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B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 7
Cross-cultural
communıcatıon
Debbie Barton,
Jennifer Burkart
and Caireen Sever
ask some questions and
suggest some solutions
especially for those new
to business English.
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 52 September 2007 •
O
ur final article focuses on an
area relevant to all the
business skills we have
discussed so far – cross-
cultural communication. It is important
to focus on this area because in today’s
global environment, business English
learners have contacts all over the world
and work with partners from a variety
of linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
Learners find this challenging, especially
because breakdowns in communication
come from both language and
behavioural misunderstandings.
So what do we mean by ‘cross-
cultural communication’? This field of
study tries to establish how people from
different cultures communicate, and
aims to produce guidelines to aid
communication between the cultures. By
incorporating aspects of cross-cultural
communication into business skills
lessons, we can help learners to become
more aware of problems that might
occur when doing international business
and of strategies for avoiding them.
1 What areas can I
focus on with business
English learners?
The key areas to consider are:
Raising awareness
of the known culture
What we perceive as the normal way of
approaching a situation is defined by
our own cultural background. Before
considering other cultures, business
English learners benefit from having a
greater understanding of their own
cultural behaviours in all business skills.
Raising awareness
of other cultures
Once learners are more aware of their
own culture, they can examine the
cultures of their business partners. For
example, cultures can differ in the
amount of time spent creating rapport
before a negotiation, the use of humour
in presentations or the level of formality
expected when writing emails.
Communication styles
There are differences in communication
styles that business English learners
should be aware of. For example, in
some cultures (eg Japan), silence is used
to express disagreement and to give
speakers time to think before speaking.
Participants from western cultures,
however, often talk to fill silences, and
therefore their co-participants
unintentionally lose their turn. Another
example is the level of formality and
directness. Native British English speakers
are usually indirect and use ‘diplomatic’
language such as I’m not sure I agree
with you, whereas a German might see
no problem with saying I don’t agree.
Strategies
Teaching language for clarifying and
checking can help learners minimise
misunderstandings and communication
breakdowns. This is especially
important when they are dealing with
people whose level of English is
significantly higher or lower than their 
41
 B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
Business skills 7
Cross-cultural
communıcatıon
 own. You can also focus on other
strategies which minimise language
problems, such as using short and
simple sentences, avoiding idioms and
asking questions to draw quieter
participants into a discussion.
2 What activities work with
business English learners?
A good kick-off activity is to ask
learners to define culture. You can do
this by giving out topic cards and
asking them which they think are the
most important in creating culture.
Topics could include festivals, cuisine,
art, religion, institutions, traditions,
language. You can then provide
definitions of culture for discussion.
Raising awareness
of the known culture
Give learners questions which help them
reflect on how they normally approach
business situations. These questions can
be used as fluency activities or warmers.
If you are teaching heterogeneous
groups, try to put learners from similar
cultures together. Here are some
examples for different business skills.
Meetings and negotiations
Get learners to discuss questions such as:
● Does everyone participate or does one
person dominate?
● Does conflict occur or is there an
emphasis on consensus?
● How is agreement and disagreement
usually expressed?
● Are decisions made by the end of the
meeting?
● How much time is spent on small talk
before the meeting starts?
As a follow-up, after discussing the
reflection questions, give learners a
roleplay. Assign one learner to observe,
paying careful attention to each of the
points highlighted in the questions.
After the roleplay, learners can analyse
their behaviour and amend their original
answers. A similar activity can be used
with telephoning or small talk roleplays.
42 • Issue 52 September 2007 • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • www.etprofessional.com •
Presentations
Learners can discuss if it is typical in
their culture to:
● make jokes;
● use a lot of statistics;
● be polite and formal.
Telephoning
To help learners think about telephone
calls they make in their own language,
they can discuss the following questions:
● How do you introduce yourself ?
● How do you normally answer the
telephone: by saying your first name,
your last name or by saying the name
of the company?
● Do you call someone by their first
name when speaking to them for the
first time?
● If you know the person you are
calling, do you begin the conversation
by making small talk?
● What does it mean if someone is
silent on the telephone?
Emails
Reflection questions could include
whether it is:
● normal to use a business partner’s
first name when corresponding for
the first time;
● more common to write formal or
informal emails.
As a follow-up, you can look at some
authentic emails and analyse some of
the differences, for example length of
sentences, use of short forms (I’m, it’s),
use of the passive.
Socialising
Learners can consider whether it is:
● typical for business to take place over
a meal;
● common to invite business people to
your home;
● usual to provide international guests
with entertainment in the evening.
It is also important to discuss how
much time is spent making small talk
before meetings/negotiations, and topics
that are considered appropriate for
social conversations.
Raising awareness
of other cultures
Once learners are more aware of their
own cultural behaviours, use the same
questions to get them thinking about
the cultures of their business partners.
Learners can describe differences that
they have noticed when doing
international business. Business English
learners often have a lot of experience
of working with people from different
countries and enjoy sharing this. Allow
for open discussion, but be careful not
to encourage comments which are
stereotypical or may cause offence.
Alternatively, get learners to use the
questions to research the cultures of
their business partners. There is a wealth
of information available on the internet
and it could be worth spending lesson
time showing learners how to find this.
