CONTENTS
3-4 MUST READ: 15 Secrets
to Teaching Adults
5 MUST READ: English
for Specific Purposes: 5
Things You Must Know
6 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
8 Tips for Effective
Business English
Instruction
7-8 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
8 Tips On Becoming A
Successful Corporate
Teacher
9 BUSINESS ENGLISH: Top
10 Websites for Business
English Teachers
10-11 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
Water Cooler Talk:
Methods for Teaching
Appropriate Small Talk in
the Workplace
12-13 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
Workplace and Academic
Phrases: What Your
Students Need to Know
14-15 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
10 Essential English Skills
Your Students Need for
the Business World
16-17 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
Don’t “Dude” the Boss:
Basics on the Formal/
Informal Dilemma for ESL
Students
18 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
9 Best Tips to Give ESL
Students for Professional
Business Emails
19 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
How to Teach
Correspondence to Your
ESL Students: Writing
Business Letters
20-21 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
To Whom It May Concern:
Phrases, Structures, and
Register of Business
22-23 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
10 More Phrases of
Business English
in English for Tourism
24 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
Beyond Tweeting: Writing 44-45 TOURISM: Around the
the Business Memo World at Home: Fun Ways
to Bring International
25-26 BUSINESS ENGLISH: Tourism into Your
Further Beyond Tweeting: Classroom
The Business Proposal
46-47 TOURISM: On Holiday
27-28 BUSINESS ENGLISH: No One Cares about
My Proposal was a Conjugation: Fluency
Slamdunk!: 10 Sports Over Precision for Travel
Idioms Your Students English
Need to Know for the
Workplace 48-49 TOURISM: Passport,
Please: A Crash Course
29-30 BUSINESS ENGLISH: in Teaching English for
Business English Tourism
Lessons: Successful
Activities 50-51 TOURISM: Where Do I
Go From Here?: English
31-32 BUSINESS ENGLISH: for Travelers
15 Activities That
Your Business English 52-53 HOTEL: Hi, I Would Like
Students Will Love to Check in Please: ESP
for Hotel Staff
33 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
How to Teach Business 54 CASHIERS: That Will
English: Employment be 14.50. Here is Your
Change: ESP for Cashiers
34-35 BUSINESS ENGLISH:
From Resumes to 55 CLEANING STAFF: Spic
Proposals: Must-Do and Span: ESP for Maids
Projects for the Business or Cleaning Staff
ESL Class
56-57 FOOD & BEVERAGE
36 BUSINESS ENGLISH: STAFF: May I Take Your
Don’t Answer the Office Order?: ESP for Food and
Phone with “Hey”: Beverage Staff
Teaching Essential
Business Phone Etiquette 58 TOUR GUIDES: On Your
Left You Will See...: ESP
37 BUSINESS ENGLISH:Who for Tour Guides - SASHA
Called and Said She’s
Interested in Our Service? 59 TAXI DRIVERS: Where
Teaching the Art of Are We Going Today Sir?
Leaving and Taking Phone ESP for Taxi Drivers
Messages
60-61 POLICE OFFICERS:
38-39 BUSINESS ENGLISH: Stop Right There! ESP for
They Won’t Eat You: 7 Police Officers
Survival Tips for Teaching
Business English in 62 AIRLINE EMPLOYEES:
Russia Welcome Aboard Flight
2345: ESP for Airline
40-41 TOURISM: From Check Employees
in to Check out: 3 Hotel
Role Plays You Need for 63-64 MEDICAL
Your Classroom PROFESSIONALS: Do
You Have Insurance?:
42-43 TOURISM: 5 Fool-proof ESP for Medical
Tips for Using Role Play Professionals
 15 Secrets to Teaching Adults
TRADITIONALLY, THE IMAGE OF
THE TEACHER HAS ALWAYS BEEN
A STERN AUTHORITY FIGURE
WITH A BLACKBOARD AND CHALK.
ORDINARILY THEY PRESIDED
OVER A CLASSROOM FULL OF
KIDS. WITHIN THE ESL INDUSTRY,
HOWEVER, THE CLIENTELE CAN
RANGE FROM THREE YEARS OF AGE
TO EIGHTY AND BEYOND!
A lot of teachers will find they have to
teach younger people however many
more will also be teaching adults.
This is obviously true with regards
to those within the world of business
English. Sometimes it can be a little
tricky, particularly if those adults are
a lot older than yourself. Many factors
need to be taken into account, such
as respect and making sure you do
not patronize them however many
people sometimes feel that they are
doing this without meaning to.
HOW TO TEACH
ADULTS: 15 SECRETS
1 KEEP THE CLASS RELE-
VANT TO THE AGE GROUP
It could be quite common, especially
for younger English teachers, that
most of their students will be older
than them. As a result, it is important
to keep the topic of the class relevant
and be something that they will un-
derstand. Discussing aspects of mod-
ern youth culture might not appeal to
those within the age bracket of fifty
onwards. So it is always important to
keep anything you talk about relevant
so that the associated party will be
more interested and in tune with what
you have to say.
2 BE PASSIONATE
Having an interest in your own
subject is vitally important. No one will
learn anything if the teacher doesn’t
seem to care, and seems to just be
giving the class rote-learning. Learn-
ing things by heart definitely does
work in some cases, but a lot of the
time when teaching language it is im-
portant to show an interest in it. Adults
can tell immediately if you don’t have
an interest in what is going on, and
they themselves will then be likely to
switch off.
3 ENCOURAGE THEM
TO ASK QUESTIONS
A lot of the time, the people you will be
teaching may not have been in school
for many years. They might not be
sure what proper classroom protocol
is, so it is important to make sure that
they ask as many questions as pos-
sible. When teaching the class, per-
haps it would be a good idea to fre-
quently tell them, “Now, does anyone
have any questions?” If a student is
unsure of this, then they will usually
raise their hand and ask something.
4 KEEP THEM ENGAGED
Keeping students engaged is
important for any age group, and this
is a vital skill that most teachers will
learn over time. Sometimes one might
be tempted to just focus on those who
are participating, and leave more qui-
eter ones to their own devices. Try
and include everybody in the class
equally, asking various questions
more so to those who don’t speak as
often. Simply standing at the board
and listing off a load of information
won’t help it to stick in their heads.
5 DISTRIBUTION
Distributing practice is also an-
other thing, closely tied in with the pre-
vious point. Make sure that everybody
gets a chance to speak and practice
their new skills. Sometimes, one stu-
dent may be more talkative than the
others and hence not give the rest of
the class time to have their say. So it
is important to come up with an idea
or an activity whereby everyone can
be involved, and therefore allow ev-
eryone to participate.
6 SMILE
Smiling might seem like one of
the most simplest things in the world,
but it is quite easy to forget at times!
Try to remember that the world of
teaching has probably changed a lot
since your students’ day, and there-
fore their own experiences of teach-
ers might’ve been tough, stern people
who never smiled. Showing a happy,
pleasant face will definitely get the
whole class more relaxed!
7 RECOGNIZE
LEARNING STYLES
Everybody has different ways of
learning and adults are no different.
Visual learners tend to be the most
common, and so one should keep
this in mind but also remember there
may be other learning styles present.
Do some research on these specific
styles and see which ones your stu-
dents will fit into. It will then be a lot
easier to incorporate the techniques
into the class.
8 BE FLEXIBLE
Quite a lot of beginner teach-
ers go into their first lesson with all of
the purest intentions. They will have
a plan written out, usually involving
group work and the like, think that ev-
erything will go smoothly and accord-
ingly. Sometimes, however, the class
might veer off on a different path.
Don’t panic if this happens, just re-
member that as long as you keep on
topic in some form, the class is a suc-
cess. At the end of the day, however,
it is also important that the students
are ultimately speaking English.
9 CORRECTION
If the teacher is younger, then it
can be quite daunting when a student
makes a clear mistake. Often, they
may simply ignore the mistake be-
cause they’re afraid of patronizing the
student. Don’t be, just correct them
in a way which sounds less patroniz-
ing. This usually involves something
along the lines of, “That was a good
sentence but... Can you think of a way
of improving it?” It will encourage the
student to examine their own gram-
mar and make the correction them-
selves.
10 TOPICS OF INTEREST
Oftentimes people will feel
that they are getting nowhere when a
student simply wants to speak about
their job, or their cat, or even their
wife! Since they usually are the ones
paying for it, they will argue that they
can have the right to do this. Natu-
rally, this is true but it doesn’t mean
that nothing can’t be learned from the
class. If they want to talk incessantly
3
 about their pet, then simply incorpo-
rate that into the whole lesson. The
more they talk, the better their English
will become!
and ideas which can be done that will
get everyone involved. It will also help
to loosen up the atmosphere a bit and
get some of the more shy students
talking!

11 ENCOURAGEMENT
Every student needs en-
IT IS ALWAYS IMPORTANT TO
REMEMBER, AT THE END OF THE
couragement at some time or another,
and more so than adult learners. The
DAY, ADULT STUDENTS ARE NOT
older they are the more reluctant they
REALLY THAT DIFFERENT FROM
may seem. This can be a particular
YOUNGER ONES.
They have more life experience and
challenge so it is important to always
will be a lot more critical, perhaps
make sure that they are on board with
even pick up on certain things fast-
the topic of the lesson.
er, but they are still novices when it

12
comes to English (for the most part)
DEALING and you are there to teach them a
WITH TENSION new language.
Sometimes, particularly when teach-
ing business English, one might find
that they are teaching senior manag-
ers and secretaries. This unusual mix
may cause a little bit of tension as the
bosses may not feel comfortable at
being at the same level. It is impor-
tant to steer conversation away from
anything that might be related to their
current work, and to focus solely on
the lesson to avoid conflict.

13 SPEAK ENGLISH
This might seem like an
obvious one but it is important to re-
member that, especially with those
who are beginners, many might be
tempted to slip into their native tongue
and this can be detrimental. Often,
students might start talking amongst
themselves, usually if they’re simply
asking for instructions. If this hap-
pens, inquire as to what they are talk-
ing about and see if they can say it in
English. This will help them to learn
some new vocabulary and the teacher
won’t feel so isolated.

14 ELICITING WORDS
Having the students think
of or come up with their own words
rather than simply telling them is im-
portant. In doing this, the students will
find that they already know the vocab-
ulary and just need to “let it out” so it
to speak.

15 HAVE FUN!
No one ever said that
school and learning had to be boring,
so it is important to make the class fun
which will in turn engage the students
a lot more. Think of various games

4
English for Specific Purposes:
5 Things You Must Know
EVERY NOW AND THEN WE ARE
FACED WITH THE ARDUOUS TASK OF 3 WILL YOU TEACH STUDENTS to podcasts or watch interviews. Once
WHO ARE EXPERIENCED
again the Internet comes to the rescue!

TEACHING ESP.
No, not extrasensory perception (ESL
teachers are gifted at many things but
mind reading is not one of them). ESP
stands for English for Specific Purpos-
es, namely English for business, Eng-
lish for medical professionals, English
for lawyers, etc.
Is it really an arduous task? It doesn’t
have to be. Personally, I have taught
English for lawyers, for doctors and for
marketing professionals, among others.
IN THE FIELD? WHAT IF THEY HAVE NO
What if your students know even less
about the oil and gas industry than you
do? Again, a good book should solve
this problem.
On the other hand, what if your students
know a lot more than you do? Students
who are expert in a certain field should
understand your role is to teach Eng-
lish, not teach them something new in
their field. You should understand this
most of all. Be prepared to use their ex-
7
EXPERIENCES TO SHARE?
When you teach ESP, quite often stu-
dents contribute, genuine facts and real
experiences, things they do at their job,
clients they have, services they provide.
What happens if the students you’re
teaching don’t have this experience to
share? Give them a hypothetical situa-
tion and ask them how they would han-
dle it. Tell them to use their imagination.

Teaching English for lawyers, for exam-
ple, may be a little trickier than teach-
ing general business English, because
each country has its own particular le-
gal system and laws. But in any case,
8
pertise to your advantage and don’t feel WHAT REFERENCE MATERI-
bad about not being the expert in oil and AL WILL YOU CONSULT?
gas. You’re the expert in English!
What if they ask you about something

preparation is key. If you want to ex-
pand your job opportunities by teaching
ESP, here are a few points to consider.
9 THINGS
TO CONSIDER BEFORE
YOU TEACH ESP
4 WHAT WILL YOUR
STUDENTS BE DOING?
Are they studying ESL for their current
job or future job? Will they be communi-
cating with a boss in English? Will they
be needing general business English,
although they are actually engineers? It
that is not in the book? What if they ask
you about a word or concept you are
unsure of? Try to choose books or web-
sites that might get you out of a bind,
and have them ready in case of doubt.
9 WILL YOU HAVE TO TEACH
GENERAL ENGLISH

1 WILL YOU BE COMFORTABLE

TEACHING THIS TOPIC?
So the opportunity arises, and you ac-
cept to teach English for the oil and gas
industry. But think about it. Even if you
have a great book, lots of extra material
and students who are very knowledge-
able about the field, is this something
you are prepared to talk about for the
duration of the course? You might be.
Or you might not. Be honest with your-
self.
is essential to find out as much as you
can about their needs so that you can
make the necessary adjustments to the
material.
5 WILL YOU NEED
EXTRA MATERIAL?
Say your engineers need English for
engineering, but they also need to write
good business English emails. You’ll
need to find/provide this extra material
from elsewhere as the ESP book prob-
ably won’t cover that. In any case, it
AS WELL?
Chances are your students will need
a little extra help with some structures
and grammar. Don’t be afraid to add ac-
tivities that will complement their ESP
needs and provide a much-needed
grammar boost.
TEACHING ESP MAY NOT BE AS
EASY OR AS SIMPLE AS TEACHING
REGULAR OL’ ESL. BUT THE POTEN-
TIAL FOR LEARNING IS TREMENDOUS.
YOU MIGHT NOT BECOME AN EXPERT

2 WHAT MATERIAL
WILL YOU USE?
The textbook you choose will make or
break your ESP course. Oxford Univer-
sity Press and Cambridge University
Press have a good assortment of ESP
books on a wide range of topics from
Nursing to Accounting. Try to familiar-
ize yourself with the material and make
sure you choose one that will help you
teach a topic you may not be an expert
in.
is recommended that you try to teach
them everything they need to know,
and not just stick to the book. Variety
is good, and lots of ESL students get
IN ENGINEERING, OR NURSING OR
ACCOUNTING, BUT YOU’LL CERTAINLY
LEARN A LOT.
bored with talking about their area of
expertise all day.
6 WHAT WILL YOU GIVE THEM
FOR HOMEWORK?
What else could they do for homework
aside from the exercises in the book?
They can search the Internet for the lat-
est articles in their field. They can listen

