ITTT Course in Teaching Business English

BE 003

Unit 3
Course development

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Unit 3
Course development

Synopsis
In this unit we will cover a developmental process of
course design by considering various stages of
contact with our clients.

From first meetings, level testing and a needs

analysis (to find out what our students need or want
to be taught), we will look at the types of syllabus we
can use and how to create one.

Once the program is underway how do we evaluate it,

and when?

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Unit 3
Course development

First meetings
One of our first considerations when meeting our
students for the first time will be to make an
assessment of what they know and what they need to
know. You will find suggestions in many reference
books for initial level testing of students followed at a
later date by a needs analysis.

However it makes more sense, particularly if you are

working 'In company' with a large (50+) number of
students to carry out both of these at the same time. If
you test for level first and put your students into
groups, then in the first lesson do a needs analysis
with your group, you may find that 20 students need
one thing and only two need another, whereas in the
second group the situation is reversed.

Therefore it is more efficient to undertake the needs

analysis after the level test but before you group the
students, so that you can make up your groups on the
basis of what they need and their level.

What level test should we use?

What we are trying to ascertain here is their level of English proficiency, rather than any specific business knowledge.
Therefore any General English level test will suffice, providing it is graded, i.e. gets progressively more difficult.

What levels do these tests show?

Again there are many different level descriptors used by different testing systems, we will adopt a five-level scale as
follows:

n Elementary
n Pre-Intermediate
n Intermediate
n Lower Advanced
n Advanced

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Unit 3
Course development
Extract from a sample level test

Complete the sentences with the word/s you think fits best into the space, from the words given:

1. Too __________ coffee isn’t good for your heart.

many much some a lot amount

2. Turn __________ the fan please, I'm hot.

in on off down out

3. I'm __________ the new boss next week.

meet met meted meeting meat

4. Singapore is the __________ country I've visited.

cleanest clean cleaner most clean cleaniest

5. I didn't learn much English __________ I was at school.

since for when during after

6. You __________ eat food in the library, as it's against the rules.
should can must mustn’t could

7. __________ I look old, I’m only forty-three.

despite even so although when

8. The photocopier has been broken __________ Friday.

on last since for in

9. The chairman said the profits had __________ .

rose risen rosed rised rise

10. If I could be anyone I __________ be Tiger Woods.

may might should would can

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Unit 3
Course development
Levels indicated from test

The following is an example of how the results might be interpreted, but you should bear in mind that the test on the
previous page is only a part of a longer test, so the numbers given below are only an approximate indication of the
students’ level. Typical descriptors are given.

Elementary (1 or 2 correct) Has a basic command of the language required for a range of familiar situations.

Pre-Intermediate (3 to 5 correct) Has an effective but limited command of the language in a range of familiar
situations.

Intermediate (6 to 8 correct) Has a generally effective command of the language in a range of situations and can
take part in discussions.

Lower Advanced (9 correct) Has a good operational command of the language in a wide range of real world
situations and can participate effectively in discussions and meetings.

Advanced (10 correct) Has a full operational command of the language at a high level in most situations;;
can present an argument and use suasion.

Note: This scale is based on the European 5 level scale established by ALTE.

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Unit 3
Course development

Needs analysis
Having gained an understanding of the students'
level from the level test, the next step is to present a
‘needs analysis’.

The needs analysis is to give you an idea of the

students’ previous learning experiences, what they
use English for in their job and what they feel would be
the most beneficial areas for them to study. It will also
help you to develop your syllabus.

The needs analysis itself can take the form of a simple

questionnaire, either written or computer-based (See
the example on the next page).

For lower level students who wouldn't be able to

complete the questionnaire, you can have it
translated into their first language by the Human
Resources department or training manager.

Using both the results of the level tests and the needs
analysis, you are now in a position to arrange your
groupings. Again this usually needs to be done in
coordination with the Human resources/Personnel
department, as the company may have their own
requirements as to who and when people will be
available.

Your first lesson with each of your groups should have some time devoted to a needs negotiation. This would take the form
of a class discussion and should focus on the areas that the students feel would be most useful to them as a group.

By this stage you should have already worked out a preliminary syllabus and you can direct the discussion to show how
their needs are being addressed. If your group is at a very basic level this stage of the process is best left out.

There will always be some areas that one or two students need that the others do not. You can explain that any individual
such needs will be addressed through homework and/or assignments, should the language point be outside of anything
useful to the whole group.