Business English
learners often have
experience of working
with people from
different countries
Communication styles
To focus on turn-taking and the role
of silence, get learners to reflect on
problems that they have when taking part
in discussions. Do they have trouble
keeping their turn or interrupting a
discussion? Does silence play a different
role in their culture to the one it plays in
the culture of their business partners and,
if so, does it lead to any problems? Some
learners may benefit from learning
language for keeping a turn (Let me think
for a second) or for interrupting (May I
interrupt here?). For other learners, it
may be more important to focus on
language for drawing other participants
into a discussion (Any other ideas?).
A good approach for teaching
diplomatic language is to use cards where
direct language (You’re wrong) is matched
with indirect language (I’m afraid that is
not quite correct). Follow this by analysing
elements of diplomatic language, eg the
use of softeners (quite, rather).
Strategies
Clarifying and checking are vital
strategies for all language learners. Here
are some ideas for focusing on them:
● Dictate a sentence very quickly or
softly. Learners ask you to repeat,
slow down or spell words until they
have written them accurately.
B USINESS E NGLISH professional                                
● Give learners cards with functions
such as ‘ask for clarification’ or
‘paraphrase’ before a roleplay. During
the roleplay, they should ‘play’ the
cards and use an appropriate phrase.
● Following meeting or telephone
roleplays, have learners write a short
email summarising what was agreed.
You may need to teach phrases such as
Just writing to confirm that you need … .
Discuss how valuable emails can be in
confirming what was discussed and in
avoiding misunderstandings.
Other strategies can be highlighted in
sessions on presentations. Get learners to
prepare for a presentation entitled ‘Tips
for making presentations to international
audiences’. They begin by brainstorming
problem areas, such as different language
skills of the audience, vocabulary and
cultural differences. They then think of
strategies to overcome the problems, eg
● keeping language simple;
● avoiding idiomatic or colloquial
language;
● explaining difficult vocabulary;
● using visual restatements such as
pictures and graphs;
● checking comprehension.
If you get learners to write the list
down, you can refer back to it when
giving feedback on their presentations.
3 How much time should I
spend focusing on cross-
cultural communication?
The time you need to spend depends on
the needs of the learners and the format
of the training. With a group that meets
once a week, it might be useful to bring
in an aspect of cultural awareness as a
warmer or a fluency activity. In a three-
day business skills workshop, an entire
morning or afternoon might be devoted
to cross-cultural communication. It is
important to remember that we are
language trainers and not trainers in the
As teachers of
English, cross-cultural
communication is
part of our
everyday lives
• www.etprofessional.com • ENGLISH TEACHING professional • Issue 52 September 2007 •
field of cross-cultural communication. If
learners seem very interested in learning
more about this field, encourage them
to find out if their company offers
focused training on this theme.
4 How can I ensure that
learners are improving
their performance back in
the workplace?
To ensure that learning is taking place,
learners need to be aware of where they
can improve. You can do this by giving
feedback after speaking activities.
● After a meeting/negotiation roleplay,
give learners feedback on any
communication breakdowns that you
noticed. Did all the learners participate?
Were quieter members brought into
the discussion? Did they use checking
and clarifying language effectively? If
the answer to any of these questions
is No, get learners to think about
what kind of impact this can have
when doing business internationally.
● When a learner practises a
presentation, get others in the group to
listen and write down words they don’t
understand. The presenter can then
think of simpler words to express the
same meanings. Talk about problems
that can occur when members of an
audience have difficulty
understanding a presentation.
● Note language used by your learners
which you consider not to be very
diplomatic and encourage them to
rephrase. Elicit from learners how
their ‘undiplomatic sentences’ could
cause communication breakdowns
when doing business with native
English speakers.
It is especially useful to do the activities
outlined above in review sessions. At
this point, learners are normally more
confident with the language and are
better able to focus on cross-cultural
issues. By giving a lot of feedback and
opportunities to practise language
through roleplays and discussions, you
should see progress take place.
Learners can use the questions from
section 2 to help them prepare for
international business. You can also
encourage them to evaluate their
performance after a meeting, presentation,
etc by setting a self-evaluation task for
homework, such as this:
1 What went well? For example:
● I interrupted when I didn’t understand
●
2 I still need to ...
● be more diplomatic
●
5 Cross-cultural awareness
is an area that I don’t feel
comfortable teaching.
Where can I learn more
about it?
A good starting point is business English
coursebooks. Many provide background
information in accompanying books for
teachers as well as interesting listening,
reading and discussion activities for
learners. Spend some time looking at
these coursebooks and find one or two
activities that you would like to try out.
You may have lived in different
cultures yourself, so think about your
own experiences or anecdotes. You
could begin by asking yourself the
questions outlined in section 2 and by
using the questions to research the
cultures of your learners. There are lots
of books available on the subject of
cross-cultural communication, ranging
from the very theoretical to the more
practical survival guide style. You
should also spend time researching the
internet. Share what you learn with
your learners and see if they agree. This
can lead to some very lively discussions!
As teachers of English, cross-cultural
communication is part of our everyday
lives. It is a fascinating subject where
teachers and learners can discover more
about themselves, each other and the
people they do business with. ETp
Jennifer Burkart and Caireen Sever work for
Linguarama Spracheninstitut, Düsseldorf,
Germany and Debbie Barton for Marcus
Evans Linguarama in England. They have a
wide experience of teaching business English,
including areas such as production, retail,
finance and human resources. As well as
teaching, all three are actively involved in
teacher training.
DHorsley@compuserve.com
jennifer@burkart-pohlmann.de
caireen@sever.com
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