5
8 Tips for Effective
Business English Instruction
The business world and the world of
academics don’t often overlap. The ESL
exception is in the Business English
Classroom. Teaching business English
includes many of the same things as
an academic English classroom would,
namely the elements of language. In
some ways, though, the business class-
room is and should be different from the
academic classroom. It is a professional
setting where professional people study
to further their careers. The best busi-
ness English teachers recognize this dif-
ference and alter their teaching and prac-
tices accordingly. Here is how they do it
and how you can do it too.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 CONSIDER YOURSELF
A COLLEAGUE.
In many teaching situations, the teacher
is thought of as a superior to his stu-
dents. He has a wealth of knowledge
that he wants to impart to his students.
They look to him for advice and guid-
ance when it comes to language learn-
ing and even, at times, cultural practices.
For business English students, however,
the teacher is not a superior as much as
he is a colleague. Like in the workplace,
colleagues must work together to accom-
plish professional goals, in this case lan-
guage learning. When you address your
business students as professionals and
equals rather than inferiors, they will be
more receptive to what you have to share
and will be more willing to work with you
toward a common goal of language flu-
ency.
2 DRESS PROFESSIONALLY.
Although you are in a classroom
and teaching, business instruction should
happen in a business environment. Your
students will expect from you more pro-
fessionalism than academic students
would. Because of these expectations,
teachers should think carefully about
their dress when teaching business
English. Dressing professionally sends
a message to your students that you re-
spect them and their goals, that you rec-
ognize why they are studying English,
and that you can work with them on their
path to professional development.
6
3 DO AN ASSESSMENT.
Not all business English students
will start on the same footing when it
comes to English studies. Some may
have little to no experience with the lan-
guage. Others may have studied Eng-
lish for years but only struggle with the
speaking aspect. And still other students
will fall somewhere along the spectrum
in between. Because your goal is to give
your business students exactly what
they need, take time at the start of your
instruction to determine just how com-
petent your students are in the English
language. Don’t assume what skill level
your students are coming with. Give an
assessment, even if it’s brief, to find out
what your students really need so you
don’t waste their time on material they
have already mastered.
4 ASK STUDENTS
WHAT THEY WANT.
Once you have assessed your students’
skills, you will find it worthwhile to ask
them what they want to focus their time
and energy on. As a business English
instructor, your students are also your
clients, and business persons know it’s
important to keep the client happy. If your
students are able, have them tell you
what they want to learn and where they
need help, and make sure you spend
time giving them what they ask for.
5 SET SPECIFIC SHORT AND
LONG TERM GOALS WITH
AND FOR YOUR STUDENTS.
Where academics often come to class
with a syllabus already written, business
English teachers will find that setting
short and long term goals with their stu-
dents is a better practice. Make sure your
goals session outlines some short term
as well as long term goals. And make
a habit of writing specific measurable
goals. Rather than saying, “Get better at
speaking” be specific and say “Be able to
engage in small talk with a native speak-
er” or “Be able to comfortably negotiate a
contract in English.”
6
MAKE LESSONS FIT WITH
THEIR PROFESSION
Most often, business professionals who
choose to study English do so for specific
business purposes. It only seems logical,
then, that you relate your English lessons
to their specific business environment.
For example, I had a business English
student who worked in the beer industry.
When we were working on his listening
comprehension, we did a tour of a local
microbrewery. This enabled him to learn
career specific vocabulary as well as ex-
perience a related business in the U.S.
When you can with your business stu-
dents, use real business memos, manu-
als, charts and proposals.
7 MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE
OUTSIDE OF CLASS.
When you are teaching business pro-
fessionals, your job extends beyond the
classroom. Your students will want you
to be a resource, and making yourself
available outside of class hours will show
them you are willing to play that part.
Set office hours, give your students your
email address or give them your phone
number. Your students may or may not
take you up on any of your offers, but
making yourself available to them shows
your commitment and your willingness to
meet their needs.
8 USE
PROFESSIONAL MATERIALS.
We all know that teachers are not the
biggest moneymakers in the world. But
teachers of business English may find
that their students have high expecta-
tions, and they may pay well to have
those expectations met. For this reason,
avoid handing out photocopies for class-
work or handwriting worksheets. Make
sure the materials you are using are as
professional as those in your students’
working environment. Otherwise you
may lose credibility for something that is
very easy to avoid.
TEACHING BUSINESS ENGLISH IS A
VALUABLE BUT SOMETIMES CHAL-
LENGING OCCUPATION. Your students’
expectations will be higher, and those
expectations go for more than language
studies. Making yourself, your class and
your materials more professional as well
as working with your students more than
directing them may make the difference
between a good business English class
and a great one.
8 Tips On Becoming
A Successful Corporate Teacher
As an ESL teacher, one of the best
ways to grow and expand is to sink
your teeth into new facets of teaching.
A common path for the career teach-
er is in-house corporate language
training. Corporate teaching involves
teaching company employees, gen-
erally at the company’s offices. This
kind of teaching provides instructors
with a greater set of challenges, as
many firms pay top dollar and ex-
pect only the best, demanding to see
a demonstrated improvement in the
student’s ability. Corporate trainers
can expect to teach complete range
of students’ of differing ages, levels
and job descriptions within a com-
pany, ranging from security staff, to
managers at executive level. While
this can be somewhat daunting for a
new teacher, corporate teaching can
be incredibly fun. Your students would
have most likely worked a long day,
and want a fun and light-hearted time
in the classroom. One of the biggest
drawcards for the teacher is a big-
ger pay packet at the end of the day,
as corporate language tuition often
pays better than schools and lan-
guage centers. It’s also a great way to
make contacts. Who knows, the quiet
woman sitting down the back may be
in charge of HR and may need a full-
time English teacher in the future.
This article aims to provide 8 nifty tips
and tricks to help you succeed as a
corporate language trainer.
HOW TO BE
A SUCCESSFUL
CORPORATE TEACHER
1
MAKE THEM THINK
IT’S FUN!
Start with fun and finish with fun! By
using a fun activity at the start and the
end of a class, you give the students
a positive memory of the class. It is
generally the start and the end of the
class that is mostly remembered by
students, leaving them with an im-
pression that is happy and fun, mak-
ing up for the dry chunk of grammar
and writing in the middle. Games and
activities are just as important for cor-
porate students as they are for chil-
dren, as most classes are held after
work, and the student’s concentration
levels can sometimes waver. They
also help reinforce the grammar point
and give the students the chance to
present the skills learnt class, while
competing with their colleagues.
Many successful corporate teachers
can teach amazing kids classes!
2 GETTING TO KNOW
EACH OTHER
On the first lesson, the students some-
times tend to be shy when speaking
in front of you and their colleagues.
It may have been quite a long time
since they have used English and
they may be quite low on confidence.
To best deal with this, the entire first
lesson should be aimed at building a
positive and constructive learning en-
vironment that is fun and open. One
of the best ways to do this is to start
with an activity where the students get
to know you and build a strong rap-
port at the same time. As the teacher,
you will be spending quite a lot of time
with the students, so it is in their best
interests to get to know you. Instead
of introducing yourself, simply write a
big question mark on the board, and
get them to do the hard work by ask-
ing the questions. Use your immense
charm and personality while doing
this, and make them guess certain
things about you, such as your na-
tionality, age, etc. Personality, charm
and a nice smile go a long, long way,
as well.
Another fun lesson idea that works
out well for the initial class is an ac-
tivity called “Two Truths, One Lie.”
This is a great little rapport builder
that gives the teacher an idea of the
level of the students ability of writing,
speaking and structure. The teacher
writes three sentences about him or
her on the board, with one of the sen-
tences being a lie. Below are some
example sentences. Make it fun and
try not to be too obvious. (BTW, I hate
Britney Spears!)
I can fly planes.
I am in love with Britney Spears.
I like to eat Durian.
The students must then ask questions
about the topics, and then the teacher
should lie and try to trick the students
into believing the wrong one. A fun
guessing game can be had where the
students play the role of a lie detec-
tor. Once finished, the students can
write their own three sentences, and
a game can be held such as “Teacher
vs The Class” with the teacher must
guess the “lie” of the student. If the
teacher correctly guesses the lie, 1
point will be scored by the teacher. If
the students successfully deceive the
teacher, the class wins a point.
3
FIND OUT WHAT
THEY REALLY WANT
When it comes to corporate classes,
student feedback about you and the
course will most likely be given to the
company’s HR manager and who-
ever it is who pays your wage. One
way to keep the students happy is
to give them what they want. In the
first couple of lessons, a needs analy-
sis should be done to compile a list
of their wants, needs, strengths and
weaknesses. This can be done by
asking each individual student the fol-
lowing questions:
What do you find difficult about
English?
What do you want to improve?
How do you use English in your
job?
With this information, you can plan
supplementary activities, projects and
various other tasks that are not in the
book with the aim of keeping your
class fresh and interesting.
4 DRESS THE PART
As a corporate teacher, you will
be teaching in conference rooms,
meeting rooms or even boardrooms.
Working in this environment takes
you into the realm of the company’s
big wigs, and dressing to impress
helps your image. It may also help
gain further work in the future. As a
7
 corporate teacher, you should dress
A GREAT PLACE TO MEET SOME
like a corporate individual.
UNIQUE CHARACTERS WHILE
BUILDING CONTACTS THAT MAY

5 GO WITH THE FLOW

If you find that your planned les-
PROVE TO BE HANDY IN YEARS TO
COME.
The best advice to anyone consider-
son on business writing is putting them
ing corporate teaching is to keep it
to sleep, a quick change of tactics has
light, bright and informative. By fol-
never gone astray. The students have
lowing these steps anyone can be a
generally worked a long day, and giv-
successful trainer when gracing the
ing them the task of writing an email
boardroom or meeting room of a com-
makes them feel like they are continu-
pany.
ing their work. If you notice their at-
tention span beginning to falter, start
a classroom conversation. Get them
talking about things they are interest-
ed in, such as their hobbies, families,
life outside work. This also shows that
you are a caring teacher, with a genu-
ine interest into the wellbeing of your
students.

6 THEY’RE ADULTS,
NOT CHILDREN
Never reprimand or discipline an adult
student for arriving late or not doing
homework. They are adults and can
make up their own minds.. They prob-
ably had a good excuse for not doing
the homework, or came late to class
due to a work meeting. Always re-
member that you can lead a horse to
water, but not make it drink. The same
rule applies for adult students.

7 GIVE THEM SOMETHING

THEY CAN USE
When it comes to using material
from a book, skip the parts that are
not relevant to them. If you’re teach-
ing a group of accountants, focus on
money related topics, rather than irrel-
evant topics, such as ‘booking a hotel
room’. If your students don’t need to
know about presentations, don’t teach
them it. The best approach is to re-
place the redundant task with a fun
activity, such as a team project that
gets the students working together.

8 KEEP IT PERSONAL
Give out your email address and
let them know that you are always
there for any help or assistance if they
need any help with English in their
job. This creates a personal bond,
meaning good feedback for you, and
a way for them to improve their Eng-
lish skills, which directly relate to their
job.

ESL CORPORATE TEACHING IS

8
Top 10 Websites
for Business English Teachers
NO MATTER HOW WELL EXPERIENCED
OR QUALIFIED ONE IS, SOMETIMES WE
REACH STUMBLING BLOCKS ALONG
OUR CAREER PATH.
Oftentimes this is generally due to the
stress of teaching specific classes, or it
may just be that the teacher themselves
is running out of ideas. Never fear, how-
ever, because there is a wide range of
different options available today! Not
only are there books out there which
will help with ESL teaching, but one can
also look up a wide variety of different re-
sources which are available on the Inter-
net. Don’t allow yourself to get bogged
down anymore, as there is so much in-
formation available on the World Wide
Web that it would be silly not to have a
look here.
TOP 10 SITES FOR
BUSINESS ENGLISH
TEACHERS
1 ABOUT.COM
This isn’t a website which is spe-
cifically devoted to TEFL or ESL, of
course, but there is a rich bank of infor-
mation here for the teacher who might
find themselves stuck. It includes a va-
riety of different articles including ideas
for games, teaching older and younger
learners and much more. This website
has a long history of providing informa-
tion on a huge range of topics and one is
bound to find some interesting facts and
pieces of information right here.
2 BUSINESSENGLISHSITE.COM
This comprehensive site is de-
signed more with students in mind,
and hosts a wide range of activities for
them to go on and complete in order to
improve their own language skills. But
don’t be turned off by this right away, as
there is still a lot of very useful informa-
tion here. For those who are stuck with
ways of helping their own class practice,
then it is the perfect opportunity to gather
some ideas from. Have a look through
the exercises, and see how you can cus-
tomize them to suit your own classes.
3 BREAKINGNEWSENGLISH.
COM
For those of us who happen to be some-
what stuck for materials to read in the
class, this website can be a lifesaver.
Discussing current events within the
classroom can undoubtedly lead to a lot
of heated debate and whilst it ought to
be kept in check, it will undoubtedly en-
courage the students to speak their mind
and practice their English more thor-
oughly. Regularly updated, this website
is something every teacher should keep
bookmarked!
4
ESLPARTYLAND.COM
This website also shows a compre-
hensive list of different activities to make
the classroom learning experience a lit-
tle more fun. What’s great about this par-
ticular site, however, is that it has some
lesson plans already made out which
one can freely customize to suit the spe-
cific class. Whilst it caters to all kinds of
English teachers, there is no reason why
it cannot be done to suit business Eng-
lish lessons as well. It also breaks them
down into various categories including
the likes of grammar training, teaching
with music and much more.
5
ESLLIBRARY.COM
Much like the previous website,
this particular one will cater towards both
students and teachers and is another
excellent place to pick up the likes of les-
son plans and other ideas. It is possible
to sign up with this website in order to
get the likes of flashcards and other re-
sources pertaining to English teaching.
Definitely worth a look if one is seeking
out some solid learning materials for stu-
dents.
6
BOGGLESWORLDESL.COM
Another great site which has a
huge amount of information on it. There
is a section where a lot of different ac-
tivities are displayed and one can pick
and choose from these. Of course, they
are just ideas and when stumbling upon
websites like this, it is important to tai-
lor one’s classes to suit the students
themselves. This site also has sections
for other types of learners, should the
teacher require information of various
kinds for teaching different age groups.
7 ESLGOLD.COM
Another rich resource, not only for
people who are teachers but students
can also gain a lot of benefit from this
website as well. This is a list of different
exercises which the student can partici-
pate in and, as teachers are sometimes
like magpies, it would often be a good
move to have a look through the exer-
cises yourself and see how they can be
taken and applied to classroom situation.
8
ESLAMERICA.US
Whilst business English tends to
focus more on conversation, sometimes
students might need to go over various
grammatical structures in order to re-
inforce them in the mind. This website
provides links to various different gram-
matical exercises which can incredibly
helpful to teachers who might need a
little bit of inspiration within this field. A
lot of people do not enjoy grammar and
find it difficult, therefore this website will
give simple guidelines in its instruction.
9 TESOL.ORG
Not only will this provide advice for
teachers, but there is also a supportive
community here where teachers can get
together and exchange various ideas.
Sometimes reading through Business
English manuals and following instruc-
tions isn’t enough, and one needs to
speak with others in the field, some of
whom may have more experience and
better qualifications. One can never
learn too much.
10 USINGENGLISH.COM
Another extra website which
will provide many different ready-made
Business English lesson plans and
other sources of information. One can
never have too many of these on a fa-
vourite’s list, so it is important to keep
everything organized and pick from
what is needed for the next class.
THERE IS TONNES OF INFORMA-
TION OUT THERE ON THE WEB. What
has been listed here is only a sample
of some of the more comprehensive
websites. Whether one is a beginning
teacher or experienced, it never helps to
remain closed to new ideas and there-
fore expanding one’s own education is
key to progressing and becoming a bet-
ter teacher.
9
Methods for Teaching Appropriate
Small Talk in the Workplace
THE OFFICE WATER COOLER, THAT
PLASTIC DISPENSER OF COLD WATER
AND TRADITIONAL PLACE FOR
EMPLOYEES TO GATHER, IS AN ICON
IN AMERICAN CULTURE, THE PLACE
TO TAKE A BREAK AND SHARE NEWS
AND GOSSIP.
The place to do this in an office may
not be a literal water cooler, of course,
but a break room or the back parking
lot or front lawn, any place employees
gather to relax. But wherever it actually
takes place, there are specific topics
and rules for office “water cooler talk.”
There are, for example, specific topics
and specific ways to enter, maintain,
and exit a conversation.
SAFE TOPICS FOR
WATER COOLER TALK
AND HOW TO TALK
ABOUT THEM
Interestingly, the main topic not to dis-
cuss during water cooler talk at the
office is work itself. There are a few
reasons for this: during “water cooler”
talk, employees are taking a break from
work, and a colleague who brings it up
might be considered annoying. In addi-
tion, there is the real concern of being
caught by the boss discussing a sensi-
tive subject, like how irritating a specific
client is. So this brief respite from work
and talk about work should be taken as
such. The following are some good top-
ics for water cooler talk.
1
FAMILY
Asking after each other’s family is
usually a safe and neutral topic of con-
versation, as in the general “Hey, Dan,
how’s the family?” to the more specific
“Susan, how did your daughter’s dance
recital go?” for coworkers who are more
informed about each other’s lives. Too
personal of comments, such as the
marital difficulties a coworker may have
confided in private, are of course not
welcome at “water cooler talk,” as this
is actually a public, not private, forum.
2 SPORTS
Sports are also a safe topic, for the
10
most part, such as “How about those
Giants!” an expression of admiration
for the Giants’ success. Even sports,
however, can become at times to “parti-
san” and negative, as when a coworker
sharply criticizes a local team. Because
this can quickly become uncomfortable,
it’s best to stay more positive and gen-
eral on comments about sports.
3
VACATIONS
Sharing information about vaca-
tions, vacation places, and activities is
also a popular water cooler topic, es-
pecially around the time of year when
people typically go on vacation, such as
the school holidays, when people’s chil-
dren are off from school. “So what are
your plans for vacation this year?” is an
acceptable conversational opener, and
might give the speaker some ideas for
vacation — while causing no particular
embarrassment for the addressee if he
must respond his plan is to stay home,
as he can then talk about planned ac-
tivities at home.
4
HOBBIES AND RECREATION
Keeping up on coworkers’ specific
hobbies and interests outside of the of-
fice shows concern for them as individu-
als and because recreation is removed
from the workplace is particularly suited
for water cooler talk. Most coworkers
will appreciate the sensitivity of the co-
worker who asks about a hobby: “So
how’s the novel coming, Mary?” or “Are
you able to play much golf this days,
Dave?” These conversational openers
go beyond remembering a coworker’s
name in recognizing individuality and
open the door to further conversation,
as most people are excited about dis-
cussing hobbies.
5
MOVIES, TV,
AND ENTERTAINMENT
Finally, popular entertainment such as
movies and TV, as part of the shared
culture unrelated to work, are also suit-
able discussion topics. “So did you see
the new Bond movie?” is a conversa-
tional opener than can lead to an inter-
esting discussion of the new movie and
James Bond movies in general, as well
as lead to a decision of some conversa-
tion participants on whether or not they
want to see the movie.
METHODS FOR
TEACHING
WATER COOLER TALK
1 INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT
WITH EXAMPLES
IF POSSIBLE.
Many students, depending on their cul-
tures, may be unfamiliar with the idea
of a short period of time (sanctioned
by the company), in which employees
openly gather to relax and talk. A clip
from an American TV show such as
“The Office,” in which characters en-
gage in the rituals of workplace behav-
ior, might help.
2
TEACH STUDENTS
THE LANGUAGE
OF WATER COOLER TALK
“Hey, Bob, how’s it going?” is a good
opener. (I’m not sure when exactly in
the U.S. “hey” replaced “hi,” but that is
a part of the discourse now students
should be aware of.) Other good ways
to begin a conversation are “So how’s
the family/your new car/your neighbor
Tracy?” An innocuous inquiry into the
well-being of the people and things in
the listener’s life is always welcome.
Finally, a question into the listener’s
insights is also almost always appreci-
ated: “What did you think about the new
James Bond film?” and “Do you think
the Giants are doing well this season,
or do they need to work harder?” are all
ways to begin a conversation. Graceful
ways to close are “Great talking to you,
but I’ve got to get back to work,” and
“Oops, looks like time is up. Talk to you
later.”
3
ACT OUT SCRIPTS
OF SMALL TALK
Using the language students have al-
ready been introduced to, create short
dialogues and exchanges for them of
language actually used at the water
cooler. Put the students in groups of
two or three and give them the option
of performing from their desks or be-
fore the classroom.

