Teaching Business English

Friday, 31 December 2010

Friday, 17 December 2010

Article: Women in the Boardroom by Tom White

This article explores the reasons why there are few women in executive positions, and how this could be changed through a cultural change.

http://en.calameo.com/read/000513832a1e0133e9df1

Thursday, 16 December 2010

The Tesol 34th Annual Convention

The 34th Annual Tesol convention will be held in Madrid from11 to 13 March in 2011.
The theme is ´´Changes and Challenges: Expanding Horizons in ELT´´.
The focus will be on the reality of teaching English in the 21st Century.
The Convention will explore how approaches to the teaching and learning of English are changing and developing.

10 tips to getting a better English teaching job

By Colm Downes (author of Cambridge English for Job-hunting)

As the world slides progressively deeper into a global recession it is difficult to predict the effect this will have on the ELT industry and the career prospects for English language teachers around the world.

Some private language schools will certainly suffer as significant falls in disposable income leads students to tighten their belts and give up additional private tuition. Many companies will be forced to cut training budgets and have less to spend on language tuition. Where teaching hours fall, competition for teaching jobs increases and a likely influx of unemployed professionals seeking a new career in an industry, well known for being relatively quick and easy to enter, could also mean more candidates for fewer vacancies.

However, despite the inherent threats and challenges the global recession brings, the worldwide spread of English language will continue unabated and students will continue to take up learning the language universally regarded as the passport to international employment. Swiftly changing economic conditions will provide entrepreneurial language schools and teachers new opportunities in which to thrive and prosper.

Clearly there has rarely been a more crucial time to reassess your ELT career development, brush up your CV, and ensure that your ELT career prospects remain bright. Here are ten tips to getting a better English teaching job, or at the very least, ensuring you remain happy and secure in your current post.

1 Research yourself

Researching yourself is the key to finding, and getting, the job that is right for you. Draw a mind map of your strengths and weaknesses, your character traits, what you enjoy doing as well the things you don’t, etc. The process of analysing yourself will help you identify the skills, experience and knowledge you have that employers are looking for. More importantly, understanding yourself better will help you make employment decisions more likely to lead to a successful, satisfying career.

2 Improve your qualifications
The most obvious way to develop your teaching skills, and enhance your career prospects, is to gain further internationally recognised ELT qualifications. Experienced English teachers holding an initial teaching qualification may opt to complete an in-service qualification such as the Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults (DELTA) or the Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages (DipTESOL). Qualifications such as this are an excellent way of increasing your understanding of the principles and practice of English language teaching, as well as providing proof of your ability. An MA in ELT & Applied Linguistics offers an alternative qualification with greater emphasis on the theoretical issues which impact upon the field of language learning and teaching. As well as this there are a range of less well-known specialist ELT qualifications that could give you the edge when applying for your next job, the most well-known being the Cambridge ESOL Teaching Awards and the Trinity College TESOL qualifications. For example, the CELTYL, develops your skills teaching young learners, and the IDLTM, is the one to choose if you’re interested in a move to managerial positions. It is possible to undertake almost all of these courses either full time, in part time modules or online via distance learning programmes.
3 Get involved

English teaching can be a very solitary, independent, profession. Once you are in the classroom it is just you and your students. It is often possible to plan lessons at home; sweep into school, deliver classes, and sweep back out again. Indeed, the autonomy the teaching profession affords is without doubt one of its greatest attractions. However, in my experience, positive student feedback alone is unlikely to lead to real career satisfaction or further career opportunities. No matter how experienced or naturally gifted the teacher, fresh ideas have to come from somewhere. Ask to observe while others teach, and invite feedback from others observing you. Investigate and take advantage of any training opportunities. Volunteer to give in-service teacher training sessions and support those delivered by your peers. Spend more time in the teacher’s room and get to know your colleagues. By getting involved, you are demonstrating essential team working skills and a desire to continue your professional development. Remember, your teaching skills, however amazing, are likely to go relatively unnoticed unless you get more involved, and share your experience.

