Using texts in the business English classroom Karen Richardson April 14th 2014

Agenda Types of business texts Where to find them What you can do with them Staying on the right side of the law * Tips Free resources Useful links

Headlines (of articles) a lesson in their own right! some ideas: 1. deciphering what they mean 2. parsing the language 3. after looking at a few, decide which article to read 4. guessing which words will appear in the article - followed up by article in a word cloud* 5. cutting them up into individual words and reassembling them*

Eurostar stake up for grabs in £10bn state asset sell-off (Guardian Weekly, Dec 2013) [1 & 2] Eurostar = Company name (background knowledge) stake = biz vocab up for grabs = idomatic phrase £ = currency symbol bn = billion abbreviation (in Germany false friend alert) state = noun not verb asset = biz vocab (pronunciation) sell-off = biz vocab

[ 3 & 4 ]

The big picture 1 Summarizing & retelling Practise skimming & scanning skills Read aloud – students or you Set as pre-class reading task Set as post-class reading task Write comprehension questions Extend, research & present Discuss & give personal opinions

The big picture 2 Get the scissors out - reassemble, jigsaw reading / information exchange, missing sections, … * Write headings for sections Invent new (better) headlines & titles Word frequency / word clouds * Genre, length, style Required pre-knowledge Images & graphs

The small picture 1 Keywords Certain types of words – compound words, adjectives, phrasal verbs, prepositions…… ESP & vocab fields Abbreviations, short forms, accronyms Collocations / word pairs Fixed expressions Idioms, metaphors, alliteration … Tenses & structures

Purpose & emotions Purpose- advertising & marketing Information - ingredients, source, company Quality assurance Instructions Style - personal & caring, signature Formality – neutral to informal (ps. ….) Language – soothing, calming, nourishing …..

Company materials* Analyse (as above) Translate Discuss images Explain how machines work Write requesting more information / catalogue / appointment …..

Students‘ writing Peer feedback Correct Improve Analyse (see above) Needs analysis How would you feel…? Write a response

Further sources of BE texts*

Ready-made & legally- photocopiable lesson plans with BE texts and articles

Teaching tips

Teaching tips 2

Resources & links online.net/ online.net/ Olive/ODE/ELGAZETTE/ Olive/ODE/ELGAZETTE/ er.co.uk/ er.co.uk/ Copyright laws: state schools & Unis [US, UK, DE] es/copyrightoncampus/content/i ndex_class.html es/copyrightoncampus/content/i ndex_class.html org/ org/ dex.php/fotokopie-was-geht-was- geht-nicht dex.php/fotokopie-was-geht-was- geht-nicht

Contact & free worksheet