4 ROLEPLAY
WITHOUT THE SCRIPT
Once students have been introduced
to and practiced a scripted, structured
“water cooler” conversation, they are
ready venture on their own, conduct-
ing a conversation much as in the ac-
tual workplace. Put students around
something that might stand in for the
water cooler —perhaps a water bottle
on a desk — and have several stu-
dents gather around it. You may as-
sign them roles — the receptionist,
the accountant, the office manager
— and a topic and have them act out
the conversation. More advanced stu-
dents can choose their own roles/top-
ics.

WATER COOLER TALK, AND SMALL

TALK WITH COWORKERS IN
GENERAL, MIGHT SEEM PERIPH-
ERAL FROM WORK AND PERHAPS
EVEN AN INTERRUPTION OF IT.
However, because this kind of con-
versation is integral for building rela-
tions with coworkers, of knowing their
names and interests, it is actually criti-
cal to success in the workplace.

11
 Workplace and Academic Phras-
es: What Students Need to Know
Recently I received an email from
a student. She had not been com-
ing to class — in fact, not all term,
and this was the first I had heard
from her, not a particularly unusual
situation when dealing with college
students. What was unusual was
her proposal to make up the term
in a week.
Somewhat stunned, I flatly refused.
This resulted in a return email which
was such an odd combination of the
formal, academic register --“indeed,”
“shocking,” “with all due respect,” and
the informal conversational style “last
straw,” “swept under the rug,”-- that
I was further irritated with her as it
seemed pretentious. Then I realized
the student was just attempting, only
partially successfully, to use the aca-
demic register, probably to impress
me in order to advance her cause, and
combining it with the more known con-
versational.
Academic and workplace vocabulary
do not come “naturally” just by be-
ing exposed to it, but it is necessary
in those situations requiring formality,
distance, and logic, and requires prac-
tice. Furthermore, although different
in form, workplace and academic vo-
cabulary perform the same functions
such as opening a communication,
closing it, showing similarity and con-
trast, demonstrating results, etc., but
in a more formal register than the con-
versational.
10 WORKPLACE &
ACADEMIC TERMS
YOUR STUDENTS
SHOULD KNOW
1 TO WHOM IT MAY
CONCERN
This is the traditional opening of a
business letter, directed at someone
the writer doesn’t know. Somewhat
archaic, it is still used in formal situ-
ations. Less formal communications
will most likely open with “Dear Sir or
Madam.”
12
2 IT SHOULD BE NOTED
THAT
hear.
6
THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT
This is used in an academic or busi-
ness communication in order to call With this phrase, the writer con-
cedes a point to the opposition: “Va-
the reader’s attention to something: “It
should be noted that Monday is a holi- nilla is really the best ice cream fla-
vor. This is not to say that chocolate
day, and the banks are closed.” This
is much more formal-sounding than “I doesn’t also have merits...” A writer
who can recognize other viewpoints is
just want to let you know—” which per-
forms the same function but in more generally taken more seriously by the
reader.
informal language.
7
3 TAKE INTO ACCOUNT
This phrase roughly means “to
RAISE AWARENESS OF
“Raising awareness” is a con-
cept that has its origins, I believe, in
remember” or “to consider”: e.g., “In
the Civil Rights Movement: civil rights
planning the schedule, please take
abuses are so often ignored because
into account the holidays at the end
they seem “natural” and just “the way
of the month.” It does have a different
things are,” so the first step to ad-
meaning than either “remember” or
dressing a social ill such as segrega-
“consider” in that it implies that there
tion was seen as “raising awareness”
are a number of factors to consider in
that there even was a problem. This
making plans, and this is one of them.
phrase has been expanded to apply
4
to almost any problem: e.g., “Raise
MAKE USE OF awareness on the lack of space in the
workroom.”
This phrase means about the
same as the less formal “use”: e.g.,
8
“make use of existing resources” TAKE ADVANTAGE OF
means the same thing as “use exist-
This is a phrase that does seem
ing resources.” Although there may be
to have a different meaning than con-
a slightly different shade of meaning in
versational English, where it also ex-
that “make use of” implies using what
ists. In conversational English, “take
is already there rather than going out
advantage of” is often used to refer to
and acquiring it, while “use” does not,
exploiting people, perhaps sexually,
this phrase demonstrates the tenden-
as in “He took advantage of her na-
cy of business/academic phrases to
ivety.” In academic/business English,
use (or make use of) more words than
necessary. which is more impersonal, the focus
tends to be on exploiting the nonhu-
5
man: e.g., “take advantage of existing
AS WE HAVE SEEN oil supplies.”
This phrase has the function of
referring back to an earlier point: “As
we have seen, the company is in a
financial down mode and must con-
9 USE RESOURCES
“Use resources” is one of those
sider reducing—” Again, more words phrases used a lot in the business/ac-
are used here than strictly necessary. ademic world, usually with a focus on
While in general direct, as it makes saving or not spending money: e.g.,
claims to be, there is also a tendency “use our existing resources,” “maxi-
of this register to use words to obscure mize the use of our resources,” and
rather than clarify meaning. The above “use our resources wisely.”
sentence could be accomplished with,
“We are losing money, and need to
cut expenses,” something few want to 10 GENERATE A PLAN
Again, this is one of those
phrases that mean about the same as
another, simpler one in conversation-
al English, where we simply “make a
plan” or “come up with plan.”
HOW TO TEACH
ACADEMIC AND
BUSINESS PHRASES
COMBINATION OF THE FAMILIAR
CONVERSATIONAL AND THE ACA-
DEMIC JUST BEING ACQUIRED.
With practice, however, students can
master this register and the language
that will increase their chances of aca-
demic and business success.

1 CALL ATTENTION TO IT
The first part of writing in the
academic/business genre is to notice
it exists. When reading an academic
essay or business letter, call attention
to specific vocabulary items the au-
thor uses and discuss why he or she
might have made those choices.

2 NOTICE THE FORM

AND THE FUNCTION
After the students have some aware-
ness of the register, work on analyz-
ing it with them. How is this particular
phrase functioning? Is there are com-
parable phrase we use in conversa-
tion? Have students “translate” some-
thing from the formal register to the
informal and then as their skill grows,
from the informal to formal. This be-
gins practice with the register.

3 PRACTICE
Now is the time to work on ac-
tual practice with academic/business
language. Assign students a topic and
task, so that they are more focused
on the language than they would be
if they were deciding topic and task
themselves: e.g., “Write an essay in
which you argue for state-sponsored
tuition in college” or “Write a letter in
which you try to convince a business
why you deserve a refund for a de-
fective washing machine that began
malfunctioning just as it warranty ex-
pired.” Remind students to stay in the
academic/business register as this
will cause people to take them more
seriously and advance their causes.

4 EXTENDED PRACTICE
In further practice, students can
begin choosing their own topics and
matching the register to the topic and
task.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE FOR

BUSINESS/ACADEMIA IS NOT EASY,
AND STUDENTS’ FIRST ATTEMPTS
MIGHT BE LIKE MY STUDENT’S
IN THE INTRODUCTION, AN ODD

13
10 Essential English Skills Students
Need for the Business World
MANY STUDENTS TRAVEL OVER-
SEAS TO STUDY ENGLISH, AND
THOUGH THEY MAY BE IN A SCHO-
LASTIC SETTING THEIR REAL GOAL
IS ADVANCEMENT IN THE BUSINESS
WORLD.
Many ESL programs offer classes and
courses of study specifically designed
for business English, but other pro-
grams place business English students
into generalized academic English
classes. Even so, your business Eng-
lish students can gain the skills they
will need in the business world if their
teachers are aware of what they need.
Whether your business English stu-
dents have their own course of study or
they are studying in generalized English
classes, here are some language skills
they will need when they enter or reen-
ter the business world.
LISTENING
1 MEETINGS
Meetings will be a part of any
business setting. Whether they happen
once a year or once an hour, your busi-
ness English students will need to have
their listening skills at top-notch level.
By giving your students times for group
discussion, especially group problem
solving, they will acquire skills for listen-
ing to multiple people simultaneously
and deciphering the meaning and inten-
tion of each participant’s words.
2 PRESENTATIONS
Likewise, your business students
will at times listen to others giving pre-
sentations. They may be analysis ori-
ented, proposal based or informational.
These presentations will challenge your
students to have good listening compre-
hension and good vocabulary decipher-
ing skills. Take every opportunity you
can to invite guest speakers into your
classroom, and check your students’
comprehension after each presenta-
tion. They will benefit from exposure to
different speakers and speaking styles
as well as different types of content.
14
SPEAKING
3 GIVING A PRESENTATION
Your students will also have to
give their own presentations, and you
can easily prepare them in your ESL
class. Giving your students opportu-
nities to speak to fellow students will
ease the tension that comes with public
speaking. In addition, working on pro-
nunciation and accent reduction can
help your students be more confident
when they speak to groups and help
their listeners understand them better.
If you want to take their presentations
skills to the next level, look for oppor-
tunities to speak to an unfamiliar group
of people.
4 SMALL TALK
Whether it is potential clients or
coworkers at the water cooler, your stu-
dents will have to make small talk with
their colleagues. Give your students a
chance to meet new people, in public
settings or by inviting groups to class
to get them ready. Lining up conversa-
tion partners is a great way to help with
small talk, too. Make sure they know
which subjects are appropriate for small
talk (weather, entertainment, sports,
and celebrities to name a few) and the
vocabulary with which to discuss them.
5 TALKING WITH THE BOSS
Your students will need to be com-
fortable speaking with their superiors in
the business world. Many companies
require weekly or monthly one on one
meetings between each employee and
his superior. They may need to discuss
problems, give recommendations or set
goals when talking to their employer.
Make sure you give your students op-
portunities to do the same with you, the
classroom authority figure, and they will
have an easier time when they do the
same in the business world. Schedule
one on one teacher student conferenc-
es and allow your students to express
their concerns, ask questions or offer
suggestions.
READING
6 EMAIL
We live in an electronic society,
and many offices are making strides
to go paperless. This means that email
is essential in the office. If your school
offers email accounts, make a habit of
communicating with students via email.
Send out details on homework assign-
ments, field trips or test reviews. You
may even give student evaluations via
email. It will help them become familiar
with the style used in email.
7 LETTERS
Even in green companies, letters
still seem to pile up. Make sure your
students will be able to tackle the daily
mail by discussing the format of a letter
as well as the more formal vocabulary
used to write them. Your students may
also benefit from familiarity with formal
letters and how they are used in the
business world.
8 NON-TEXT READING
Where business is, money is also,
and many financial figures are reported
in charts and graphs in the business
world. In addition, business students
will have to manage their own sched-
ules as well as departmental calendars,
so giving your students practice reading
non-text items like charts and graphs is
important. Use realia found in the news-
paper or online, and challenge your
students that reading is more than what
comes between a capital letter and a
period.
WRITING
9
EMAIL
Just as your students will have to
read email on a regular basis, they will
also have to write their own electronic
communications. Ask your students
to submit items to your email account.
Homework is the natural go to, but try
asking for feedback on field trips or
class activities, too. Your students may
also benefit from typing exercises, es-
pecially if their language uses a differ-
ent writing system than English.

10 LETTERS
Though not as common
as they once were, letters are still a
part of the business world. Your stu-
dents should have the tools they
need to write the occasional letter
when necessary. You can find step
by step instructions in this lesson on
writing business letters: busyteacher.
org/6420-how-to-teach-esl-corre-
spondence-business-letters.html.

WHEN A TEACHER IS AWARE OF

HER STUDENTS’ NEEDS, SHE IS
HALFWAY TO MEETING THEM. IF
YOU ARE TEACHING GENERALIZED
ESL CLASSES, YOU SHOULD MAKE
A POINT OF INCLUDING ACTIVITIES
IN YOUR CLASSROOM THAT WILL
HELP YOUR BUSINESS STUDENTS
GET READY FOR THE CORPORATE
WORLD.
They will appreciate the comprehen-
sive education especially if they would
prefer to be in a business specific
program. Business skills are easily
incorporated in the ESL classroom,
and they are beneficial for all of your
students to learn.

15
 Don’t “Dude” the Boss: Basics
on the Formal/Informal Dilemma
One of the noticeable features of U.S.
culture, especially in California, is its
informality and egalitarianism: people
usually address “superiors” by first
names, for example, - even children
do this.
Shaking hands usually only occurs on
a first meeting. “Ma’am” and “Sir” are
rarely heard anymore, except in cer-
tain regions of the country or by indi-
viduals with a military background. In
fact, some people complain about the
degree of informality going “too” far or
not knowing where the boundaries lie:
for example, what is “too” casual for
“Casual Friday,” the practice of relax-
ing the rules of attire on Fridays at the
office? Should I really call my teacher
by his first name—even if he invites
me to do so? Knowing the levels and
appropriateness of informal and for-
mal behavior may present a particular
dilemma for ESL students, who have
heard that Americans are informal, but
who themselves seem to be renegoti-
ating the boundaries between casual
and formal. In addition, these bound-
aries are usually “unwritten” or implicit.
There is no manual anywhere to refer
to these rules of formality although
they are just as real as if they were.
PROBLEM AREAS
IN THE FORMAL/
INFORMAL DILEMMA
1 DRESS
Jeans are usually okay for
school. They may be okay for work de-
pending on the work situation: in most
office jobs, for example, jeans would
not be appropriate but they might be
in a restaurant kitchen.
2 PUZZLING TERMS
FOR DRESS
Sometimes the contradictory terms
for dress found on invitations and an-
nouncements confound even native
speakers. Does the “business casual”
sometimes designated at work-related
events like conferences include jeans
if worn with a nice blazer, for example?
16
Or can it be an Oxford shirt but no tie?
And what the heck is the “elegantly ca-
sual” (or “casually elegant”) for some
office parties or dinners?
3 TERMS OF ADDRESS
While the student may be fairly
sure he shouldn’t call the teacher
“Dude,” is his first name all right? Is
“Professor Smith” too phony and pre-
tentious? What is some advice we can
give our students about what to call
their teachers, bosses, or friends’ par-
ents?
4 EATING
Public eating is one of those ar-
eas that again can make even sophis-
ticated natives of U.S. culture nervous
because the rules change, vary ac-
cording to the specific situation, and
in general seem to be booby-trapped,
designed to catch the hapless eater in
a violation of etiquette. For example, I
just read an article in the jobs section
my local newspaper, in which the au-
thor advised job candidates, if invited
to a meal as part of a job interview, not
accept an alcoholic drink even if of-
fered—on the belief the potential em-
ployers are watching and taking note
of the job seeker’s alcohol habits and
might form negative opinions. This
seems a form of entrapment, but the
advice not to imbibe in this situation is
sound.
GENERAL GUIDELINES
FOR THE INFORMAL/
FORMAL DILEMMA
So what to do in these difficult etiquette
situations? Some might suggest leav-
ing home as little as possible to avoid
being caught in an etiquette violation.
However, there are some guidelines
our students can use so that they can
negotiate different social situations
comfortably.
1 CONSIDER THE SETTING
The setting plays a big role in
the level of formality: an outdoor party
such as a barbeque or picnic will usu-
ally demand less formality in dress
and manners than one held in a fine
restaurant or hotel. It’s usually accept-
able at a picnic, for example, to pick
up food like sandwiches and pieces
of fried chicken with your hands, but
it’s less acceptable in a fine restau-
rant. Similarly, when I worked in a fine
clothing store in college I wore more
formal clothes than when I worked in
an appliance repair shop.
2 ERR ON THE SIDE
OF THE FORMAL
If you are new to a situation and really
aren’t sure about the level of formal-
ity required, behave in a more formal
manner until you learn otherwise. For
example, call your boss and teacher
by last name unless invited to use first
names. Wear more formal clothes—
slacks rather than jeans, for example-
-until you see how other people dress
in that environment.
3
OBSERVE
How do the rest of the employees
address your boss? If they use his first
name, it’s an indication that he is open
to or even prefers this. Many Ameri-
cans are in fact uncomfortable being
addressed as “Mr. Smith,” responding
something like “Mr. Smith is my father,
I’m Bob,” demonstrating the informal
and youth-oriented nature of U.S. cul-
ture. Observing the behavior and re-
sponses of others will tell a lot about
not only the country’s culture but also
the culture of the specific organization:
each workplace has its own culture
and standards of behavior, and while
in one office jeans may be acceptable,
for example, they won’t be in another.
When eating in a restaurant, observe
others for cues on which fork to use or
whether or not alcohol is acceptable.
U.S. citizens may themselves engage
in this kind of observation because,
while familiar with the overall culture
of the country, they are not neces-
sarily familiar with the “culture” of the
specific situation: because I know how
to eat in restaurants in general in the
U.S. doesn’t mean I know in a specific
restaurant what the heck that specific
fork is for!

