Reconceptualizing English For International Business Contexts

This book presents a critique of current English as a Business Lingua Franca (BELF) practices using research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The authors identify English communication behaviors that hinder or promote success in the workplace, and trace these back to curricula and teaching practices. The authors suggest which skills employers need and expect from employees, and question whether English courses concerned with general academic English skills and business vocabulary are sufficient training for linguistically-complex workplaces. The book also examines whether the focus on achieving native-like proficiency with high grammatical standards and a strong emphasis on form are adequately preparing students who aspire to use English in professional contexts as a means to ‘get their job done’.

This book brings together chapters that describe, investigate, and analyze the place of English in education in multilingual Philippines. Unlike most studies on languages in education, which take a neutral, de-contextualized stance, this volume take a pluricentric view of the English language by positioning it in relation to its varieties, as well as to other languages in the country. Because of the changing realities of English in the Philippines, traditional assumptions about the language as monolithic and unchanging, as well as about how it should be taught and learned, need to be revisited and re-conceptualized.

This edited volume unpacks the familiar concepts of language, literacy and learning, and promotes dialogue and bridge building within and across these concepts. Its specific interest lies in bridging the gap between Literacy Studies (or New Literacy Studies), on the one hand, and SLA and scholarship in learning in multilingual contexts, on the other. The chapters in the volume center-stage empirical analysis, and each addresses gaps in the scholarship between the two domains. The volume addresses the need to engage with the concepts, categorizations and boundaries that pertain to language, literacy and learning. This need is especially felt in our globalized society, which is characterized by constant, fast and unpredictable mobility of people, goods, ideas and values. The editors of this volume are founding members of the Nordic Network LLL (Language, Literacy and Learning). They have initiated a string of workshops and have discussed this theme at Nordic meetings and at symposia at international conferences.

Introducing Business English provides a comprehensive overview of this topic, situating the concepts of Business English and English for Specific Business Purposes within the wider field of English for Special Purposes. This book draws on contemporary teaching and research contexts to demonstrate the growing importance of English within international business communication. Covering both spoken and written aspects of Business English, this book: examines key topics within Business English, including teaching Business English as a lingua franca, intercultural business interactions, blended learning and web-based communication; discusses the latest research on each topic, and possible future directions; features tasks and practical examples, a section on course design, and further resources. Written by two leading researchers and teachers, Introducing Business English is a must-read for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Business English, Business English as a Lingua Franca, and English for Specific Business Purposes.

'Get ready for international business' helps pre-work students and those new to the world of work to use English in the workplace by exposing them to a variety of business and workplace situations and enabling them to practice using English creatively in simulated business contexts. This student's book comes with supplementary BEC practice.

Globalization, the spread of e-commerce and increasing world travel require that ever-increasing numbers of business people need to be able to communicate in English, both competently and confidently. This self-access course is intended for people who already speak some English and who want to improve their English to use in their jobs or in their studies. The book contains 18 units, including three for checking your progress, plus an answer key and a language reference section. The units consist of: conversations set in a business context for you to listen to and answer questions about; articles and reading texts about business topics; activities that focus on the language in the listening and reading texts; activities to practice speaking in specific business situations; activities to practice writing business letters, e-mails, and CVs; and suggestions for further practice that you can do on your own. This is also available on a double cassette which can be purchased on its own (0-340-87140-7) or in a pack with the book (0-340-87139-3).

This book provides readers with the latest research on the dynamics of language and language diversity in professional contexts. Bringing together novel findings from a range of disciplines, it challenges practitioners and management scholars to question the conventional understanding of language as words with stable meanings, an assumption which treats language as a tool that can be managed by language policies that ‘standardize’ language. Each of the contributions is designed to recognize the strides that have been made in the past two decades in research on language and languages in organizational settings while addressing remaining blind spots and emerging issues. Particular attention is given to multilingualism, sociolinguistic approaches to language in the workplace, migration challenges, critical perspectives on the power of language use and the management of organizations as dialogical, discursive spaces.