Students' and teachers' ideals of effective Business English teaching

Blending technology and face-to-face: Advanced students’ choices

“…Again typical for business students and their “orientation towards purpose” (Carver, 1983: 133) is the focus on the importance of speaking skills and the emphasis on the “effectiveness” of solutions. Previous studies conducted at the same university (Trinder, 2013; Trinder & Herles, 2013) have shown that students consider excellent pronunciation, vocabulary and communicative competence as signs of competence, which would represent an advantage in (future) professional situations. Most of these advanced-level students are widely travelled; many have knowledge of additional languages.…”

“…The latter factor means that domestic students tend to have wide experience of ELF, often from their own travels or semesters abroad as well as from interacting with international students at their home university. And though students do have different backgrounds and learning histories, broad trends concerning respondents’ aims (to be able to function effectively in business situations) and conceptualisations of learning have been identified in previous studies (Trinder, 2013; Trinder & Herles, 2013).…”

“…By implication, it also points to limitations students might perceive – whether they are justified or not – in their formal teaching environments. And indeed, in a previous qualitative study focusing on learner beliefs and strategies conducted at the same business university (Trinder & Herles, 2013), the respondents – advanced learners of English – seemed to have quite finely honed ideas about what kind of language skills and competences would be crucial in their future professional lives: excellent communication skills in English and a good working knowledge of one or two other languages would give them the competitive edge in international work environments. These clear-cut suppositions meant, in turn, that they were quick to pinpoint shortcomings of the English for specific purposes (ESP) programme they are taking part in – and quite definite about which resources, technological and otherwise, they could access to counteract these perceived constraints.…”

Current Perspectives in Teaching English for Specific Purposes

“…For example, in a business context the language and learning tasks tend to be used in predictable situations (Evans, 2012;Greer, 2012;Trinder, 2013;Trinder & Herles, 2013) such as professional presentations, meetings, customer / client relations and so on. These are further divided into acts such as starting a meeting, eliciting opinions, agreeing, disagreeing, starting a presentation, closing a presentation, etc.…”

Factores externos en el desempeño de pruebas genéricas de Estado (SaberPro) de inglés en estudiantes de administración y afines en Colombia

“…Es necesario, por ejemplo, poner énfasis en la coherencia entre lo que aprende un estudiante y lo que requiere la industria (Waner, 1995;Bacha y Bahous, 2008;Zhang, 2013), que muchas veces no es lo que se evalúa en pruebas genéricas. Asimismo, profundizar sobre las necesidades por aprender un idioma nuevo para un estudiante de negocios frente al de otra disciplina, que según algunos estudios (Trinder, 2013;Trinder y Herles, 2011;Moody, 1988) puede facilitarse debido a la característica extrovertida de quienes la estudian. Adicionalmente la evolución de las relaciones económicas entre países van de la mano con las necesidades idiomáticas de los futuros egresados que deben incluso redefinir la forma como se enseña una lengua (Fuertes-Olivera y Gómez-Martínez, 2004; Bhatia y Bremner, 2012; Zagan-Zelter y Zagan-Zelter, 2010; Zhang, 2013; Kankaanranta y…”