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Unit 3
Course development

Needs analysis
As with teachers there is no 'average' learner that we
can describe.

Your clients will usually fit into one of the following

categories:

n Individuals who are paying for private tuition,

directly to you
n Individuals who are paying for private tuition, to a
company you work for
n Individuals for whom their employer is paying for
tuition, directly to you
n Individuals for whom their employer is paying for
tuition, to a company you work for
n Groups within a company, taught at the company
premises
n Groups within a company, taught at a language
school
n Groups of individuals from a variety of places,
taught at a language school

Groups of students may (if you are lucky) all be at the same level of English language knowledge. This makes things easier
for you, as you don't have to consider differentiation (grading the level of difficulty to cover all levels) in your teaching and
activities.

Your groups may be organized by department in the workplace. This means you may have a whole range of management
levels all with very different abilities in English.

You also cannot assume that all the clients attending your classes are doing so of their own free will. Whilst many are keen
to be learning English, as they understand the importance of it, they may have to do this learning outside of their normal
working day. This is an important consideration, and will be mentioned in the next section (Teaching adults).

Another important aspect to consider is client expectations, such as being able to speak confidently in front of a group.
These expectations will vary according to culture and to a lesser degree on whether the client is paying for the lessons
themselves.

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Unit 3 Course development
Sample Needs analysis

Please complete the following questions in English.

Section 1

Name ...............................................................................................................................................................
Job title ........................................................................................................................................................
Department ............................................................................................................................................
Number of years with the company .................................................................

Section 2
Please number the following skills:
1 = least used in my job to 4 = most used in my job
Speaking ( .......... ) Writing ( .......... )
Reading ( .......... ) Listening ( .......... )

Section 3: Speaking
Please use words like never, sometimes, often, every day, to say how often you have to speak in the following situations:
On the telephone:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

In your workplace:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

At meetings:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

With customers:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Presentations:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Unit 3 Course development

Section 4: Writing

Please use words like, never, sometimes, often, every day, to say how often you have to write in the following situations:
Letters:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Faxes:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Reports:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Emails:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Agendas for meetings:

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Minutes of meetings:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Notices:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Company website:
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Presentations (in-company):
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Presentations (To customers):

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Unit 3 Course development

Section 5: Reading

What English language newspapers, journals or magazines do you read, and why?
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Section 6: English language learning

Please answer the questions yes or no, for your English language learning.
1. I learnt English at school. yes / no (if yes, for .......... years)
2. I have had English lessons since school. yes / no (if yes, for .......... years)

Section 7: Needs

Please give a score for your need to learn each of the skills below.
1= least important for me to 4 = most important for me.
Speaking ( .......... ) Writing ( .......... )
Reading ( .......... ) Listening ( .......... )

(You may also wish to include some form of listening activity to assess their needs in this area, but this will probably need
to be done as a separate activity.)

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Unit 3
Course development

Syllabus design
You may wish to read through some of the extensive
literature available for designing a language syllabus.
The first thing you will find is that there are many
different theories as to what a syllabus should be
designed around.

You will see such terms as:

n The structural syllabus (based on sequencing by

grammar complexity)
n The functional/notional syllabus (based around
communicative purpose)
n The learner-led syllabus (students have input to the
design)
n The situational syllabus (based on situational
needs rather than grammar)

These may be broken down further still, to:

n The student syllabus (what the students will see)

n The material syllabus (the materials required at
each stage of the syllabus)
n The organizational syllabus (how groups and
resources will be organized)

You will find a lot of material which relates the syllabus design to particular learning theories. See for example:

Approaches to Foreign Language Syllabus Design

(www.ericdigests.org/pre-928/design.htm)

Syllabus Design
(http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=xp7h2xT907kC&dq=syllabus+design&printsec=frontcover&source=web
&ots=qdF1l3FRsK&sig=x2OGifl-tm7mXKZ9-xLOXYzuxd4&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPR5,M1)

Having worked your way through this material you may ask yourself if there is an easier way of going about this process.
There probably is.

When they have completed a needs analysis, which tells you what the students need to know and how this language
needs to be used, all you really need to do is to string these concepts together. They need to form a logical sequence using
whatever materials you have available for your teaching. It doesn't really need to be complicated any further than this!