4 ASK OTHERS
When all else fails, ask! You
probably aren’t the only person with
questions. For example, if you’re un-
sure what to wear to the meeting or
conference, ask your coworkers what
is meant by “business casual.” Don’t
be surprised if they don’t know exactly
either, but they may very well be able
to say what they have worn in the
past at such events and if it was ac-
ceptable. Often a term like “casually
elegant” or “business casual” are best
defined by example, and you’ll get
your best examples usually by asking.
When I started my first job out of col-
lege, I asked my supervisor what kind
of clothes would be acceptable for the
office, and got a list in response: jeans
were not acceptable although cordu-
roys and khakis were, and dresses
and heels were generally not expect-
ed. It might have taken me about a
month to figure this out on my own.

ALTHOUGH TODAY LARGELY AN

INFORMAL, JEANS-WEARING
CULTURE, AMERICANS ARE NOT
TOO FAR REMOVED FROM THEIR
HATS-AND-GLOVES PAST AND ARE
OFTEN THEMSELVES UNSURE OF
WHEN “CASUAL FRIDAY HAS GONE
TOO FAR,” AS A RECENT CARTOON
OBSERVED BENEATH A PICTURE OF
OFFICE PERSONNEL IN VARIOUS
STAGES OF UNDRESS.
Complicating this uncertain boundary
is the fact most rules regarding infor-
mality and formality are unwritten. But
through careful observation and ask-
ing, as well as considering the setting
and erring on the side of the formal,
students can negotiate the uncertain
formal-informal territory.

17
9 Best Tips to Give ESL Students
for Professional Business Emails
How do your students’ email writing
skills stack up? At this day and age, ESL
students who are not learning good, pro-
fessional email writing skills will be at a
serious disadvantage in comparison to
those who already possess them. In
business in particular, professional email
communication is absolutely crucial.
Of course, we’re responsible for teach-
ing the correct grammar and vocabulary,
but effective email writing is so much
more than that. It is just as important to
teach students how to be respectful and
set the right tone. Here are 9 tips that will
help your students write effective, pro-
fessional emails - every time!
HOW TO HELP
YOUR STUDENTS
WRITE EFFECTIVE,
PROFESSIONAL EMAILS
1
MAKE THAT SUBJECT LINE
CLEAR
The subject line indicates what the email
is about, and so it gives the recipient a
certain idea of what to expect. The sub-
ject line is crucial because it often deter-
mines whether the email will be read or
sent directly to the trash.
Students must understand that the sub-
ject line should be clear, descriptive and
rarely include a complete sentence - un-
less it is absolutely necessary. A good
rule of thumb is to keep it to no more
than 50 characters. Also, it’s good to
convey how personal and timely your
message is. Here are some examples of
effective subject lines you can give your
students:
Your requested information
Preliminary schedule for the conference
Agenda for next week’s meeting
2 ATTACH DOCUMENTS
THAT ARE RELEVANT
A lot of people are wary of attachments.
They may take time to open, may con-
tain a virus, or may require a program
your recipient does not have. Students
should only include attachments that
they deem to be absolutely necessary
and relevant to the email. It’s advisable
18
for them to include some reference to
the attached document within the main
body of text (“Please find attached...”,
“you’ll find the report attached”).
3 DON’T CC EVERYBODY
This is a common mistake with
those who are inexperienced at send-
ing professional emails. When you send
an email to someone, it is not absolutely
necessary to ‘cc’ (send a copy to) your
boss or other members of the team ev-
ery time. Students must learn to judge
if it is necessary to send a copy of the
email to someone else in addition to the
main recipient.
4 CLEARLY STATE
YOUR PURPOSE
Students should learn to state the pur-
pose of their email early on (“I’m writ-
ing to let you know that...”). This gives a
clear indication to the recipient whether
it is something urgent that requires im-
mediate attention or something that can
wait. Any personal messages, holiday
greetings or best wishes should be men-
tioned at the end of the email after busi-
ness has been taken care of.
5
KEEP IT SHORT AND EASY
TO READ
People are busy and often have inbox-
es flooded with emails. Students must
understand that writing an email is not
like writing a letter. Sentences should be
shorter, just like paragraphs – ideally no
more than five lines. If the email is turn-
ing out to be too long and complicated,
it’s a good indication they should call this
person instead.
6
USE SIMPLE LANGUAGE
This is not the time for students
to show off their literary skills and all of
the fancy words they’ve learned in ESL
class. Although we teach students to
use phrasal verbs in spoken English and
more literary terms in written English
(consider the use of “put off” vs. “post-
pone” or “put up with” vs. “tolerate”),
they should stick to the simpler phrasal
verbs in emails – unless it is a very for-
mal one. In general, it is better to use
simpler language to go with the shorter
sentences and avoid words like “hence-
forth”, “acknowledge receipt of” or “in the
event of”.
7 DON’T SHOUT
Students, particularly those who
are young and inexperienced are often
unaware of the fact that writing in capital
letters IS LIKE SHOUTING in email lan-
guage. Tell students that the best way to
emphasize a date or hour, or any par-
ticular piece of information is by making
it bold.
8 USE ABBREVIATIONS
SPARINGLY
The subject of abbreviations is not as
simple as it may seem – students must
often use their own judgment as to which
they should use. There are some that
are used very often in Business Eng-
lish, like ASAP or FYI, but these are of
standard use. Make sure students learn
to differentiate business abbreviations
from those that are more informal, like
those used in text messages or SMS.
Moreover, they must be sure recipients
will be able to understand the abbrevia-
tion. When in doubt, it’s better to spell it
out. They should also be used sparingly
– just a couple per email. An email filled
with abbreviations may just be too hard
to decipher.
9
CLOSE THE EMAIL WITH
COMPLETE CONTACT INFO
In addition to the usual closing (Re-
gards, Sincerely, etc.) encourage stu-
dents to add a more complete email
signature that includes phone, email or
other relevant contact info. It will give
their emails a more professional touch.
IT’S HARD ENOUGH FOR ESL STU-
DENTS TO LEARN THE PROPER
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY AND ALL
AROUND SOLID WRITING SKILLS. BY
PROVIDING THEM WITH THESE TIPS,
YOU’LL BE MAKING THINGS A LITTLE
EASIER. THEY’LL THANK YOU FOR IT!
If you have any other professional email
writing tips that you usually share with
your students, be sure to share them be-
low as well!
How to Teach Correspondence:
Writing Business Letters
We live in an age of fast-paced, frequent
communication. Texting, e-mail and in-
stant messaging often assault us from
every side. Even so, the classic means
of communicating, business letters, per-
sonal letters, etc. are still important for
students to learn.
HOW TO TEACH
BUSINESS
CORRESPONDENCE TO
YOUR ESL STUDENTS
1 THE BUSINESS LETTER
You will want to remind your stu-
dents of the reasons to write a business
letter that they generated in the first
brainstorming activity. You can use one
of their ideas if you like, but having your
students write to a local business that
they frequent is a way to support your
community and help your students ex-
press themselves at the same time. If
you do not want your students to write
to a local business, you may want them
to write to a larger company that makes
a product that they like. The advantage
to doing this is that your students may
receive correspondence in return with
coupons or some other useful item in-
cluded. If you decide to do this, you can
create a bar graph to track the number
of students who received return cor-
respondence though they should not
expect to receive a letter in return. You
could also make a place in your class-
room to post any return correspondenc-
es students have received for the rest of
the class to read.
Because business letters are more for-
mal, encourage your students to type
the final drafts of their letters. If you have
the resources available in class, you can
have students type during their writing
workshops. If you have a computer lab
at the school, your class can type their
letters from the beginning. If neither of
these are a possibility, have your stu-
dents write their letters in class and then
type them for homework. The structure
of a business letter will be different from
that of personal letter, and you will want
to make the differences clear to your
students. They will still begin with a re-
turn address and date, but this time they
will be justified on the left side of the
page. After the date, students should
skip a line and then include the name
of the person to whom they are writing,
Mr. or Ms. and then first and last name.
Below that, students should include the
recipient’s address. All of these pieces
will be in line on the left side of the page.
Students should then write the greeting,
again left justified. This time they will ad-
dress their letter with Mr. or Ms. followed
by the person’s last name and a colon.
This colon is different from the comma
used in a personal letter. Another differ-
ence between personal and business
letters is the paragraph structure. In a
personal letter, your students follow
the convention of indenting each para-
graph. With a business letter, instead of
indenting each paragraph, they will be
left justified, but your students will skip
lines between the paragraphs to sepa-
rate each one. Again, give your students
class time to write the message and then
move on to the closing. The closing will
be left justified like the rest of the letter,
but you will want to take some time with
your class to brainstorm closings ap-
propriate for a business letter. The most
common closing will be sincerely, but
your students can also use best regards
or any other closings you think are ap-
propriate. Finish the business letter with
a closing, usually sincerely. After the let-
ter is printed, your students should sign
their name by hand.
Now that your students are finished with
the letter itself, it is once again time to
address the envelope. This time you
should give them a larger, business en-
velope. The full sheet of paper on which
they typed their letters should be folded
into thirds and then will fit perfectly into
the business envelope. Most business
letters will have a printed envelope, but
this may be beyond what you want to do
with your class, especially with younger
students. You can have your students
address the envelope the same way
they did for the personal letter, affix the
stamp and mail.
2
STEP OUT FURTHER
If you are in a setting where you
can take field trips, round out your let-
ter-teaching unit with a visit to your local
post office. This is a great listening activ-
ity if the postmaster or mail carrier gives
your students a tour and explains how
mail is processed. It is also an interest-
ing lesson in culture for students from
other countries. Though you can mail a
letter anywhere in the world, the way the
mail is processed may be different from
country to country, and your students
will find it interesting to see the differ-
ences. You can also use a classroom
post office to encourage your students
to keep writing to one another.
3 THE MEMO
A final type of correspondence to
teach your students is the memo. The
memo is still for business purposes but
is shorter and follows different conven-
tions than the business letter. A memo
is used between employees in one com-
pany and not for colleagues outside the
company. Like the business letter, the
entirety of the memo will be left justified
and paragraphs will not be indented. A
standard memo will have preprinted la-
bels or places for the writer to insert his
information. It will look something like
the following.
Memo
To:
From:
Date:
Re:
A colon should follow each of the pre-
printed labels, and the message of the
memo will go below the preprinted sec-
tion. If you decide to have your students
write memos, you may want to print a
memo template for them and just have
them fill in the necessary information.
There are many memo templates avail-
able with word processing programs
and on-line. When your students write
memos, they should write them to an-
other person in the class. You will need
to explain that re: means regarding and
that this is where they should state the
purpose or topic of the memo in a word
or two. A memo does not need an enve-
lope, but your students should give the
memos to you and you should distribute
them to the recipients.
IN A WORLD WITH COMMUNICA-
TION THAT MOVES AT THE SPEED OF
ELECTRICITY, TRADITIONAL FORMS
OF CORRESPONDENCE STILL REMAIN
IMPORTANT.
19
 To Whom It May Concern:
Phrases, Structures, and Register
I just downloaded some information
from a writer’s website about its ma-
terials submission policy. This was not
a contract but rather an explanation of
the site, its business, and its services
for writers, so it was not written in “le-
galese,” or legal language but rather
the business genre, which is suppos-
edly concise, clear, and direct so that
future clients can understand the ser-
vices the company offers. However,
this piece of literature was so full of
language that clouded the issue rath-
er than clarified that I put it away for
“future reading,” which may be never,
given this experience, and if I don’t get
back to the reading on the services
I will not visit the website again. The
irony that this poor writing was posted
on a website for writers is probably not
lost on you. Students should learn the
language of business, both to under-
stand it and to use it, but they should
also learn to use it so that the listener
or reader can actually understand.
REGISTER OF
BUSINESS ENGLISH
Different situations call for different
language use or register: the expected
vocabulary, structures, and tone for
the situation. For example the aca-
demic register I use in the classroom is
different from the conversational one I
use at home: e.g., in academic Eng-
lish, “As a reminder, it is highly unlikely
that any late work can be accepted
this month, given the circumstances
of the upcoming holidays.” This is in
sharp contrast to the language of con-
versational English: “I said do it now,
not later.” Academic English tends to
be impersonal and indirect in contrast
to conversational English, which is
brief and personal. Similarly, business
English has its own register expecta-
tions of conciseness, directness, and
impersonality.
PHRASES OF
BUSINESS ENGLISH
A lot of language exists in often-re-
peated phrases. For example, most
people will recognize the greeting from
20
a business letter, “To Whom It May
Concern,” which has an impersonal-
ness in that no name is mentioned,
and the passive voice, which facilitates
impersonalness as no agent need be
named, is used.
COMMON PHRASES
FROM BUSINESS
ENGLISH
1 ON THE JOB MARKET
to be actively looking for work. “I
didn’t expect to be on the job market at
my age, but I lost my job.”
2 TO LET GO
to terminate someone’s employ-
ment, often for cause: “I had to let Tom
go because he just can’t get along with
anyone.”
3 ON THE (FIRING) LINE
to be at risk, usually a job. “My
job here is on the line, so I have to
work really hard.”
4 TO GET THE AXE
to be terminated, but perhaps
due more to loss of company revenue
than cause: “The company has so lost
so much profit during the recession
that fifty employees might get the axe.”
5 ABOVE AND BEYOND
(THE CALL OF DUTY)
Derived from the military, this phrase in
business means to have exceeded ex-
pectations on a particular task: “Mary,
your work on the report was above
and beyond the call of duty.”
6 IN THE BLACK/RED
from bookkeeping, where finan-
cial gains are recorded in black and
losses in red. So a company that is
doing well financially, for example, is
“in the black.” “Red/black ink” is also
used: “Our books are covered in red
ink” means the company is suffering a
lot of financial losses.
7 TO LEARN THE ROPES
this means to learn the expec-
tations and duties of a job: e.g., “I’ll
spend the first couple of months at the
company just learning the ropes be-
fore taking on clients.”
8 A NUMBERS CRUNCHER
A numbers cruncher works in a
field that requires a lot of mathemat-
ics, such as accounting. The phrase
can be used as a pejorative: “What
does he know... he’s just a numbers
cruncher.”
9 THE GOLDEN HANDSHAKE
Extra money given to an employ-
ee at retirement, often as an incentive
to retire early.
10 A GLASS CEILING
a barrier that does not al-
low certain individuals, often minorities
and/or women, to rise to management
level. “Rhonda didn’t get the promo-
tion because that company has such
a glass ceiling.”
METHODS TO TEACH
BUSINESS ENGLISH
PHRASES
1 RAISE CONSCIOUSNESS ON
THE BUSINESS REGISTER
Explain that there is this thing called
the “business register,” language for
business situations, and how it differs
from everyday conversational English.
Give a few examples, and ask stu-
dents to do the same.
2 REAL EXAMPLES FROM
BUSINESS DOCUMENTS
Bring in samples from your own mail:
business phrases are there! Also have
students bring in their own samples.
Choose one and go over it as a class,
pointing out the phrases mostly from
the business register and how the
writer uses them. Also consider put-
ting students in groups and giving
each group a sample letter and have
them locate common business phras-
es.

3 PRACTICE WRITING
ASSIGNMENTS FROM THE
BUSINESS REGISTER. USE A
TARGET NUMBER OF PHRASES
Give students the task of writing a
document like the ones they have
been studying. Give a purpose to the
writing (to obtain payment, advertise
services, etc.)Then assign a set num-
ber of business phrases for students
to use.

4 PRACTICE WRITING
DOCUMENTS USING
TARGETED PHRASES
Select key phrases from model docu-
ments and discuss their functions: to
open, to introduce the reason for writ-
ing, to offer examples, to close, and
so forth. Give students a writing task
and some phrases they will need and
write.

5 ROLEPLAY
Have students in pairs or groups
roleplay specific situations: a job in-
terview, a meeting, a termination, etc.
See how long they can maintain the
business register, including its phras-
es.

THE BUSINESS REGISTER IS DIS-

TINCT FROM THE CONVERSATIONAL
ONE AND IS ENDEMIC THROUGH-
OUT OUR SOCIETY IN WORKPLACE
SITUATIONS.
Therefore, students should become
aware of and able to use the language
of this register.

