5 Business English Textbooks Your Students Will Love

It needs to be relevant. The business world changes so rapidly. The best Business English textbooks are revised frequently enough to stay either current enough or general enough that they don’t fall behind the times. If the Business English textbooks in your school reference Palm Pilots and President Clinton, chances are they need an upgrade.

It needs to be four-skill focused. That is, it needs to contain activities to support speaking, writing, reading and listening. Some Business English textbooks place too much emphasis on the latter two. While learners can get a lot of theoretical knowledge by developing these skills, they don’t get a whole lot of output practice. Output is critical to succeed in business. The best Business English textbooks will use reading and listening activities as a means to lead to output – speaking and writing.

It needs to be functional. Your students aren’t in your class to learn about business. If they want that, they can get an MBA. They’re there to learn how to complete business functions in English: with the right phrases, tone and logical order. The best Business English textbooks will provide this support and also the cultural insight to help students accomplish tasks properly – in every sense.

Ideally, the Business English textbook you use in your class will also have a modular structure. This means that one unit in the book is one lesson, and the unit’s activities more or less follow the flow of a lesson plan, with a free-speaking activity built in at the end. Modular structures make lesson planning easy and help students maintain a regular pacing.

Homework activities and self-study resources are also handy to have in a Business English textbook. Many texts will have dedicated homework pages. Some newer Business English textbooks have DVD-ROMs which often include in-class audio, video content, review activities and even tests! These resources help you, the teacher, to set appropriate homework assignments and help students take control of their progress.

Finding the Right Textbook for Your Class

First, find out what the students’ levels are – but not only their English levels. Equally important here is their Business English level. Do they use English for business on a regular basis? If so, in what capacity? For how long? All of this can tell you how difficult your chosen textbook should be and how deeply it needs to delve into business topics.

Next, find out what kind of learners your students are. What are they looking for out of their lesson? Perhaps your students want to build their business vocabulary while also reinforcing their grammar. Or they might be more interested in functional practice using discussions, role plays and case studies. Then again, they might want a bit of both. Look at how the text is built and what kind of activities it emphasizes, and see if it matches the needs of your learners.

Finally, what is their course length? Are they going to take several lessons over a lengthy period? Or are they going to do something more short-term? Are they taking an intensive course? Some Business English textbooks are better suited for long-term courses, while others are more flexible and could easily be customized for a shorter program.

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Resource:

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