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Unit 3
Course development
So let’s run through a ‘mini design’ process so that all the parts of the syllabus design can be seen in context.

Firstly, this group was arranged from the level test at Pre-Intermediate.

Secondly, what did the needs analysis show?

There are 4 main areas of need, which we will refer to as units:

n Writing a job description

n Presenting information to clients
n Describing a new product
n Describing the company to clients

Our course is for 10 hours split into ten one hour blocks.

Start by removing all the time that will not be spent on teaching and practice. This will probably include the first lesson
which is going to be a needs negotiation, followed by explaining the syllabus you have designed. You will also need at least
one occasion for student assessment, say at the end. This is a further one hour.

It makes sense to leave some flexibility in your program for things that will come up over the duration of the course, say
one further hour.

We now have seven hours left to deliver our curriculum. As there are four topics we can dedicate two lessons to three
topics and one lesson to a fourth.

If we now consider the actual items of language, grammar and vocabulary, that each topic needs to cover then we can
come up with a syllabus order.

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Unit 3
Course development
The language requirements could include:

(i) Writing a job description

Vocabulary will be specific to the job

Grammar may include: Present simple, Adverbs of frequency, Present continuous

(ii) Presenting information to clients (Describing trends)

Vocabulary will include nouns such as: rise, increase, fall, drop, cut, reduction, etc
Grammar may include: transitive verbs: raise, expand, decrease;; and intransitive verbs: rise, expand, fall, decline, etc

(iii) Describing a new product

Vocabulary may include: adjectives such as, shape, size, colour, etc
Grammar may include use of comparative and superlative adjectives, adjective order, etc.

(iv) Describing the company

Vocabulary and grammar will be similar to that already covered (we will use one hour for this session)

Our syllabus should tell those interested:

n What the unit is called

n What skills it covers
n What grammar/vocabulary is involved
n What tasks or functions this language has
n What resources will be used – textbooks, activities, etc.

So we will cover the four units above in this order: (i), (iii), (ii), (iv)

We can now go about presenting our syllabus.

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Unit 3
Course development
Sample syllabus

Syllabus of the group

Monday to Friday, 10.30 - 11.30 am Room 6a

Lesson Content Resources

Ice breaker games

1 Introducing/getting to know you; Course introduction and explanation
and activities

2 Jobs vocabulary and articles Coursebook pp 8 - 12

3 Writing a job description Coursebook pp 14

4 Adjectives, shapes and colors Coursebook pp 22 - 26

5 Comparative and superlative adjectives Coursebook pp 28 - 32

6 Nouns for trends and change Coursebook pp 33 - 36

7 Transitive and intransitive verbs Coursebook pp 78 - 81

8 Coursebook pp 78 - 81 As needed

9 Company description, summative activity Proformas

10 Progress test Be2, PT 001

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Unit 3
Course development

End of course
assessment of students
It is most important, for both yourself and your
students, that some regular form of testing or
assessment of learning takes place. This will allow
you to measure the efficacy of your program and allow
your students to monitor their progress.

It will also provide you with information to guide any

modifications or improvements to your course. What
type of tests should you give, and how often?

Let's start by looking at the type of tests available and

what they are designed to tell us.

Types of test include:

n Diagnostic
n Placement
n Aptitude
n Achievement
n Proficiency
n Progress

Diagnostic tests are designed to assess the students’ knowledge and skills in specific areas that have accrued due to
past learning experiences. These tests would take place before your course begins.

Placement tests are designed to enable you to group students by their current ability in a range of areas rather than
anything specific. These tests often take the form of multiple choice style questions to make the marking quicker.

Aptitude tests are designed to predict students’ probable future performance on a course. They try to assess if the
student will be able to use the language.

Achievement tests are designed to assess the students’ learning of a body of known work, e.g. a syllabus. They are usually
constructed to give maximum discrimination between the students so that individual progress can be monitored.

Proficiency tests are designed to assess the students’ current knowledge and reference this forward to some future task.
For example, will this student be able to study Medicine in the medium of the English language at a UK University?

Progress tests are designed to assess students’ progress in learning specific areas taught in the class. They tend to be
less formal than external achievement tests and are often created by the teacher themselves. They can inform the
teacher of the efficiency of their program and motivate students by their ‘knowing what they don’t know’.

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Unit 3
Course development
In terms of our example 10-hour course and syllabus, an end of course progress test would be suitable. For a much longer
course we may have had a mid-course progress test and end with an achievement test.