21
 10 More Phrases
of Business English
WHEN TALKING ABOUT LANGUAGE,
PEOPLE SAY THAT THEY “SPEAK
FRENCH” OR “KNOW RUSSIAN,” AS
IF THESE ARE MONOLITHIC FORMS
WITHOUT VARIATION.
This is of course not true: there are
many dialects of English, for example,
such as British and American. But
even within these dialects there is
variation, variation of register, or situ-
ation in which the language is used:
the register I would use in a classroom
is not the one I’d use in a business
situation, and both are different from
what I use at home. It is this knowl-
edge of appropriate register that stu-
dents even fluent in English may lack
— sometimes bringing the register
appropriate for home and their neigh-
borhoods into a business situation,
for example. Learning the register of
business is not easy, even for native
speakers of English, and since many
ESL students hope for a business ca-
reer, teaching them the business lan-
guage is critical: the specific vocabu-
lary, phrases, and grammar that are
used in a business situation that var-
ies from that used elsewhere. In par-
ticular, phrases are helpful to learn in
a second language in that they com-
bine both vocabulary and grammati-
cal structures in ready-made bits of
language that students can produce
automatically at appropriate times.
Following are some common phrases
that students will find helpful for learn-
ing for a business situation.
10 PHRASES FOR
BUSINESS ENGLISH
1 A HEADS UP:
A warning or notice: “I just want-
ed to give you a heads up that the
meeting time has been changed from
11 a.m. to 2 p.m.” The phrase has its
origins in soldiers hiding behind a hill
or in dugouts from the enemy, cau-
tiously raising their heads to survey
the terrain.
22
2 IN THE DUMPS:
depressed, used for both people
and money: “The markets have been
in the dumps for the past week.”
3
TO TAKE IN A NOSE DIVE:
To fall sharply, as in a swimmer
taking a high and head-first dive into
a pool. “The markets took a nose dive
today.”
4
THE SCUTTLEBUTT:
Gossip or rumor in an office
situation. A scuttlebutt was the cask
around which sailors would gather to
drink fresh water during the day and
trade information, the equivalent of to-
day’s water cooler in an office setting.
5
A PINK SLIP:
The notice, traditionally pink,
given to an employee and serving as
notice that his or her job is in danger
of being eliminated.
6
A POSITIVE SPIN:
To interpret a story or fact in a
specific manner. “The boss tried to put
a positive on Mary’s leaving, but it is
very disheartening.” This expression
comes from spinning, the art of weav-
ing threads together to create cloth.
7
TO DOWNSIZE:
To shrink, become smaller. Indi-
viduals “downsize” or move to small-
er homes, usually after children are
grown. Companies downsize when
they lay off employees and sell hold-
ings, due to financial losses.
8 ON THE JOB MARKET:
To be actively looking for work.
Job seekers are seen as a “mar-
ket” from which potential employers
choose, and an individual looking for
a job becomes part of this market.
9 IN THE BLACK:
To be profitable, taking in more
money than spent. From accounting,
where traditionally positive income is
shown in black ink.
10
IN THE RED:
To be losing money,
spending more than taking in. Again
from accounting, where expenditures
are shown in red ink. Also used in ex-
pressions like “There was red ink all
over the books” or “The books were
flowing in red ink,” to show the finan-
cial crisis in a company.
METHODS FOR
TEACHING BUSINESS
ENGLISH PHRASES
1
DEFINE. SHOW THE CONNEC-
TION OF FIGURATIVE AND LIT-
ERAL SPEECH.
Begin by explicitly defining the ex-
pressions so that students have some
understanding of the terms before
beginning to use them (complete
understanding probably won’t come
until actually practicing the terms
and getting feedback on the usage.)
Connecting the figurative meaning of
terms — most of these terms are figu-
rative — to the literal from which they
are derived can help students under-
stand. For example, showing the con-
nection of the figurative terms “in the
black” and “in the red” to the literal
meanings derived from accountancy
by bringing in a financial statement
and showing the black and red ink will
give students a more complete under-
standing of the terms.
2 DEMONSTRATE IN CONTEXT
Before being able to use a term,
students have to hear and see it in
context numerous times. The term “to
take a nose dive” really gives little in-
formation on how to use it in speech
or writing. But if the teacher can mod-
el expressions like “The markets took
a nose dive today” and “student test
scores have recently taken a nose
dive” then students will begin to un-
derstand how to use the term.

3 MATCHING, FILL-IN-THE-BLANK,
SUBSTITUTION

Once students have some control over

the meaning of the terms, they can be-
gin to use them more in different exer-
cises for further processing to contin-
ue to develop their awareness of the
phrases. Such exercises as matching,
in which the term is matched with a
definition or synonym, fill-in-blank, or
placing the correct term in some ex-
tended discourse like a paragraph,
and substitution, the substitution of
an incorrect or inappropriate term with
the correct, will all give students ad-
dition al processing to develop their
understanding of the terms.

4 USE IN DISCUSSION

Once students have learned the

definition of the terms and worked
their way through the exercises, they
are ready for less structured activi-
ties, such as discussion in which they
have to use the terms, such as an as-
signment in which students discuss in
pairs or groups relevant topics such
as searching for a job and using at
least five of the expressions they have
learned.

5 USE IN WRITING

Again, the writing assignment,

now that students have practiced the
phrases, is less structured from the
earlier exercises. Students are given
a topic and asked to write on it, either
individually or in groups, using a set
number of the phrases. It can be a
more formal writing assignment, such
as an essay, or less form, such as a
journal.

LEARNING AN ENTIRELY NEW REG-

ISTER IS DIFFICULT. IT INVOLVES
NEW VOCABULARY, GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURES, AND PHRASES.
By focusing on phrases, students can
learn some ready-made and situation-
ally appropriate language that they
can call upon automatically in a busi-
ness situation.

23
Beyond Tweeting:
Writing the Business Memo
The “tweet,” the common term for a
short note posted on Twitter (e.g.: “My
printer just jammed. Darn it!”) It has its
own genre rules: brief--typically one or
two lines—personal, and often inconse-
quential. There are exceptions to this,
of course—I know people who use it
for various kinds of advertising, for ex-
ample. But its brief and personal nature
convinces me that it is the communica-
tion of our times.
Sometimes, however, students may be
called upon to engage in other written
genres with different requirements, such
as the business memo, which is also
short, although not as short as a tweet.
Not only is it short, but it’s also concise,
or short and focused on important is-
sues, and that is where it departs from
the tweet. Students should learn the fea-
tures of a memo as they will be called
upon to write them in the future.
FEATURES OF THE
BUSINESS MEMO
1 “TO,” “FROM,”
AND “SUBJECT” LINES
These three lines found at the top of the
memo are familiar to students through
email. These lines immediately focus
the reader on who sent the memo and
why.
2
BRIEF
The main feature a professional
memo has in common with a tweet is its
brevity. However, the memo is also con-
cise, meaning that important concerns
are packed into its short space and ad-
dressed in an economical way. So in-
stead of the tweet’s short but not nec-
essarily concise “The printer jammed,
darn it, but I did discover the handy
door in the back to clear the printer,”
an observation the reader can’t neces-
sarily do anything with, the memo will
state, “The printer keeps jamming. The
repairperson needs to be called. If that
doesn’t resolve the matter, a new printer
may need to be purchased.” In not much
more space than the tweet, the writer of
the memo has let the reader know the
reason for the communication and sug-
gested a couple of courses of action.
24
3 PURPOSEFUL
Focused on professional rather
than personal issues. The writer of the
memo has an at least implied purpose—
get the printer repaired—while the writer
of the tweet has no real purpose beyond
the communication itself and establish-
ing a connection with the reader.
4 IMPERSONAL IN TONE
A simple observation is made in
stating “The printer keeps jamming and
needs to be repaired.” By using the pas-
sive voice—“needs to be repaired”—the
author is not assigning blame nor hand-
ing out the task of repair. It is for this im-
personal tone that the passive is used in
business so much. This tone is in stark
contrast to the personal tone often found
in tweets and other informal written com-
munication: “The printer jammed! Those
darn kids have been messing with it
again...”
TEACHING THE
BUSINESS MEMO
1 DEFINE IT.
SHOW AN EXAMPLE
Students are likely to have never seen
a memo. Show a simple example on the
projector and analyze its various parts,
such as the heading, message portion,
and signature line.
2
COMPARE IT
TO OTHER GENRES
How is a memo like an email? A tweet?
A text? Discuss how the different forms
are alike and different, perhaps outlining
those differences on the board in col-
umns. Discuss why the differences exist
and the audiences each form is directed
at. In this way, students begin to develop
a sense of audience and genre expecta-
tions.
3
DISCUSS SITUATIONS
...where the memo is needed:
announcements, requests, reports.
To further develop this sense of genre,
discuss situations in which the memo
is used: typically announcements, e.g.,
“We have the pleasure of announcing
that Ms. Jan Smith will be joining us
as the new administrative assistant...”
or “Parking Lot A is being resurfaced.
Please use Parking Lot B until further
notice.” Requests are also often made in
memos: “Your assistance is requested
in disposing of food items in the kitchen
rather than office garbage, as the smell
can get quite strong sometimes...” In
addition, short reports are sometimes
made in memos: “The milestones for
our fundraiser were all met successfully
this year, with a total of X dollars raised.”
By analyzing these examples, students
begin to gain a sense of the genre ex-
pectations.
4 ANALYZE THE FORMAT
Have students take a more de-
tailed look at the example or examples,
noting what typically comes first, where
the “meat” of the message is, or the
main point, and how the writer draws the
message to a close. By looking at sever-
al different memos with different topics
but with the same format, students will
begin to understand the genre format.
5 PRACTICE
Finally, have students come up
with their own topics or assign topics,
perhaps on 3x5 cards, to each student.
Also assign partners and have students
write memos to each other on a topic,
such as addressing increased employ-
ee tardiness. Students can discuss the
topic with each other briefly and then
write the memo to their partners. They
may write in long hand or on computers
if your classroom is computer-assisted.
IN SUMMARY, THE TWEET AND THE
MEMO ARE NOT ONLY TWO DIF-
FERENT TYPES OF WRITING - THEY
REPRESENT THE DIFFERENT GENRE
EXPECTATIONS OF THE PERSONAL
AND THE BUSINESS WORLD.
In introducing and teaching the business
memo, the teacher introduces the ex-
pectations of professional written com-
munication: concise, goal-oriented, and
impersonal, which is very different from
the personal and informal written world
students have inhabited so far, but it is
this business world they are on the cusp
of entering.
Further Beyond Tweeting:
The Business Proposal
OFTEN BUSINESS WRITING IS
DISCUSSED AS IF IT WERE ONE
GENRE—AS IF IN THE ARENA OF
BUSINESS, THAT IS, PEOPLE WRITE
IN ONLY ONE STYLE AND FORMAT.
This isn’t exactly true, any more than
the tweet represents all of the writ-
ing in social networking or electronic
communication: there are also emails,
Facebook postings, text messages,
and so on. And while all of these forms
share certain characteristics--they are
all brief, informal, and have a specific
jargon--so does business have shared
characteristics for its different forms.
As with electronic communication,
business English also values brevity,
but it is formal and direct. Jargon is
usually frowned on. However, within
the larger genre of Business English
also lie the subgenres of the memo,
the letter, as well as the proposal.
WHAT IS A BUSINESS
PROPOSAL AND
WHY SHOULD YOUR
STUDENTS LEARN IT?
A business proposal is a presenta-
tion, written and usually also spoken,
to demonstrate to the audience the
presenter’s desire and capability to
achieve some goal—with the support
of the audience, which the present-
er with the proposal is seeking. The
goal may to open a business, start a
program, attend a work-related con-
ference, and so forth. Ability to write
a proposal is a valuable skill for pro-
fessionals and future professionals
because seeking and gaining the sup-
port of other professionals in the field
is necessary to advance.
CHARACTERISTICS OF
PROPOSALS
1
CLEAR
The proposal should state clear-
ly at the outset what the author hopes
to do: “The writer seeks support in de-
veloping and then publishing a collec-
tion of creative writing written by ESL
students.” The audience should not
be left confused about what the pro-
posal writer wants to do.
2
DIRECT
Proposals are also direct about
what they want from the audience:
“Funding of $500 and classroom re-
lease time of 20 hours is sought for
the completion of project.” In order to
support the writer appropriately, her
readers need to know exactly what is
being asked of them.
3
SPECIFIC
Proposals are also specific as
possible: “Five hundred dollars is re-
quested for the publication at the end
of the term of this 100-page book.”
4 “SELL”
Good proposals “sell” their proj-
ect: they seek the audience’s support
for the program through enthusiastic
promotion of the project. “With this
publication, students will get a chance
to see their work published and de-
velop understanding of the writing and
publishing process.”
5 SUPPORTING EVIDENCE
Good proposals also use evi-
dence such as similar programs that
are successful, evidence from re-
search, student and teacher material
and testimonies, and so forth.
HOW TO TEACH
PROPOSALS
1 SHOW A MODEL
Tell students they will write a
similar proposal by the end of term.
Pull out a proposal you have writ-
ten or borrow one from a colleague.
It shouldn’t take long to find one as
many educators have at least put
together a proposal to present at or
travel to a conference. It’s valuable for
students to see a final product so that
they know what goal they are aiming
for. Most students know what an es-
say should look like when complete,
- not everyone has seen a proposal,
however.
2
DISCUSS THE PURPOSE
OF PROPOSALS
Students also already know the pur-
pose of writing an essay: at worse,
to get the teacher off their backs, at
best, to express an opinion on some-
thing. They are less familiar with the
purpose of a more authentic piece of
writing, such as a proposal. Discuss
with students the purpose of the writ-
ing (to get an audience to approve a
project) and how that relates directly
to the assumed audience and how the
message is delivered.
3 DISCUSS THE PROCESS
All proposals begin with the
goal: what do you hope to achieve?
Develop an after school program for
kids? Improve the playground equip-
ment at a neighborhood park? Apply
for funding to attend a writer’s confer-
ence? There is almost no limit of goals
for a proposal, but the goal should be
selected first because if my goal is to
improve the playground equipment at
my local park, that will determine my
audience as probably a group of city
officials, which in turn will determine
my tone as business-like, direct, and
impersonal. Take students through the
process of writing the proposal: from
determining a goal and audience to
preparing supporting materials such a
videotapes or pictures and presenting
the proposal before an audience.
4 GET STUDENTS EXCITED.
DISCUSS THEIR PASSIONS
Getting students excited about their
passions and the possibility of seeing
them recognized if not completely re-
alized generates palpable excitement
in a class. For example, the young
hip-hop enthusiast, suddenly impas-
sioned about his proposal for an af-
ter-school hip-hop program, demon-
strates dance steps for his peers or
puts together a presentation that in-
25
 cludes video of him dancing. Students
who were formerly passive in class
when given the opportunity to write
about their own interests become ar-
ticulate speakers and writers.

5 DEVELOP A SENSE OF AU-

DIENCE. DO PEER REVIEW
The proposal is one of the most pow-
erful tools to give students a sense
of audience. Their “audience” (the
teacher) which they were only aware
of in the abstract when writing essays,
comes alive when students face the
proposal and the at least theoretical
possibility of presenting it someday
before a committee who might choose
to fund or otherwise support it. With
this mind, students willing engage in
peer review to see if their classmates
understand their main message and
aren’t distracted by errors in the writ-
ing.

6 PRACTICE
Finally, have students practice
their completed drafts, perhaps with
their classmates standing in as a com-
mittee who might fund the proposal.
Have the committees offer feedback
on each proposal: both positive and
areas for improvement. You might
also have them discuss whether they
would fund each proposal and why or
why not.

THE PROPOSAL IS NOT A FORM ALL

STUDENTS HAVE ENGAGED WITH
BUT WHICH THEY IN ALL LIKELI-
HOOD WILL, IN THEIR ADULT LIFE.
It is also a powerful tool for generating
a sense of audience and opportunity
for students to write about their pas-
sions.

26
10 Sports Idioms Your Students
Need to Know for the Workplace
SPORTS ARE SOMETHING OF AN
OBSESSION IN AMERICAN CULTURE,
Idiomatic Meaning: to meet a goal
easily and without opposition.
10 TO DROP THE BALL
— American football: Acci-

AND DISCUSSION OF THEM IS NOT
LIMITED TO THE SPORTS FANATIC.
In fact, some knowledge of sports
may be required even of people who
don’t enjoy them to even successfully
engage in small talk, for example. In
addition, understanding idioms from
sports may be required to function not
only in informal situations but more
formal: recently at the Democratic
National Convention, for example,
former President Bill Clinton’s speech
was said by a reporter to have “hit it
out of the ballpark,” a term drawn from
baseball, when a player hits the ball
so hard and far that it allows everyone
on base to score: therefore, I know
from this idiom that Clinton’s speech
4
OUT IN LEFT FIELD
— Baseball: Left field is “out,”
where the game is not played and no
scores made.
Idiomatic Meaning: A person who is
out in left field makes off-topic or out-
landish remarks, that don’t seem part
of the “game.”
5
THE HOME STRETCH
— Baseball: the very last part of
the game at the end of the ninth in-
ning.
Idiomatic meaning: The “homestretch”
of a project is the final phase.
dentally dropping the ball allows the
other team the possibility of scoring.
Idiomatic Meaning: To make a serious
mistake, usually through inattention
or carelessness, that affects a whole
team or group.
METHODS FOR
TEACHING SPORTS
IDIOMS
1 DISCUSSION
OF THE SPORT
Many ESL students have little knowl-
edge of American football, basketball,
and baseball and therefore might

was a rousing success, at least in the
view of this reporter. Knowing idioms
like this is important to function in
both informal and formal situations in
American English, so teaching these
idioms should be part of the ESL cur-
riculum.
6
TO STRIKE OUT
— Baseball: a player who
swings at a ball three times and does
not hit it properly strikes out and must
have trouble connecting idioms to the
sport. Spend some time explaining
each sport, the object of the game,
and how it is played.

