is all well and good and quite a reasonable thing

n The first section looks at the use of case studies as a tool.

Choosing which case studies to use is obviously the

Having chosen your case study you should now think

1. Introduce and give background to the topic.

2. Pre-teach the language of the activity.

3. Set up the mechanics of the activity.

4. Demonstrate the process of the activity.

5. Give students a framework to use.

6. Let them do it!

8. Debrief and correction.

Praise, praise and more praise. Then deal with corrections.

Case study sample – students’ copy

Company name: Microhard Electronics

Produce a presentation outlining your action plan for:

Frameworking is a term which has been used in the

To explain many concepts, many physicists and

Input Process Output

Input: Relates to the starting conditions

Process: Relates to what happens in the intermediate ‘step’

Output: Relates to what you end up with.

So what does this have to do with teaching Business English?

Here is a simple example of comparing sales at two points in time:

Sales $5,000 $50,000

Expenditure $1,500 $25,000

Operating costs $1,500 $15,000

Profit $2,000 $10,000

We can present these figures using frameworking:

Input 1. In 2004 sales were $5,000. (past simple)

As with case studies, this method requires a

Chair and group read the problem.

The group are asked to identify the problem

A brainstorming session on the

Key issues are listed

The group decide on the tasks needed and

Groups/individuals work on their

Students present their research

A problem based activity may look something like this:

PGS Marketing Group – a business synopsis

Annual turnover for 2014/2015 was $775,000.

We will define a game as any activity with a purpose,

Obviously you cannot spend all of your time playing

Here's the start of our list:

Let us see how these can actually be put into practice:

This provides us with an opportunity to use a vast set

As a minimum the internet can:

n Provide a whole range of authentic material for your

The skills that students can practice using the

If students are using the internet to research a

Business letters, faxes and emails

Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ADR): Company Report

Company Report Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ICI) is a Quick Facts

Stock Price History Financials

Stock Activity Financial Ratios Earnings Estimates

Authentic reading materials

This is an extract from the Jeff Bezos biography page at www.woopidoo.com/jeff-bezos-biography/:

Jeff Bezos Biography

Speech Act Theory

The theory itself is still the cause of much debate and

Here is a quick outline of the four level Speech Act