4 Demonstrate your competency

These days it is no longer enough to claim you have the skills and experience necessary to do a job; you need to provide evidence as proof. Once you have identified the competencies (knowledge, skills and behaviour) required for a specific job it is essential that you provide examples of how you acted in real situations in the past which demonstrate these competencies. It is important to tailor your CV and cover letter to highlight the competencies essential for the specific position applied for. Similarly, before interviews, you should prepare short memorable stories which demonstrate how you employed these competencies in action.

5 Diversify

Teaching twenty plus hours a week of general English is hard work and highly admirable. However, it is unlikely to help you stand out from the crowd, or to enable you to demonstrate a wide range of skills and abilities. I strongly encourage English teachers to take on as many varied classes as possible. You may only spend a week or two delivering a legal English course, or preparing a group for a business English exam, but afterwards you will legitimately be able to claim professional experience in these areas. If a specific area of English teaching interests you, volunteer to take on more work in this area. Once you have more experience, apply for the co-ordinator position responsible for the area if one exists. If it does not, then it might be worth trying to convince your boss of the value of creating such a post.

6 Measure your impact

Wherever possible, teachers should try to use impressive facts and figures in CVs, cover letters and interviews. For example, stating you have prepared over 200 students for an IELTS examination, is much more memorable than saying that you have experience preparing students for IELTS exams. Keep any written evidence, such as course evaluation forms and formal observation feedback, which positively commends your teaching. This will enable you to support claims that your teaching has received ‘outstanding feedback’, which will enhance your chances of promotion or of finding better employment elsewhere.

7 Be honest

With only two weeks legal English experience behind me I was once asked if I would feel comfortable taking on the role of senior legal English teacher. After a long pause I said, "I’m very interested in legal English teaching and wish to develop my skills in the area, but, at the moment I’m not confident I’m experienced enough to take on such a role". Two days later I was offered the senior business English teacher post. The e-mail began "We highly appreciated your honesty during the interview and are very pleased to offer you...." Yes, I was lucky, but also feel I got the job primarily because my future boss felt he could trust me. Honestly acknowledging your limitations will impress potential employers and add greater credibility to the professional strengths you claim to have.

8 Become an examiner
Becoming an examiner is an excellent way of adding an extra string to your bow, as well being a great way of supplementing a teaching salary. If you have the opportunity to become an examiner (for example IELTS, Cambridge ESOL, Trinity College) then jump at the chance. Assuming you have enough experience, usually three years, examiner training is relatively straightforward and you can be examining in no time at all. Almost all examiners I know enjoy the variety examining brings to their teaching schedules. However, even if you find that it is not for you, examiner status and experience will impress prospective employers and should always be added to a CV.
9 Attend a conference
Attending ELT conferences, such as IATEFL, BESIG and TESOL can help boast your career prospects in many ways. In addition to being a great way of keeping up to date with the latest developments in the ELT world, attending conferences will demonstrate your commitment to continued professional development. Conferences are also the perfect place to network with fellow professionals in the field and sell yourself to prospective employers. Asking experienced ELT ‘old hands’ to discuss their career path can also provide valuable insight into career options that you may not have considered. The only thing better than attending a conference is speaking at one; giving a conference talk is an excellent way of gaining confidence and professional respect, as well as being further experience to add to your CV.
10 Develop a plan

Writing a personal professional development plan, perhaps drawing on the above, will help you to identify the specific tasks and goals you need to complete to achieve progress in your career. Aim to identify both short-term and long-term goals with time scales included. This will focus your planning and enable you to monitor and assess your professional progress, as well as enhancing your personal motivation.

Performance-based learning

´´Performance-based learning´´ for teaching one-to-one classes:
How to improve communication performance and increase learners´motivation
by Cleve Miller

Performance-based learning (also referred to as “just-in-time” learning) can be demanding of teachers, requiring a wide range of skills, as well as speed, flexibility, and often industry knowledge. But, this investment of time and energy can yield enormous benefits for Business English professionals, delivering high perceived value to students and training departments, which in turn results in differentiation, stronger customer relationships, and solid fees. Let’s see how.