10 COMMON SPORTS
go to the end of the line.
Idiomatic Meaning: To strike out in a
business deal is to fail after trying.
2 MATCH THE IDIOM
TO THE SPORT
Once students understand the sports,
IDIOMS FOR THE ESL
7
connect the idioms that go with it. For
CLASS TO NOT GET
example, once students understand
TO FIRST BASE the object of baseball is to hit the ball,

1 TO DO AN END RUN
AROUND
— American football: when a player
goes around a teammate to score in-
stead of passing the ball.
Idiomatic Meaning: To leave a key
— Baseball: a player who strikes out
cannot go to first base to attempt to
score but must go to the end of the
run around the bases and get back to
home plate, and avoid being called
“out,” then students will begin to un-
derstand how “to strike out” and “to
line.
not get to first base” are connected
Idiomatic Meaning: To try at a venture
idioms.
or project but fail to even complete the

3
first stage.
person out of a process. MATCH THE DEFINITION

2 TO HIT IT
OUT OF THE BALLPARK
— Baseball: a ball that is hit out of the
ballpark will allow everyone on base
8 A HOME RUN
— Baseball: to run around the
TO THE IDIOM
Once students have connected idi-
oms to their respect sports, they can
plates to home plate and score.
begin to produce definitions for each
Idiomatic Meaning: a big success.
idiom, first by matching the definition

9
to score. to the idiom and then by generating
Idiomatic Meaning: to meet a goal
TO PASS THE BALL the definitions on their own.
more than was expected. — American football and basket-

3 A SLAM DUNK
ball: to hand off the ball to a teammate
rather than trying to score oneself.
Idiomatic Meaning: To give a task,
4 PRACTICE
IN CONVERSATION
— Basketball: to score in one It’s now time to practice the idioms
usually undesirable, to a colleague.
shot by evading blocking to shoot the in speaking. Have students choose
ball through the hoop. about three idioms and practice using

27
 them first in a short “speech” or mono-
logue on their own and then practice
using them in dialogue.

5 TEACH CORRECT
PRONUNCIATION
Idiom instruction is the perfect time to
teach correct stress and pronuncia-
tion, especially what the French call
“liaison,” or the connecting of words
in rapid speech. To just take the first
idiom on the list, the phrase “to do an
end run around” is not pronounced
that way, with each syllable receiving
equal stress, but rather something like
“tuh-do-uh-end-run-uhround,” with the
content words stressed and the struc-
ture/grammar syllables unstressed
“schwa” sounds pronounced “uh,” and
then the whole phrase run together.
This is native, fluent speech, and be-
cause idioms are even more connect-
ed than most speech, a perfect time to
teach liaison.

6 PRACTICE THE IDIOM

IN WRITING
Believe it or not, these idioms are so
pervasive that they are used in writ-
ing, sometimes relatively formal writ-
ing, like business memos and letters.
A team leader might very well email
his team with gratitude that they are
finally in the “home stretch” of a proj-
ect. Have students see if they can use
three to five idioms in a memo or letter
on a specific topic either assigned by
the teacher or generated by the stu-
dent.

TEACHING SPORTS IDIOMS MAY

SEEM A PERIPHERAL PART OF
THE CURRICULUM THAN SOME
CONCERNS, SUCH AS TEACHING
CORRECT SENTENCE STRESS AND
WRITING.
That is true to some extent, but these
idioms are such a large part of U.S.
culture that pronunciation and writ-
ing tasks can be easily connected to
them.

28
Business English Lessons:
Successful Activities
Students from across the globe are
taking Business English lessons and
the reasons are obvious. In today’s
globalized world, English is the lan-
guage of choice when it comes to
conducting business. Moreover, those
who speak English, and speak it well,
often have a competitive advantage
over their business rivals. And those
who seek better job opportunities also
turn to Business English courses to
increase their chances of success in
today’s tough job market. These Busi-
ness English students are very differ-
ent from other ESL learners. You’ll find
they are highly motivated and will em-
brace the activities you set forth with
great enthusiasm, as long as these
activities are targeted to help them
meet their communication goals.
So, without further ado, here are
some great activities for the Business
English class.
SPEAKING ACTIVITIES
The best type of speaking activity for
students who wish to polish their Busi-
ness English involves role plays. All
you have to do is place your students
in real-life situations and roles.
1
THE JOB INTERVIEW
First have students come up
with a list of some of the most com-
mon job interview questions. These
may include any of the following:
What can you tell me about your-
self?
Why do you want to work for us?
What were your responsibilities at
your last job?
What is your biggest strength?
What is your biggest weakness?
Which skills and abilities do you
possess?
What are your qualifications?
What motivates you to do a good
job?
Why should we hire you?
Ask students to brainstorm possible
answers to each of these questions.
Remind them of the usual interview
strategies, like presenting a weak-
ness that is actually a strength. Have
students pair up and take turns being
interviewer and job applicant. Walk
around the classroom to offer assis-
tance as needed.
2 COMPANY RUNDOWN
For this activity, you’ll need to
use real-life, original materials. Ask
students to bring in brochures, leaf-
lets, or any type of sales literature
from their companies, or bring some
material yourself (you can print Web
pages that clearly list a company’s
services and products). Discuss with
students what visitors to the company
might want to know, what informa-
tion they might seek, etc... With the
help of the brochures and sales copy,
students brainstorm different ways in
which to present the company’s ser-
vices:
- We supply quality Web design.
- We adhere to the industry’s high-
est standards of quality.
- We provide IT solutions and offer
live assistance 24/7.
Students take turns playing the roles
of visitor and company employee.
You may download the complete pro-
cedure for this role play, here: busy-
teacher.org/3049-company-rundown-
business-english-role-play.html.
WRITING ACTIVITIES
The most successful writing activi-
ties for students of Business English,
center on email writing, naturally, be-
cause it’s the type of writing that most
students are expected to handle on a
daily basis.
Fortunately, there are several work-
sheets available at BusyTeacher.org,
from sample emails to email writing
exercises. Also, a very useful work-
sheet to share with students is the
one that presents the 32 Most Impor-
tant Email Etiquette Tips. And don’t
forget to assign email for homework!
READING AND
VOCABULARY
BUILDING
Students of Business English need a
great deal of vocabulary to feel con-
fident enough to conduct business
in English. You can supply them with
endless vocabulary lists, but they
need to practice these words in con-
text. And there’s no better context
than the current business events we
read about in the newspaper every
day.
1 NEWSPAPER
OR MAGAZINE CLIPPINGS
Choose short newspaper or maga-
zine articles, or extracts. Give each
student one short article or extract,
with 3 or 4 questions they must an-
swer. Students read and answer the
comprehension questions. Students
then ask each other: “Have you heard
the latest about ABC Telecom?” And
proceed to summarize the news.
2
WIKIPEDIA ENTRIES
AND BUSINESS BLOGS
There are countless reading resourc-
es available on the Internet, from
Wikipedia entries to business blog
posts. If the texts are too complex or
too difficult for your students, you may
choose to give them your own simpli-
fied version. Whatever you choose
to have students read, each reading
exercise must be accompanied by a
series of steps, for a successful learn-
ing experience.
Here’s an example with this Wikipedia
entry on the recession - en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Recession (first two para-
graphs).
Steps:
• Warm up to introduce the topic:
Ask students what they know
about an economic recession.
• Introduce key vocabulary: in this
case, contraction, investment
spending, employment, inflation,
etc. and practice through exam-
ples.
• Ask students a general question
about the text and have them skim
the text for the answer: “What
generally causes a recession?”
29
 • Students read the text again to
answer more specific questions.

PRESENTATION SKILLS
Whether they already give presenta-
tions or not on a daily basis, it is es-
sential for your students to be pre-
pared to give them. It’s also a great
way to practice key vocabulary. In
the following example, the teacher in-
troduces the language of charts and
graphs.

CHARTS AND GRAPHS

First go over the differences between
a pie chart, bar graph, and line graph,
and provide examples. Then intro-
duce the language of charts: increase,
decrease, go up, go down, rise, fall,
jump, slump, improve, decline, slight,
gradual, sharp, dramatic, major, etc.
Present students two charts, for ex-
ample, figures for the first and sec-
ond quarter, and give them examples:
“There was a gradual increase in
sales” or “Sales increased gradu-
ally in the second quarter”. Students
practice presenting the information on
other charts, which may include mar-
ket share comparison (Blackberry has
captured a greater share of the mar-
ket, while Palm has lost market share
in the second quarter), sales figures,
profits, taxes, etc.

TO PROVIDE SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

ENGLISH LESSONS ALL YOU HAVE
TO DO IS FOCUS ON YOUR STU-
DENTS’ NEEDS.
Do they need to write in English?
Speak English on the telephone?
General business vocabulary or more
specific ter ms? If you cater to their
needs, you’ll not only be preparing
them to face the business world with
the right English skills, but also help-
ing them on the road to success!

30
15 Activities That Your Business
English Students Will Love
TEACHING ENGLISH CAN BE A
FICKLE BUSINESS AT TIMES AND
SOMETIMES THE TEACHER MAY
FEEL LIKE MORE AN ENTERTAINER
THAN ANYTHING ELSE.
Whatever it takes to get one’s stu-
dents learning, however, can only
be a good thing and there is a huge
range of different games and activities
that can be used.
A lot of the time people who teach
business English will have core text
books that they need to stick to, but
the learning process can be made a
little bit easier by adding in a few extra
activities. It will keep the students’ at-
tention focused and as well as this, it
will also allow them to relax. Whether
it be a warmer, something to fill the
gap or a relaxing activity at the end,
here is a list of activities that most
Business English students will enjoy.
TRY THESE 15 GREAT
BUSINESS ENGLISH
ACTIVITIES THAT
YOUR STUDENTS WILL
LOVE
1 HANG MAN
Everybody loves to play games
in class. Many of us will remember
times during school when the teacher
would play a games on the board in
order to keep the class interested.
It seemed a lot more fun than doing
normal work, and with adults this is
no different. Hangman involves the
students having to guess a particular
word. You think of a word, and draw a
line of blank boxes on the board which
indicate how many letters the word
has. Students then ask for clues to the
word, and then add letters. For every
letter they get wrong, a body part is
drawn. Once the picture is complete,
the man is “hanged” so to speak and
they lose. If they win, however, the
entire word will be spelled out on the
board. Undoubtedly this is a great
way of practicing English and getting
the class involved.
2 CHINESE WHISPERS
Another way to get the students’
minds going is a game of Chinese
Whispers. A lot of people might think
of it as a childish game, but it is im-
portant to remember that even adults
need to unwind sometimes. Come up
with a specific phrase, give it to one
student, and then they have to whis-
per it to their partner and it is passed
along like this. It will definitely be inter-
esting to examine the end result com-
pared to the beginning.
3
JOB SKILLS INTERVIEW
For those who are interested in
reviewing their own skills, setting up a
mock interview is a great way of help-
ing the students to become more con-
fident. Get them to come up with their
own questions for the candidate, and
then let them find a partner with which
to practice. This will build up their own
confidence and allow them to get bet-
ter with conversational skills.
4 TELEPHONE ROLE PLAY
This is a fairly simple one which
everyone will love. Get the class to
divide into pairs and write up a small
conversational piece. When practic-
ing this role play, the students need
to sit back to back in order to simulate
talking on the phone. This will get to
speak a lot more, since they have only
their voice to rely on.
5
CALL MY BLUFF
This is a very popular game
which students will also enjoy. Divide
the class into two groups or more, de-
pending on big it is. Give each group a
specific word, and also give them the
correct meaning of it. The groups then
attempt to fool one another by having
a list of meanings for that one word,
only one of which is true.
6
TWENTY QUESTIONS
This can be quite a humorous
game to play and definitely will get
a few laughs from everyone. Have
somebody sit in front of the board,
and write the name of a famous per-
son above their heads. They then
have to ask the class questions about
the person until they find out who it is.
7
WRITE A STORY
This activity can be used for ei-
ther the improvement of conversation-
al skills or writing skills. It follows the
same idea of the “story stick” whereby
a student comes up with the first sen-
tence of the story, and the second
comes up with the next, and so on.
This can turn into a very entertaining
piece and can do wonders in helping
the students to get better.
8
SIMON SAYS
This game can be used to test a
wide range of vocabulary knowledge,
from parts of the body to objects
which are in the room. Students have
to listen to what the teacher says, and
go over and touch that particular ob-
ject when the teacher says, “Simon
says... Go to the chair.” This is gener-
ally played with lower levels.
9 SIMULATION GAMES
Quite similar to a role play. This
difference is, the students set up their
own scenario and have to act it out
in front of the class. This means they
have no set lines they have to adhere
to, and therefore anything goes as
long as they are speaking English.
10
ICEBREAKER
Often this particular activ-
ity can be used as a warm up for the
start of a new class. Compose a list of
questions, such as “Who has a dog?”
and other trivial pieces of information.
Distribute them to students, and then
get the students to go about filling
in the answers from others. This will
definitely help them to improve their
conversational skills and get to know
others in the class.
31
 11 SENTENCE BUILDING
Use this activity to test out
tivities and it is often a good idea to
take a look up on various Business
English websites to find more ideas.
Tailoring various games to suit busi-
your students’ own knowledge by get-
ting them to build sentences them- ness English is pretty easy, and it is
selves on the board. A noun phrase undoubtedly a great way to boost the
generally works at the start, by sim- students’ confidence whilst helping
ply adding, “The old woman.” Get the them have fun at the same time.
students to add adjectives, preposi-
tions and other sentence parts to form
something that is clear and makes
sense.

12 DRAW THE WORD

This is a particularly in-
teresting exercises whereby one can
test the abilities of their students. Get
one of them to come up to the front
of the class and give the rest of the
class a word to describe. They can-
not say the actual word, they must al-
low the person to draw it. Therefore,
it must be a concrete noun of some
kind, usually a complicated one which
can be described in detail. This can
be quite a lot of fun and everyone can
participate.

13 PICK OUT WORDS

This one is a little more
complicated. When reading a text, jot
down certain words on the board and
have the students try and think of new
words. Even if they don’t come up
with much, it is a great way of teach-
ing new vocabulary.

14 YOUTUBE ACTIVITY
When studying a particu-
lar topic, Youtube clips or a video of
some kind can be a great way to let
the student practice their listening
skills. Choose a video relevant to the
topic at hand (such as a newscast)
and play it. Afterwards, ask questions
about it orally.

15 CLASS SURVEY
When studying marketing,
this could be a great way of helping
students break the ice in their first
classes. Get them to survey each oth-
er on a wide range of topics, as it will
get them talking in English and using
it proactively.