Most book series offer progress tests in their texts, or you can adapt tests set for external examinations by cut and paste
for relevant questions. You will also find many tests available on various websites on the internet (See webliography).

Whatever method you use to generate these progress tests you should always try to ensure the following:

n That the tests are marked very shortly after they are given.
n That they are annotated and returned to the students as soon as is practicable.
n That some form of remedial teaching takes place to cover common areas of weakness indicated in the test results.

How often should you carry out progress tests?

Certainly a minimum of once in any course, probably at the end if it is a short duration course (10 hours), or as soon as a
reasonable 'chunk' of the syllabus has been covered in longer courses.

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Unit 3
Course development

Examinations
It is not unusual to have to prepare students for
specific examinations in Business English.

Students of English in any sphere are always keen to

put themselves in for examinations to give them a
more formal qualification, which may be useful for
their own professional development.

The first important fact your clients need to be aware

of is that these examinations are written and
produced with native English speakers in mind.

Unless their language is at lower Advanced or above

(see page 4 level descriptors), they would struggle to
cope with the style and format of the questioning.

Not all the business examinations focus on writing

only (see below) and your students may have more
operational English usage in the spoken skill as
opposed to reading and writing.

If you have to help students out with exam

preparation you will usually have an official syllabus
to work from.

Here are some of the business examinations available:

n Cambridge Certificate in English for International Business and Trade (CEIBT)

n Spoken English for Industry and Commerce
n London Chamber of Commerce and Industry Examinations(LCCI)

Some of these examinations are only available at certain times of the year.

You or the potential examinee will need to check on the websites of the organisations above for information regarding
when and where the examinations are held.

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Unit 3
Course development

Course evaluations
On completion of any course it is advisable to do
some form of evaluation. This is useful for a number
of reasons:

n It will help you to evaluate your material and

suggest improvements that you can make to it.
n It gives your students an opportunity to provide
their feedback on your course and evaluate its
efficiency against your initial stated aims. It can be
quite difficult for teachers to ask their students to
give feedback on their teaching, but you will find
that the information they give you, both good and
bad, will be the most valuable feedback that you
can get. Students are rarely critical in a malicious
sense when given the opportunity to feed back in
this way and their comments are usually insightful
and helpful.
n Finally it provides you with useful information that
can form the basis of a report that you can give to
your employer, which they are quite entitled to
expect from you. Rather than giving your own
personal general impressions you can show the
actual feedback from the students.

Student evaluations

An efficient way to gather this information from students is through the use of an end-of-course questionnaire. On it you
should remind students of the initial aims of the course and ask them to rate various aspects of the course on a 1(poor)
to 5 (excellent) scale. It is also useful to know why they have given the particular grades, so after each question leave five
or so blank lines for them to add additional comments. Try to ask questions on the whole range of the course, including
the syllabus, materials and teaching style. Ask the students to offer suggestions for improvement both in terms of what
you do now and what you could add in the future to make the course more rounded, balanced and useful to them.

Your evaluation of the students

There are likely to be two parts to this: Firstly you may well be required by your employer (and you should be able) to
supply evidence of, attendance, progress grades, achievement grades and so on. Secondly this information may be
needed as an end of course report, which will be given to the student and may possibly be used as evidence in some form
of certification or portfolio of experience. Even if this information is not required by the employer or student it is worth
keeping on file. You may be surprised how many students, even years after doing your course, will ask for a reference.

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Unit 3
Course development

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.

Firstly go to www.alte.org and www.alte.org/attachments/files/alte_cando.pdf, then answer the following questions:

Task 1 – What does ALTE stand for?

Task 2 – What are the four skills we wish our students to use? Identify each as productive or receptive.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Task 3 – Give two examples for each of the skills above, at A2 (ALTE Level One), which would be suitable for study in
a business context:

1a.
1b.

2a.
2b.

3a.
3b.

4a.
4b.

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Unit 3
Course development

Task 4 – Using the lesson plan below, devise a lesson plan based around any one of the four skills in task 2 on the previous
page , at A2 (ALTE Level One).

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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Unit 3
Course development

Procedure (continued) Phase Timing Interaction

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Unit 3
Course development

Task 5 – Describe the main differences between a structural and situational syllabus:

Task 6 – In terms of testing and examinations what is the difference between norm referencing and criteria referencing?

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