What is performance-based learning?
In a way, performance-based learning is something that we have all been doing for a long time, often informally, and especially with one-to-one classes. In a nutshell, when we say “I’m helping her get ready for a presentation”, it means we’re undertaking performance-based learning: we are using one of our learner’s workplace communication events to define what, when and how we teach. This event might fall into the category of one of the classic skills, such as a key negotiation or a critical meeting, or a new channel our learners use for workplace communication, such as social media or virtual meetings. And because we’re preparing for the specific event only in the weeks or days leading up to it, also called just-in-time learning. Usually, after our learner’s presentation, we go back to our “regular” course. These are not just-in-time, but rather “just-in-case”, because our courses are usually based on either a curriculum and/or on previously identified needs, and do not follow the event-driven approach of performance-based learning.

Course design	Selection of outcomes	Material and process
Curriculum-based	predicts generic performance goals	Work through a coursebook
Needs-based	identifies categories of performance goals	Select from range of resources, based on preliminary needs analysis
Performance-based	responds to specific performance events	Define specific performance events. Language needs for the event define materials, methods

As a teacher, for years I thought that I adroitly ranged among all three approaches, depending on each learner or group. But after a while I realized the performance-based element was often just responding to last minute, panicked requests to help make a learner’s PowerPoint slides and then run through pre-presentation rehearsals. What was needed instead was a disciplined, organized and visible commitment to a performance-based approach; that’s when the benefits come.
Implementing performance-based learning / FOUR STAGES:
As we saw before, the key concept in performance-based learning is that of the performance event. It’s the selection by learners of a specific, upcoming communicative performance in the target language that merits sustained efforts to optimize the results of that event. Implementation may follow a wide range of options, but this basic framework can help guide the process.
Stage 1: Select the performance event
This event might be a presentation, a negotiation, a meeting, a business dinner, or a business trip that involves all of these. The selection of the event is driven by the learner, with teacher support and guidance (occasionally other stakeholders, such as HR or a line manager, may be involved). The event should be selected well in advance.
Learners who have less workplace contact with English could select a lower-stake event, such as a specific conference call or writing an email. Learners who do not yet have contact with English may choose a likely event, such as a job interview.
Stage 2: Define the key messages
Once the event is selected, the learner works through the key messages that need to be delivered to the audience in the event. For a sales presentation, these may be the specific product features or customer benefits. For a business dinner, it might be a personal story or anecdote. With teacher coaching, the learner models the language to be used, and the teacher records the structures, functions, lexis or other linguistic elements needed for optimal delivery of the message. These elements become objectives, and make up the “syllabus” for the teaching carried out up to the event itself, and should be documented.
Note: these objectives are not usually the stock functional phrases of many business skills courses (e.g. “I’ve divided up my presentation as follows...”). Metalanguage is not message.
Stage 3: Resource and teach
Next, we select content, from coursebooks, workbooks, supplementary material, or our own materials bank, that will support the objectives in the syllabus. But most material will come from the learner, who will deliver a specific message, with specific language, and this is obviously the most relevant and engaging material available to us. Using a flexible PPP framework, these resources are used for presentation and practice, with production focused on event rehearsal. As we move closer to the event, we can allow production to assume a larger role, de-prioritized accuracy, and prioritize fluency and confidence.
Stage 4: Post-performance reflection
After the event, the following session or two should consist of a detailed review of the documented syllabus, with a reflective narrative by the learner on how well the linguistic objectives were achieved in the actual performance itself. This serves as invaluable input for selection of the syllabus for the following performance event of a continuous cycle.
Benefits of performance-based learning
Performance-based learning can result in a wide range of benefits, for all stakeholders.
Pedagogically, learners have increased engagement and motivation. They are not stopping work and “going to English class”, but rather preparing for a key business challenge. Form-focused drills become relevant when contextualized within real life, and learners perceive immediate and tangible benefits to their language training.
Professionally, performance-based learning gives teachers and schools a powerful message for HR department sponsors: their training investment is directly focused on business results for their company. Instead of generic coursebooks and artificial exercises, language training revolves around their business, delivering competitive advantage through improved communication performance.

CLEVE MILLER cleve@english360.com has designed, managed and taught business English programs in 11 countries for over fifty transnational companies. He has been named a "global expert" by the American Society of Training and Development, and currently designs web-based tools for performance-based learning for English360, in partnership with Cambridge University Press.