THERE ARE MANY, MANY MORE

WAYS THROUGH WHICH ONE CAN
GET STUDENTS TO PRACTICE THEIR
ENGLISH SKILLS.
Of course, these are not the only ac-

32
How to Teach Business English:
Employment
When starting out, many teachers might
find themselves intimidated by these
words. Business English undoubtedly
sounds very professional, and appears
to require a whole range of different skills
and qualifications. This is not necessar-
ily so. Being a native English speaker
or someone of near-native level will un-
doubtedly be one of the first steps with
regards to this. When one steps into a
business English class, it is important to
realise the goal first and foremost. You will
be there to teach people how to improve
their English communication skills within
a business setting. It is just like teaching
English in any other sense, the only differ-
ence is that it is focused on doing it within
a corporate setting as opposed to a ca-
sual, everyday set-up.
HOW TO TEACH
BUSINESS ENGLISH:
EMPLOYMENT
1 SUSS OUT THE CLASS
One of the first things to remember
is that you will be teaching adults. De-
pending on where you are, this could be a
single one-on-one class or a large group.
Some of the students may be paying for
the classes themselves, whilst other will
be sent their by a company. Students who
pay for their own classes tend to be more
interested and motivated. For students
sent by their employer, it is possible that
they could see this as time off work.
2 SETTING THE GOAL
Keeping the class interested and
engaged will be one of the first things one
needs to do. It is paramount that the stu-
dents do more talking than the teacher.
This is referred to Student Talking Time as
opposed to Teacher Talking Time. When
beginning, it will be you who is speaking
the most. The aim of the class will be to
gradually decrease one’s own amount of
speaking and allow the students to take
over.
3 GRAB THEIR INTEREST
So in order to find a topic which might
interest everyone, employment would be
a good place to start. Students might start
to “come out of their shell” so to speak, if
you begin to ask them about their work
and their hours. It is well known that most
people like to complain, and this could be
a chance for them to vent. In venting any
frustration they might have, they will be
using English and attaining the goal you
originally set out to do.
4 BUILD VOCABULARY
So to begin, a good idea would be to
elicit words from the students with regards
to employment. “Contract”, “pay check”
and others could be written up on the
board. A word of warning: don’t go prying
into the student’s lives and ask them what
their pay is. Rather focus on the aspects
of being employed. It is also important to
steer away from any negative comments
about a particular employer. Rather, focus
on the positive or the everyday aspects of
the job.
5 TIME TO DEVELOP
With a fresh bank of vocabulary now
available, it might be a good idea to en-
courage the students further. One of the
ways of doing this is to come up with an
activity or a game. Perhaps even a role-
play. Setting up a mock interview would
also be a good idea. In doing this, the stu-
dents will get a chance to speak to the
imaginary “employer” and answer ques-
tions through English.
6 ELICITING WORDS
From this mock interview process,
we can then elicit more words from the
students. Eliciting words will help the stu-
dents to think, rather than being spoon-fed
by their instructor. So to begin with, have
the students pair up. Give them a topic, or
make them come up with their own. Then,
ask one to be the employer and one to be
the candidate. Give the “employers” a few
minutes to create some questions for the
“candidate” to answer.
7 ALLOW SOME
SUPERVISED FREE REIGN
Allow the class about ten minutes to prac-
tice their role-plays. Walk around and
make sure that they are speaking English,
and see if anybody has any problems.
By keeping an eye on them, they will be
more likely to speak in English to one an-
other rather than slipping back into their
native tongue. Listen and keep score until
the very end, and then end the exercise.
8 KEEP FOCUS ON NEW WORDS
Ask questions of the students. What
skills did X have. Try and elicit more
words. For example, if a student mentions
the verb “buy”, ask them if there are any
other verbs which mean the same thing.
This will definitely help to expand the vo-
cabulary of the students, and allow their
brains to get thinking.
9 THE PRACTICE SESSION
Once we have collected a large
amount of vocabulary, it is time to put it
into use. Get two students to come up to
the front of the class and act as a candi-
date and employer, echoing the previous
exercise. Give them a few minutes to pre-
pare, but this time they must use some of
the new words that you have written out
on the board and gotten from other stu-
dents.
10 BUILDING CONFIDENCE
Everyone else will be able to
sit back and watch the interplay. By com-
ing up in front of the class, they will be en-
couraged to speak a little louder and talk
more in English. If time permits, one could
do this for all the groups present although
this is not necessary. Alternatively, one
could choose to simply re-do the role-play
exercise but with the new vocabulary.
11
REMEMBER THE GOAL
The key to business English is
to teach the students how to use it within
a business setting, and apart from that
the addition of new vocabulary is always
a plus. When students are familiar with
grammar structures and how to use them,
all one can do is to build on their bank of
word knowledge, and teach them how to
apply it to a specific scenario or situation.
ROLE-PLAYS ARE AN ESSENTIAL COM-
PONENT OF BUSINESS ENGLISH, AS
THEY ALLOW THE STUDENTS TO EX-
PRESS THEMSELVES IN A CERTAIN
MANNER. Any activity, especially from
the reading of a specific text, will also al-
low for more vocabulary opportunities to
arise. So when heading into one’s first
business English class, there is no need
for alarm. At the end of the day, business
English is just giving people instruction in
a specific manner of talking.
33
 Must-Do Projects
for the Business ESL Class
SO YOU’VE JUST BEEN ASSIGNED
YOUR FIRST BUSINESS ESL CLASS.
YOU’RE FEELING THAT EXCITEMENT
THAT COMES FROM TEACHING A
NEW CURRICULUM AND CLASS, BUT
YOU’RE ALSO NERVOUS.
You know how to teach a “regular,”
more traditional ESL class: you focus
a lot on grammar and perhaps struc-
ture the class around it, with auxiliary
attention to related vocabulary, con-
versation, and pronunciation, with ev-
erything tied neatly to a prepackaged
ESL text and DVDs. You know what
the students need, how to preassess
them and where to start them in the
text. But what about the Business
ESL class? It’s not so clear-cut, and
your institution may not have a sug-
gested text or curriculum and may be
relying on you to make most of those
decisions. So what does the Business
ESL student need and how do you
teach her?
TOP 5 NEEDS FOR
BUSINESS ESL
STUDENT
1 WORKPLACE
CONVERSATION
This may seem elementary, but it’s
often forgotten that the most critical
need of ESL students, even those
that seem relatively advanced, is the
ability to speak to native speakers of
English with clarity and confidence.
And the conversation that occurs in
the workforce—impersonal, work-
related—is widely different from the
more everyday conversation that oc-
curs in class and neighborhoods. This
conversation has its own etiquette, a
careful balance between the casual
and too casual: you would not ad-
dress your boss as “Dude” but nor
would you call him “Sir” in most cir-
cumstances outside of the military.
2 TECHNICAL/WORK TERMS
Business English is replete with
specialized “work” terms, even if it is
not really technical to a specific field:
timesheet, desktop, mousepad, W-2,
34
job description - all are terms that
the native speaker of American Eng-
lish began learning upon entering
the workforce at sixteen or eighteen
and has been using for years - these
terms may be entirely new to our ESL
students. Sometimes these words
and phrases change and confuse
even the native speaker: sometime
about ten years ago, for example, the
office I had for years called “person-
nel” became “Human Resources” or
“HR,” that department charged with
hiring, firing, staff-related complaints,
and other employee concerns. Devel-
oping the vocabulary needed for the
workplace is an ongoing process.
3
IDIOMS
Workplace idioms are separate
from idioms used in more everyday
conversations. Because the focus is
often on goals and outcomes, a lot of
workplace idioms are sports- related:
from baseball’s “to hit it out of the
ballpark” (to have a great success) to
basketball’s “a slam dunk,” (a quick,
unopposed score) and American foot-
ball’s “to do an end run around” (to go
around the usual rules or procedures
in pursuing a goal), the workplace
is replete with these terms. Without
knowing these and the relationship
to the sports they are drawn from, it
might be hard to take part in some
workplace conversations in the U.S.
4 PHONE AND EMAIL
ETIQUETTE
Phone and email etiquette are also
both areas that require practice even
for native speakers. Phone is courte-
ous, fast, and impersonal, with a focus
on outcomes—getting the appropriate
message to the appropriate person-
-rather than relating to the caller, while
at the same remaining polite. Have
students practice taking and leaving
messages both in and out of class.
5 WORKPLACE DOCUMENTS
There are a lot of workplace
documents specific to the workplace:
resumes, memos, letters, reports,
proposals - all are documents stu-
dents might reasonably be asked
to write in their future professions.
Again, they comprise a specific genre
of “workplace writing,” which is con-
cise, goal-oriented, and impersonal
with expected features for each doc-
ument: for example, memos come
with an expected heading of who the
memo is for, who it is from, and what it
is regarding, much like an email.
TEACHING BUSINESS
OR WORKPLACE
ENGLISH
So there is this different genre of Eng-
lish related to the workplace. How do
we go about teaching it to our ESL
students?
1 TAKE
A NEEDS ASSESSMENT
Find out what your students are inter-
ested in. While they all might be in-
terested in workplace English, some
might be more interested in the Eng-
lish for engineering, for example,
while others are interested in Eng-
lish for information technology—both
types of workplace English, but with
their own specialized vocabularies
and written forms. Often in a class
most of the students are in similar ma-
jors, like pharmacy, which will make
the instructor’s job a little easier in that
the focus is narrowed, and the instruc-
tor will know what kind of vocabulary
and writing students will need to use
in English.
2 CONTACT
THE DEPARTMENTS
...that Represent the Common Majors
in Your Class.
If you contact the department chair
or professor of a department the
students study within, you might be
pleasantly surprised at your recep-
tion. For example, the chair of the
business department at the university
I teach ESL students took the time to
have lunch with me and discuss some
of the concerns ESL students typically
had in business classes, while I talked
about the concerns ESL students face
at the college level. We both left with
a stronger understanding of what ESL
students needed to learn in ESL to
survive in their business classes.
less essay than usual and will instead
focus on writing a report. Or instead
of writing journals in which they reflect
on an assigned topic, they can write
memos, focusing either on assigned
workplace topics (e.g., fixing the copy
machine) or ones they have devised
themselves (the parking situation in
the back lot). After all, few students
except English majors will write es-

3 SEE
ABOUT THE AVAILABILITY
...of a Strong Textbook in Workplace
English.
For an online writing class I’m teach-
ing in nonfiction, I found an excellent,
classic text On Writing Well by the
great William Zinsser, online, down-
loadable, and completely free as it’s
out of copywrite. Not everyone can
be so lucky, but there are many good,
and free, materials online, and once
you locate them, they help you in
structuring your course.
says, stories, or poems after college,
so it makes sense to focus on the kind
of writing students will do.
SO WHILE YOU MAY HAVE STARTED
OUT THE SEMESTER NOT QUITE
KNOWING WHAT TO DO IN YOUR
BUSINESS ENGLISH CLASS, BEFORE
LONG, YOU HAVE TOO MUCH TO DO.
With expanding their workplace vo-
cabularies, practicing conversation for
the workplace, and working on their
business writing skills, students will
be busy all semester long and soon
ready to communicate with ease in
the workplace.

4 VOCABULARY STUDY
Most students have an intuitive
sense that language learning is about
words, not grammatical structures.
And research supports that: one of
the best ways to improve a student’s
academic and professional aspects is
to help increase her academic vocab-
ulary. Find out through books, the in-
ternet, and asking people what terms
students are most likely to use in their
fields (e.g., “dialysis” in medicine is
treatment for kidney failure) besides
the more common terms used in most
workplaces.

5 WORKPLACE
CONVERSATIONS
What do you say when you have to
ask to borrow something from a co-
worker? Ask the boss for time off?
Show a colleague how to do some-
thing? Practice different and com-
mon workplace conversations. Make
up sets of index cards with just the
addressee and the concern on them
(e.g.: Your boss, the copy machine is
jammed again) and have students ro-
leplay in pairs.

6 WRITING PRACTICE
Set time aside each day to prac-
tice writing skills, again focusing on
the genres students need for their
majors. So perhaps they will do one

