1. Collins Business Skills Understanding English however it is spoken Ian Badger, BMES, Bristol UK ian@bmes.co.uk IATEFL Glasgow 20.3.12 www.bmes.co.uk

2. Collins Business Skills English for Erasmus Medical students in the UK (from Austria, Spain and France) English for logistics process integration (Finland and Russia) English for users of new global IT production/maintenance systems (Finland, Germany, France and Austria) English for IT Helpdesk integration (Finland, Poland, China and India) Current and recent projects

3. Collins Business Skills Listening challenges The value of using authentic recordings Key features of the Collins ‘Listening’ titles Sample recordings Helping the listener/Helping the speaker Scottish Eleven! Some references and resources Content

4. Collins Business Skills Which speakers of English do you/your learners find difficult to understand? UK speakers? American? Australian? Indian? Chinese? French? Spanish? Russian? Others?

5. Collins Business Skills Today’s learners of English have to understand speakers from all over the world, many of whom do not speak with the pronunciation, grammar and clarity which have traditionally been taught in schools and colleges.

6. Collins Business Skills ….but discovering a ready supply of 'authentic' business/professional listening material is not easy. Most organisations — let alone individuals — would be reluctant to have their meetings, discussions, presentations, phone calls and social events recorded for classroom use by publishers, schools or teachers — and in any case most such recordings would be extremely difficult to use once devoid of context. Simon Sweeney

7. Collins Business Skills

8. All the recordings in the Collins ‘Listening’ titles were made before the learning material was written; there are no scripted dialogues read by actors. The books aim to sensitise learners to the varieties English they need to understand in the real world.

9. Collins Business Skills Range of accents Fragmented sentences False starts Standard/non-standard grammar Mistakes Features of authentic recordings

10. Collins Business Skills Seamus, a sales manager from Northern Ireland Communicating clearly

11. Collins Business Skills Voicemails Catrina voicemail Jindee voicemail Nick voicemail

12. Collins Business Skills Samples from ‘Listening’ Adapting to local customs Tourist information Booking a hotel room Directions to the hotel New Zealand/Australia Tube announcements

13. Collins Business Skills Helping the listener Don’t speak too fast Give people time to think/respond Be aware of who you are talking to Avoid unnecessary idiom and complex grammatical structure Explain acronyms and abbreviations when necessary Check others have understood your points Don’t overwhelm the listener with information

14. Collins Business Skills Ask the speaker to clarify when you do not understand Ask the speaker to slow down Ask the speaker to speak up Ask the speaker to be more specific Be empathetic Rephrase what the speaker says ‘Active’ listening

15. Collins Business Skills Badger, I ‘Listening’ in the Collins English for Business series, Harper Collins/Collins ELT 2011 + App for I Pad and IPhone published in 2012 App for I Pad and IPhone Badger, I ‘Listening’ in the Collins English for Life series, Harper Collins/Collins ELT 2012 Sweeney, S. ‘Authentic materials’ in Business Issues, 2/2006 Wilson, JJ. How to teach listening, Pearson 2008 www.collinselt.com/businesslistening - Further recordings of ‘Business Listening’ speakers http://accent.gmu.edu – People from around the world recording the same paragraph in English http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialectshttp://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects – Examples of regional UK accents and dialects http://www.languagebyvideo.com -Video examples of English accents around the world References and resources