{"id":7454,"date":"2016-03-04T19:22:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T19:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eltchat.org\/wordpress\/?p=7454"},"modified":"2016-03-04T19:22:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T19:22:31","slug":"can-we-teach-business-english-when-we-are-not-business-specialists-summary-of-eltchat-20160217","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltchat.org\/index.php\/2016\/03\/04\/can-we-teach-business-english-when-we-are-not-business-specialists-summary-of-eltchat-20160217\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Can we teach Business English when we are not business specialists\u2019 \u2013 summary of #ELTchat 2016:02:17"},"content":{"rendered":"
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written by Glenys Hanson and shared from her blog<\/a><\/p>\n

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This is my first attempt to summarize\u00a0 an ELTchat<\/a> and I\u2019m feeling rather nervous about not doing it right.<\/p>\n

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\"\"I\u2019ve looked at previous summaries<\/a> and noticed that there\u2019s no \u201cmodel\u201d \u2013 people go about it in different ways. This is reassuring.<\/p>\n

I volunteered to do it because I\u2019ve been feeling guilty for some time about taking advantage of all the work the moderators do to set up these sessions without giving anything back. I would never have believed that it was possible to have useful discussions on serious professional topics within the Twitter constraints of 140 character in a post. How wrong I was!<\/p>\n

I chose this particular subject \u2013\u00a0 teaching business English \u2013 just because it\u2019s not one I was a priori particularly interested in but, as usual, the format and being confronted with other peoples\u2019 ideas drew me in.<\/p>\n

This session was moderated for most of the time by @angelos_bollas.<\/p>\n

His first question to start us off thinking and chatting was: \u201cAre you Business literate?<\/strong> Do you need to be one in order to teach Business English?\u201d<\/p>\n

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  1. At least a minimal interest in business<\/strong> is necessary.
    \n@HadaLitim, @patrickelt (Patrick Andrews), @angelos_bollas
    \n\u2013<\/li>\n
  2. Teachers don\u2019t need to know everything about, for example, balance sheets or current business trends because students can explain<\/strong> them. Getting students to explain is a meaningful speaking task. The teacher\u2019s job is to help students get their English right..
    \nPatrick, Hada, @GlenysHanson, @Marisa_C\u00a0 (Marisa Constantinides), Angelos, @Ashowski (Anthony Ash)
    \n\u2013<\/li>\n
  3. Content can be provided via input<\/strong>: reading texts, student provided documents. There may be confidentiality issues using company documents.
    \nPatrick, @TalkenEnglish, Hada.
    \n\u2013<\/li>\n
  4. Should we feel silly in front of students if we don\u2019t know a term? Should we fake it till we make it? Students can do\/be trained to do the research<\/strong> for specialised terms.
    \n@TalkenEnglish, Hada, Glenys, Angelos, @SueAnnan
    \n\u2013<\/li>\n
  5. Difficulty of managing classes with people at different levels of the hierarchy<\/strong> (the CEO + his secretary + department heads). A problem raised by Patrick and lived by others but no solution suggested.
    \n@getgreatenglish (Marc Jones), Glenys, Angelos.
    \n\u2013<\/li>\n
  6. It was news to me that teaching Business English has prestige<\/strong> attached to it. 😲<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I was surprised that in the middle of the session that Anthony thought the chat wasn\u2019t going anywhere. Surprised because I usually agree with what Anthony writes. Though it wasn\u2019t the sort of chat where people jump in all the time with references to lots of online resources, I felt the participants were really reflecting on what, why and how they deal with the subject. It\u2019s true too that the discussion was less lively than the one in 2011\u00a0 \u2013 I wonder why? Maybe more Business English is taught these days and teachers generally feel more comfortable with it.<\/p>\n

    The consensus seemed to be \u201cExperience is an obvious advantage. But advantage is not necessity<\/strong>\u201d as @TalkenEnglish put it.<\/p>\n

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    Here is the\u00a0Complete transcript\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0in case you want to find out what everyone said<\/p>\n

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    Resources<\/strong><\/h3>\n