EBP

(ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES)

 ESP

English for Occupational Purposes (EOP)

English for Business Purposes (EBP)

EBP : adult learners, working or preparing to work in

a business context, and deals with Business
English in an occupational.
CHARACTERISTICS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH
Users of Business English

English international language of business

Non-native speaker to non-native speaker (NNS-NNS)

International English
The non-native speakers (NNSs) may understand each other
more easily than the native speaker (NS) understands them.
A Definition of Business English

Pickett:
Two particular aspects to business communication
1. Communication within the public
2. Communication within (intra) a company or between (inter)
companies

General English

Communication within public

Business English

Communication among businesses

Specialised language of particular businesses

ENGLISH FOR GENERAL BUSINESS PURPOSES (EGBP)
EGBP courses are usually for pre-experience learners or those at
the very early stages of their career.
 the materials set in business contexts
 one or two sessions a week, over several months or years
 the traditional four skills plus specific grammar and vocabulary
development
 focus on presentation – listening, reading – exercises to
practice grammar and vocabulary
 the settings include: meeting people, making arrangements,
talking about yourself and your company, and traveling
 topics: organizational charts, marketing, branding,
advertisements and product development
ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC BUSINESS
PURPOSES (ESBP)
ESBP courses are run for job-experienced learners who
bring business knowledge and skills to the language-
learning situation.

 Focus on one or two language skills and specific

business communicative events
 Frequently intensive, groups are small, a maximum 6-8
 Fluent activity, progressing to language and skills work
based on outcome, and leading to further fluency
practice
 Settings and carrier content are mainly taken from the
learners’ own business contexts
 KEYS VARIABLES
IN BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSES

Variables Factors to be considered

Course duration Is it intensive or extensive?
Participants Are they all from the same company or
is it an open registration course?
Group size Is it one-to-one or a small group?
Location Is it in house, in company or overseas;
residential or non-residential?
Mode of learning Is it class teaching, telephone teaching,
self-study?
Are they company employees or
Trainers
outsiders?
4.4 THE ROLE OF NEEDS ANALYSIS IN
BUSINESS ENGLISH
 The approach to needs analysis depends on the situation
and context.
 Pilbeam (1979)  Target Situation Analysis & Present
Situation Analysis.
 Breger (1997) set out to identity the range of general
and specialist language knowledge required.
 Holden (1993) uses a three stage analysis to know
about the needs analysis in Business English:
1. Tabulates information through which target language
needs are identified.
2. An interview (or questionnaire) to establish
learners’ perceptions of communication within their
corporate culture.
3. A questionnaire to establish preferred learning styles.
Reeves and Wright (1996) states that
another multi-stage approach is the
LANA system which uses interview and
communication modeling at corporate and
departmental levels and a computer
questionnaire with individuals.
The EBP can be taught in form
of:
Short intensive courses
A one-to-one situation
Group situations
Twos or threes people
4.5 TEACHERS OF BUSINESS ENGLISH
Personality, knowledge, and
experience are important to a
Business English teacher.
Successful Business English teacher
will have the flexibility and
adaptability of any ESP teacher.
 CONTRASTIVE BETWEEN ESP
TEACHERS AND EBP TEACHERS:
Most ESP teachers have a language
teaching background and do not have first-
hand experience of the content and context
of other disciplines or business.
Most EBP teachers have not worked in
business; they cannot say of budget-setting
meetings or sales negotiations.
 Acquiring knowledge and understanding in five
areas seems necessary:
1. A knowledge of the communicative
functioning of English in business
contexts.
2. An understanding of the business people’s
expectations and learning strategies.
3. An understanding of the psychology of
personal and interpersonal interactions in
cross-cultural settings.
4. Some knowledge of management theories
and practice.
5. First-class training skills.
4.6 KEY ISSUES FOR BUSINESS ENGLISH
4.6.1 The communicative functioning of English in business
English
• Discourse communities

• Business genre

• Key communicative events

• Functions, grammar and lexis

4.6.2 Learner’s expectations and strategies

4.6.3 The Role of Cross-cultural communication
4.6.4 Management Theory and Practice
4.6.5 Communication Skills Training
4.6.1 THE COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONING OF ENGLISH IN
BUSINESS ENGLISH

1. DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES
* Business English is concern to discover how the language and
discourse used in business communication relate to the context
of the business relationship in which it takes place.
* Three factors which are related to discourse that may be
affected by the relationship below:
a. Whether the relationship is old or new which can influence
the negotiation
b. Where the balance of power lies which is likely to be give
and take.
c. Cultural values and attitudes.
2. BUSINESS GENRE

a. Swales (1990:54) notes that ‘a discourse community’s

nomenclature for genres is an important source of
sight’.
business English is carried out on texts (both written
and spoken) to determine which genres exist, that is to
understand significant differences and specific
communicative purposes.
b. Charles (1996) has shown that negotiations are more
likely to involve the cooperative exchange of
information than the ‘cut and thrust’ competitive
bargaining that many older training manual describe.
In business the sales negotiation does have clear
purposes and may be considered a genre.
3. KEY COMMUNICATIVE EVENTS

Relating to this case, there are 7 seven cores events:

1. oral language
 telephoning, socializing, making presentations,
taking part in meetings and negotiating
2. written from
 corresponding and reporting.
 4. FUNCTIONS, GRAMMAR AND LEXIS
• Business English has been experience, intuition and
materials led movement and reported research findings
have been slow to emerge and feed into practice.
• Practitioners are realizing that in many situations much
shorter and more informal phrases are used and that
gambits can be both verbal and non-verbal
• Topic closure markers can be verbal as in ‘OK ok’, ‘well’,
‘good for you’ or non verbal as in shifting papers or
taking out car keys.
• Topic introduction and topic shift can be signaled by
‘what next’, ‘so anything else’, on to X or by opening a
new file.
4.6.2 LEARNER’S EXPECTATIONS AND
STRATEGIES
1. Learner’s Expectation
• small groups of no more than 6-8 people, or to have one-to-one
tuition.
• Time is valuable commodity and they expect to maximize its
use 8 hours a day contact time plus some language
preparation or practice in the evenings.
• As professionals, paying directly for the course they will look
for high standards, quality and value for money.
2. Learning strategies
• need to be adapted to the group’s needs; for professional a
task-based, problem solving, depend approach is often
appropriate as it mirrors their work style and they learn
experientially through involvement.
 4.6.3 THE ROLE OF CROSS-CULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
For those who work in international business, it
is sometimes amazing how different people in
other cultures behave.
cultures is necessary for successful business
communications in matters such as the purpose
of meetings, the use of direct or indirect
negotiation tactics, the structuring of
information or the use of politeness strategies
in letters or meetings.
 GEERT HOFSTEDE'S RESEARCH  CULTURE
• Power Distance Index (PDI)
 the degree of equality, or inequality, between people in the country's
society.
• Individualism (IDV)
 the degree the society reinforces individual or collective,
achievement and interpersonal relationships.
•  Masculinity (MAS)
the degree the society reinforces, or does not reinforce, the traditional
masculine work role model of male achievement, control, and power.
• Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)
the level of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity within the society
- i.e. unstructured situations.
•  Long-Term Orientation (LTO)
the degree the society embraces, or does not embrace long-term
devotion to traditional, forward thinking values.
MANAGEMENT THEORY AND
PRACTICE
• EBP Teacher needs to understand the interface between
business principle and the language
• There are some materials to read or listen for EBP
including; course books for business studies/ MBA
courses, magazines and journals; business pages of
newspapers; company literature.
• Management training videos are useful for illustrating
the interactions that are promoted as desirable
COMMUNICATION SKILLS TRAINING
 BEP will not effective if only the speaker good in spoken
and forget the body language.
 For EBP the ability of spoken and using body language
should be balance
 EBP teachers teach their students how to speak and
using gesture appropriately.
EBP VS EAP
EBP ESP
PURPOSE not centred on the learner operates within a world
as an individual but as a where the fundamental
member of transactional concern is the acquisition of
world knowledge by individuals

Language Background of EAP situations there is an EBP, most interactions are

User interaction between native between non-native
and non-native speaker, speakers and the balance of
whether through the NNS power depends on their
reading an English-medium business relationship.
textbook, listening to a
lecture given by a NS or
writing an assignment or
dissertation which will be
read by a NS
SUMMARY
 Business is the current growth area in ESP and covers
both courses for pre-experience learners (EGBP) and
courses for job-experienced learners (ESBP).
 The primary concern is to communicate effectively, not
necessarily totally accurately.
 As professionals, business people have very clearly
purposes and expect high quality, value for money and
professionally delivered courses.
 More courses now combine language and skills
development and more account is taken of the business
language depends on variables such as status, power and
how well established the relationship is.
QUESTION??