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Are you looking to take your English to the next level and improve your business English?
Luckily for you, there are now more ways than ever to study business English online and improve your professional English.
I’ve been teaching English for over 10 years and without a shadow of a doubt, the last two years have been revolutionary for online learning. Covid restrictions have motivated many professional business English teachers, like myself, to move online and transfer their skill-set into the digital space.
But with so many options, it can be difficult to know where to start. So check out my useful tips for studying business English online and get the most out of your online education.
When you are studying English it is important to have a goal or reason for studying. You can measure your progress by periodically checking how much closer you are to your goal. The wonderful thing about business English is that these goals can be practical skills that directly benefit your career. Perhaps you want to feel more confident in meetings with foreign colleagues? Maybe you need to give presentations for international clients? Or, perhaps you need to prepare for an interview in English?
Whatever the focus, it is important to start practising and start working towards that goal now. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
There are a lot of excellent English learning apps out there and many of them are free. Whilst there are limited options for business English, you can still support your language development by using general English apps. Even just a few minutes of English interaction everyday will go a long way in your development. There are many ‘flashcard’ apps out there that focus mostly on memorising words. These apps are okay, but without real world examples, they will be difficult to use in your spoken English.
I have been very impressed with an app called Memrise and am currently using it to learn Portuguese. www.memrise.com
Memrise uses videos with native speakers for all their phrases. It is super useful for which improving your listening comprehension and natural pronunciation. I highly recommend it.
It is very likely that your reading and writing skills are better than your speaking and listening skills. This means that when you read English articles, you probably feel that you understand most of it, but if you had to explain or answer questions on the article, you may have a hard time. A technique we use in English lessons is to give a set of questions to students before they read an article. This pushes our students to actively engage the article, rather than read over it passively.
One of these questions is almost always “What do you think about … ?”.
Having taught English as a second language for over 10 years, I can confirm that the students who actively engage with English outside of the class, have opinions on topics and bring questions to the lessons, improve the fastest. As you read through articles, ask yourself, “how do I feel about this?” and think about how you would express that to a teacher, friend or language partner. For a wide range of business topics I recommend the BBC News business section. www.bbc.com/news/business. The reporting is very clear, the issues are current and if you click on the subheadings you will find it is not all finance.
I have had many students who were frustrated that they couldn’t fully understand what was being said in a movie or TV show and that they had to use subtitles. If you feel the same way, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Movies and TV series are written to be exciting and surprising. If they were clear and easy to follow, they wouldn’t be so entertaining. For practice, you should consider watching instructional videos or documentaries which are written to be easy to follow.
Subtitles or Closed Captions [CC] are extremely useful to follow what is being said, but they are engaging your reading skills, not your listening ability. So you should combine the two. YouTube has some really great close caption functions, so why not watch an informational video on a topic you are interested in without captions on the first play, then check your understanding with captions on the second?
Subtitles or Closed Captions [CC] are extremely useful to follow what is being said, but they are engaging your reading skills, not your listening ability. So you should combine the two. YouTube has some really great close caption functions, so why not watch an informational video on a topic you are interested in without captions on the first play, then check your understanding with captions on the second?
Articles and Videos are great for getting extra exposure to English, but personally I think Podcasts give the best examples of natural English conversations.
Podcasts that focus on discussions are usually not scripted and so they give you a better idea of how native English speakers actually talk. Because they are audio only, the better podcasts also focus on being clear and easy to follow. You can greatly improve your passive understanding by playing podcasts when you are doing other activities like cooking, exercising or just relaxing. You shouldn’t put pressure on yourself to understand everything. Let the conversation keep going and periodically ask yourself, “What are they talking about now?”.
I use Podcast Addict podcastaddict.com for my podcasts. You can download it to your phone, there are podcasts about absolutely everything and it’s free free free.
Ultimately, there is only so much you can learn on your own. Language exchanges and meet ups are excellent for practising small talk and general conversation, but for business English it is best to get a teacher. Fortunately, many teachers, like myself, have moved online and so you have lots of different options and price ranges. However, be aware, there are lots of native speakers out there who see an opportunity to make a bit of extra cash “just for chatting”. If the price seems too good to be true then it probably is.
Quality English teachers will always offer a free session to talk about your goals and get to know you a little better before committing to a series of lessons. You should take this opportunity to check if they are a qualified teacher and make a plan together for your future lessons. Be clear about your English goals and ask them for advice on how to get there.
Written by Mike O’Malley
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My name is Mike O’Malley and I am currently developing Elevator English and teaching Business English professionals like you online.
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