35
Teaching
Essential Business Phone Etiquette
RECENTLY A FAMILY FRIEND TOLD ME
TACTFULLY IT WAS NO LONGER NEC-
ESSARY TO LEAVE MY FULL NAME ON
OR MY CONTACT INFORMATION ON HIS
ANSWERING MACHINE AS I WAS THE
ONLY “STACIA” OF HIS ACQUAINTANCE,
AND HE HAD MY PHONE NUMBER.
I laughed, a little embarrassed, realizing
I was out of habit practicing business
phone etiquette with a personal friend.
However, the reverse is a far more com-
mon problem in my experience: one
of the reasons I give my full name and
phone number is that more than once
I’ve answered the phone to be greeted
with “Hi, this is Steve,” and was left won-
dering which Steve was speaking: my
brother? Fellow committee member at
work? Repair person? Voices can be
difficult to recognize over the phone,
even those belonging to someone you
are close to, so determining who is on
the line can be challenging without a full
name. In addition, I also get messages
in my voice mail to the effect that Steve
is calling and I should call back — with
no contact information or reason for the
call. Given the choice of calling all the
people I know named Steve to find out
if they called or waiting for the Steve in
question to call back, I usually choose
the latter. But the entire problem could
be avoided if people would practice cor-
rect telephone etiquette — not a skill that
comes naturally, even for native speak-
ers of English, but it can be of critical im-
portance in the business world, especial-
ly. Imagine if Steve had called about a
previously discussed sale or service, for
example, and I didn’t get back to him be-
cause I didn’t know who he was or what
he wanted: that potential business would
have been lost to him. What are the ba-
sics of business telephone etiquette ESL
students should know?
1
Be the first to offer your name and
organization. Give your full name and
contact information.
A phone call I still remember years after
it took place is the young woman who
greeted me by demanding “Is this Mrs.
Levy?” Fairly certain that this was a so-
licitor but also concerned it might be an
important call, I asked who was calling.
“Ma’am, are you Stacia Levy?” was her
36
only response. This went on for awhile
until she finally told me she was calling
from a local department store — which
I decided not patronize again due to this
call. The caller should be the first to iden-
tify herself and should not demand the
callee’s identity.
2
Offer pleasantries but move quick-
ly into reason for the call. Another “pet
peeve” I have is the caller who barges
into business without offering any pleas-
antries. “Is Mark there?” my husband’s
friend always demands when calling,
even though he knows me and has en-
joyed hospitality at our house numerous
times, enough to warrant a “Hi! How was
your vacation?” before moving into the
reason of his call. This friend is not rude in
person, he just lacks the phone etiquette
that states you do not treat someone you
know like an answering service. The re-
verse of this is the person who drags on
the pleasantries a little too long: our ac-
countant, for example, always goes on
at length about her vacation, family, and
outings before settling down to discuss
the reason for the call, that year’s tax
return. A careful balance between these
two extremes is necessary.
3
Finish the call by repeating con-
tact information. After you have finished
a call and are leaving a message either
to a person or machine, it’s very helpful
to repeat who you are and your contact
information because often callers think
they gave this information at the outset,
but didn’t, or the person taking the mes-
sage may have forgotten it. Stating your
name and number(s) at the end just fur-
ther ensures the party addressed will be
able to get back to you.
4
When taking a message, get the
caller’s full name, contact information,
and reason for calling. Likewise, if you
are the one taking the message, make
sure you have the caller’s full name —
even if you are certain it is John Smith
calling, for example, and not John Jones
or John Lee, verify it. And even if you are
certain the boss has Mr. Smith’s contact
information in his Smart Phone, ask any-
way — records have a strange way of
getting deleted just as you begin to de-
pend on them. Finally, getting a reason
for Mr. Lee’s call saves you the embar-
rassment of telling the boss “I dunno,”
when he asks what Mr. Lee wants.
METHODS TO TEACH
PHONE ETIQUETTE
1 Break it down: discuss the essen-
tial components of a business call and
message. Even though it might seem
obvious, the fact that people have such
poor telephone manners demonstrates
that they aren’t so obvious. This is also
a good time to review with students two
important values of communication in
English in general: clarity and brevity.
Who the caller is, his or her contact in-
formation, and the reason for the call are
the basics of a “good” business call/mes-
sage.
2 Model and show examples. With a
volunteer, demonstrate calling and leav-
ing a message in a business situation.
Also, show the components of a good
telephone message on the board.
3 Practice with peers in and out of
class. Finally, have students practice in
pairs making calls and leaving and taking
simple messages that may be fact or fic-
tion: e.g., “There’s a party tonight at my
house. I hope you can come.” This can
be extended as homework, with students
getting at least three classmates’ contact
information in class and then later calling
at home to either report some important
“news” to their classmates or leaving a
message on their answering machines.
IN A DIFFICULT JOB MARKET, OFTEN
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TWO CAN-
DIDATES WILL BE IN “SOFT SKILLS,”
SUCH AS HOW WELL THE CANDIDATES
COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS.
Strong business telephone etiquette is
one more skill that will create a favorable
impression on an employer and lead to a
possible job offer.
Teaching the Art of Leaving
and Taking Phone Messages
RECENTLY I WAS WORKING IN THE
STAFF ROOM AT THE UNIVERSITY
WHERE I TEACH, RUNNING OFF COPIES
BEFORE CLASS WHEN THE STAFF
ROOM PHONE RANG.
Usually when it rings it turns out to be
a wrong number, not many people be-
ing interested in calling the staff room for
ESL teachers, so I ignored it. However,
it went on ringing for so long that I finally
picked it up. A young woman on the other
end asked to speak to Denise, another
ESL instructor. I told her Denise wasn’t
around and began to hang up, late now
for class, but the other woman asked to
leave a message. Seriously annoyed
now, I suggested she contact Denise’s
cell phone and was told Denise didn’t
have a cell phone. So I grudgingly took
the message and gave it to Denise when
I saw her after class. “What was she call-
ing about, did she say?” Denise asked,
looking down at the message. “No. I
forgot to ask.” Forgot to ask? How did
that happen — I, who had answered a
switchboard at a major department store
for four years through college and prided
myself on my perfect telephone mes-
sages, forgot to ask why the caller was
calling? It was then that it occurred to me
that taking a phone message is some-
thing of a lost—if still necessary—art. It
will not impress the boss if an employee
leaves the name off of a message or for-
gets to ask why the caller called.
IMPORTANT PARTS OF
THE PHONE MESSAGE
1 CALLER’S IDENTITY
Get the first and last names, re-
member the recipient of the message
might know several “Tom’s.” Get the or-
ganization the caller is associated with or
how he or she is connected to the callee.
Get the correct spelling of the name. All
of this may be important for the recipient
of the message: he or she may not im-
mediately recollect to who “Tom Ander-
son” is, until she learns of her connection
to him, the planning committee for the
staff holiday party.
2 CALLER’S
CONTACT INFORMATION
Get the full phone number, including
area code and country code as neces-
sary. Get an email address as well as
necessary. All of this information may
be necessary for a call back if the caller
lives out of the area or if his phone is
busy when the call is returned.
3 GET A BRIEF REASON
FOR THE CALL
If the message taker gets a brief reason
for the caller contacting the callee, this
can save embarrassment on both of their
parts, such as the following conversation
demonstrates, “Tom, this is Debbie. I’m
returning your call.” “Oh, yeah.” (Long
pause). “How can I help you, Tom? It
doesn’t say on the message.” “Oh. Well,
right now I don’t remember why I called,
to tell the truth...” and so on.
4 SIGN YOUR OWN NAME
AT THE BOTTOM
This is in case the person who receives
the message has questions about it, and
there are several other members of the
household or the office, so the recipient
of the message knows who to go to with
questions.
METHODS FOR
TEACHING MESSAGE
TAKING
1 TEACH THE COMPONENTS
Go over a typical message on the
board or screen with the students, point-
ing out the important parts of the mes-
sage. Point out that good telephone
messages are both brief and complete:
“concise,” a word meaning both brief and
meaningful, is an important value in writ-
ten communication in English in general
that you might teach students.
2 MODEL LEAVING A MESSAGE
First model leaving a message by
playing the role of the caller while also
taking down the message on the board.
Demonstrate important questions to ask
for the message: e.g., “Who is calling?”
“What is this regarding?” and so forth so
that students can see both the important
questions to ask and what to note down.
Then get a couple of student volunteers
to leave simple messages, perhaps for
other students in the class, while you
take the messages on the board.
3 DICTATE A MESSAGE
FOR THE CLASS
Now that the students have seen how a
message is left and taken in English, they
are ready to practice as a class through
dictation. The teacher can “leave” a
simple message and all of the students
“take” it. As time and level permits, the
instructor might want to leave several
messages. Students can then compare
their papers with the classmates seated
next them for accuracy and complete-
ness before the instructor goes over the
messages on the board.
4 PAIR WORK
After practicing as a whole class,
now have students break into pairs. Give
out index cards with the callee’s name
and the message: students then role
play leaving and taking the messages,
switching roles so that they learn both.
They may also simply make up their own
messages instead of using the index
cards if they desire. Play phones or old
unused phones may be brought in for
this step.
5 EXTENDED PRACTICE
As a last step, have students prac-
tice outside of class: call and leave mes-
sages for roommates, for example, if
many of them share the same dorm or live
near each other. They may make up the
reasons for the call or may have an actual
reason for the call, as long as they have to
give the message to someone other than
the person who answers the phone, and
they have some reason—real or imagi-
nary—that they have already thought of
before calling. This simulates a real tele-
phone situation in which a caller has to
be somewhat prepared before calling.
LEAVING AND TAKING PHONE MES-
SAGES IS A LOST ART THAT, IF NOT
PERFORMED CORRECTLY, HAS PO-
TENTIAL FOR OUTCOMES BOTH SERI-
OUS AND COMICAL.
However, these pitfalls can be avoided
if students learn to both take and leave
messages appropriately.
37
 7 Survival Tips for Teaching
Business English in Russia
IF YOU DON’T HAVE A CORPORATE
BACKGROUND, TEACHING BUSI-
NESS ENGLISH IN RUSSIA MIGHT
SEEM LIKE YET ANOTHER FORM
OF CULTURE SHOCK. Chances are,
though, that you’ll be teaching at a fairly
basic level, with “business English” just
meaning “English” with an emphasis
on business-specific vocabulary and
some specific forms of formal writing.
If you do have a corporate back-
ground, you may need to de-jargon
your language somewhat and fo-
cus on the fundamentals of teaching
English. There’s not much point run-
ning a class on writing reports when
the students are still struggling with
basic tenses. Either way, there are a
few ways to help make those first few
classes a success.
HINTS FOR BECOMING
A SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS ENGLISH
TEACHER FROM THE
START
1
EXPLAIN THE POINT
If an activity doesn’t obviously
practice a recent grammar point or
such like, it is worth explaining the
purpose to the class, particularly when
you start. In contrast to many other
countries, especially in the Americas,
activities that appear to be mostly for
fun and just happen to practice a bit
of English probably won’t get the best
reception in Russia. Such activities
usually have a valid learning objec-
tive, but make sure your students ap-
preciate what it is.
2
USE RELEVANT EXAMPLES
Your students are learning Eng-
lish to advance their careers (quite of-
ten it’s simply a requirement of their
job or the job they’d like) so they are
liable to want classes that obviously
and specifically address their needs.
Have a business angle on most of
your activities, which certainly doesn’t
mean that you can’t use ridiculous
characters or witty twists.
38
This involves using more of your own
activities and less of those suggested
in the course book, if you’re using
one. English language textbooks are
usually aimed at teenagers or a very
general audience. Specifically busi-
ness-English books might have more
relevant activities, but the drawback
is that these tend to be extremely dry
and not ideal for people that have just
done a day’s work.
I always create most of my own ac-
tivities, using any course books (and
you don’t always get one) as a rough
guide. It sounds like more work but
you’ll have better classes and you can
adapt and reuse your material indefi-
nitely for new classes.
3
BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR
OWN GRAMMAR
If you are uncertain of your ability to
explain grammatical structures out-
side of what you prepared for the
class, teaching business classes in
Russia might not be for you. An inside-
out knowledge of the nuts and bolts
of English doesn’t come as standard
just because you’re a native speaker
with a bachelor’s degree. Your stu-
dents will almost certainly pick up on
any uncertainty and, while you might
be an excellent teacher, you risk be-
ing viewed as less than competent. If
you are unsure, take a job at a school
that caters more to younger learners
and/or people wanting conversation
classes.
4
DRESS THE PART
This isn’t always 100% essen-
tial. An experienced and confident
teacher might get away with teach-
ing in a jeans and t-shirt ensemble,
but you are in a business environ-
ment, sometimes actually at your
students’ workplace, and looking the
part means one less thing for a new
teacher to worry about.
This translates as a suit, or at least
shirt and tie, for men and smart busi-
ness wear for women. I didn’t go as far
as business suits and I definitely drew
the line at those with skirts, but I stuck
to reasonably smart trouser and top
combinations, which was pretty much
the same as my female students.
Obviously, dressing really badly or
incredibly casually, although it might
give your students some entertain-
ment, isn’t particularly advisable.
Leave the stained jogging bottoms,
hilarious novelty ties, hideously clash-
ing shirts and torn shorts in your home
or, preferably, in your bin.
5
KEEP AWAY
FROM POLITICS
You can certainly have interesting
discussions about politics with your
friends in Russia (try not to combine
politics with vodka) but keep them out
of the classroom. There are several
reasons for this, with the most obvious
being that your view of Russian poli-
tics and history might not be the same
as your students’, and they might not
altogether like a North American or
Western European being critical.
The other main, and possibly more
important (because you could well
be an excellent diplomat), reason is
that your students may not agree with
each other. Since chances are high
that they, or some of them, work to-
gether, bringing up political issues,
whether anybody is outspoken or not,
can create a new tension in the class
and outside. You thought you had an
interesting business-related news ar-
ticle to work from -- you find you now
have an increasingly awkward class.
6 WAKE UP
YOUR STUDENTS
The subject matter might seem dry
and learning a language is tough at
the best of times, but that means an
essential part of your job is to liven
things up. You try learning a difficult
language after a long day spent fight-
ing spreadsheets and avoiding a pe-
dantic boss. Add on a tedious teacher
with a seemingly never-ending supply
of grammar drills and you’d almost
certainly fall asleep.

“Livening up” doesn’t mean party

games or constant running around,
which have the tendency to make
people think you’re confusing them
with 8 year olds. It does mean keep-
ing things interesting and dynamic.
For early morning and evening class-
es in particular, some sort of physi-
cal activity at the start does help and
doesn’t have to be in the kindergarten
style. For example, there are an end-
less number of variations on the ac-
tivity that involves everybody standing
up, talking to one other person and
then moving on. Certain team games,
provided they have an obvious point
– see above –, also work well, espe-
cially when done against the clock.

7 HAVE OCCASIONAL
SOCIAL EVENTS
People who don’t already know each
usually make friends in their language
class and you’ll probably make friends
with some of your students. On top
of this, it pays to organise the occa-
sional event, such as a night out or a
lunch at the weekend, for one class
or several, telling students that the
plan is to practice English in a social
setting. I found the “speaking Eng-
lish” part rarely lasts long, although
you’ll doubtless get to practice your
Russian, but these events pay off in
terms of class bonding. For as long
as the “speaking English” part lasts,
it also does practice an essential skill
for people working or wanting to work
in an international environment, i.e.
sociable chit chat in English with near
strangers.

39
 From Check in to Check out:
3 Hotel Role Plays You Need
ENGLISH FOR TOURISM CLASSES
ARE TAUGHT TO PREPARE STU-
DENTS FOR THE DIFFICULT TASK
OF SPEAKING ENGLISH IN THE REAL
WORLD, EITHER THROUGH WORK IN
THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY OR TRAVEL
ABROAD.
Speaking English out the classroom
is messy and non formulaic, so there
is nothing worse than a tourism class
where students simply listen to dia-
logues from a book and repeat them
word for word. This practically en-
sures that your students will immedi-
ately forget what they have learned.
To ensure that students will remember
critical structures, you must create a
classroom where dialogues are so
full of fun and creativity that it will be
impossible for your students to forget
them!
One of the main focuses of any Eng-
lish for tourism class should be com-
munication in a hotel situation. Typi-
cally, hotels are the hub of the travel
abroad experience and, after the air-
port, hotels are students’ first contact
with English speakers who probably
don’t speak their primary language.
Below I offer three role plays that can
(and should) be used in every English
for tourism classroom. What’s best is
that these three role plays are not just
vague ideas -- with a small amount
of preparation, these guides give you
a clear and entertaining lesson plan.
These role plays are totally adapt-
able and can be tailored to any level.
Keep it simple for low level students
and add more details to the situation
to keep higher level students on their
toes!
ROLE PLAY 1:
RESERVING
A HOTEL ROOM
1
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS
For concierge students, role
cards should include a table of hotel
information (types of rooms, prices,
dates available, etc). For students act-
ing as customers, role cards should
40
include their personal information and
specific travel plans. Remember that
the more information you use, the
more difficult the role play becomes.
2
INTRODUCE
THE ROLE PLAY
You could begin by writing on the
board: What should you do before go-
ing on holiday? After students have
made lists in pairs, feedback as a
whole class, making sure that some-
one adds ‘reserving a hotel room’ to
the list. Draw students’ attention to
this point.
3
PRE-TEACH RELEVANT VO-
CABULARY / STRUCTURES
Begin by eliciting what information
students need when reserving a hotel
room. This list should include things
like name, price of the room, how long
they’ll be staying, etc. Other specific
vocabulary should be revised as nec-
essary. For example, types of rooms
and things you might find in a typi-
cal hotel room. This vocabulary can
be revised as a warmer for higher
levels or taught more thoroughly for
beginning or pre-intermediate class-
es. Here it might also be appropriate
to elicit phrases used in a hotel set-
ting. (“I’d like _____”, “Do you have
_____?”, etc.)
4
GIVE A SAMPLE ROLE PLAY
The teacher should provide a
sample role play worksheet. For ele-
mentary or pre-intermediate students,
it might be best to provide a full role
play. The teacher should go through
key structures with the students and
also repeat the role play several times
in front of the class, practicing pronun-
ciation and intonation.
For higher levels such as upper-inter-
mediate or advanced, teachers may
be able to simply elicit certain target
language and allow students more
freedom in their dialogues.
5 ALLOW STUDENTS TO
ACT OUT THE ROLE PLAY
THEMSELVES
Put students into pairs with the ap-
propriate role cards. Explain that be-
cause reserving hotel rooms is typi-
cally done over the phone and not
in person, they should not face each
other so as to simulate the experience
of talking over the phone. After your
students are back-to-back, have them
act out the role play. Monitor carefully,
particularly the first time. Make sure
that they are inserting the information
on their role cards into the dialogue.
As you listen, make notes but do not
interfere unless a pair has had a total
breakdown in communication.
6
REPEAT
While some teachers might
think that students are not interested
in repeating role plays multiple times,
the opposite is in fact true. Making
slight modifications to a situation al-
lows students to repeat critical struc-
tures while allowing enough creativity
to make the role play different and en-
gaging each time.
7 FEEDBACK
In feedback you might want to
invite a confident pair to the front of
the room to perform their role play.
After that, go over any common er-
rors you heard during the production
stage.
ROLE PLAY 2:
CHECK IN
1
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS
For students acting as the con-
cierge, role cards should include the
customer’s personal information,
credit card information, and reserva-
tion details. For students acting as
hotel customers, you should have
role cards with slightly different infor-
mation than that of the concierge: for
example, last name “Black” instead of
“Block”, incorrect credit card number,
etc. Remember: the more informa-
tion, the more difficult the role play
getting bored).
4 ALLOW STUDENTS TO
ACT OUT THE ROLE PLAY
becomes. For lower level classes, in-
clude a worksheet with a sample role
play as well.
7 FEEDBACK
THEMSELVES
If you chose to use role cards for the

2
complaining role play, hand them out
INTRODUCE ROLE PLAY 3: to students and divide them into cus-
THE ROLE PLAY COMPLAINING tomer / concierge pairs. Remember to
save your corrections until the end of

1
Ask students to think back to their last
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS the role play, only interfering if a mis-
experience in a hotel. Ask them what take impedes understanding.
they did first. You should be able to Complaining role plays are

elicit ‘check in’. Explain that you will
start your hotel unit with a role play
involving one student as a customer
and the other as concierge.
quite simple and do not require much
preparation. All you will need are role
cards. For customers, you should in-
clude information like room number,
problem, and desired solution. For
5
REPEAT
Allow each student to act out
each part at least twice, preferably
switching partners at least once. This

3 PRE-TEACH
RELEVANT STRUCTURES
Explain that students should listen
very closely as they check in, as there
may be some mistakes. Give one ex-
ample, such as: “I have a reservation
concierge, you may give some ex-
ample solutions. With higher level or
more creative classrooms you may
ensures that students will drill the
structures thoroughly, but will also
have some variation in their dialogues.
choose not to use role cards at all and
allow students to fully use their cre-
ativity.
6 FEEDBACK

for Jen Black.” “No, I’m Jen Block.

That’s B-L-O-C-K.” With the whole
class, give several mistakes and elicit
a correct response.
2 INTRODUCE
THE ROLE PLAY
A good communicative way to intro-
duce this role play is to write several
EACH OF THESE ROLE PLAYS IS
APPROPRIATE FOR ONE 60 MINUTE
LESSON: THEY CAN BE STRETCHED
TO 90 MINUTES DEPENDING ON

4 GIVE A SAMPLE ROLE PLAY

As with hotel reservations, the
teacher should provide a sample role
play worksheet or simply elicit / teach
useful structures depending on the
class’s level. In this role play, particu-
larly with lower level students, be sure
to emphasize that they should not
simply repeat the role play: the struc-
tures should be used to create sen-
tences specific to the errors in their
particular role cards.
questions on the board, such as What
was the worst hotel you ever stayed
in? Why? or What problems could
you have in a hotel room? After allow-
ing time for students to discuss the
questions in pairs, elicit answers to
the questions and write them on the
board. Remember to teach or elicit
any problems they didn’t mention.
Next you should write another ques-
tion: What should you do if you have
a problem in a hotel? You should be
able to elicit complaining from your
class. Go over useful complaining
YOUR NEEDS AND ADDITIONAL
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS.
The warmer and vocabulary introduc-
tion should take about 20 minutes.
One round of the role play will prob-
ably last for 5-10 minutes and should
be repeated several times with chang-
ing groups. This leaves time for 3-4
additional dialogues and 10 minutes
for feedback.
With 15 minutes of time spent typing
up role cards, you can create a lesson
that is low preparation for you, and

5 ALLOW STUDENTS TO
ACT OUT THE ROLE PLAY
THEMSELVES
structures (“Excuse me, I have a prob-
lem”, “I’m afraid that I have a problem
with _____”, etc.)
engaging and memorable for your
students.

Put the students into concierge / cus-

tomer pairs. Monitor carefully, particu-
larly the first time they do the role play.
Make sure that they are inserting the
information on their role cards into the
dialogue. As you listen, make notes
but do not interfere unless a pair has
had a total breakdown in communica-
tion.
3 GIVE A SAMPLE ROLE PLAY
Like the check in role play, the
teacher should provide a sample role
play worksheet. Go through it with the
students several times: drill pronunci-
ation and intonation, discuss any un-
known words, and point out the struc-
tures that were elicited on the board in
the second point.

6 REPEAT
Be sure to allow each student
Again: with higher level students it
may be appropriate to simply elicit
all the key structures you would like
a chance to act both roles. If time al-
lows, switch pairs and give each new them to use and allow them to speak
information. This ensures that stu- freely, without a written dialogue.
dents understand the structures that
they are using (and keeps them from

41
 5 Fool-proof Tips for Using
Role Play in English for Tourism
SHORT OF HOPPING ON A PLANE
AND GOING ABROAD, THERE IS NO
BETTER WAY TO PREPARE YOUR
STUDENTS FOR COMMUNICATING
IN ENGLISH WHILE ABROAD THAN
USING ROLE PLAYS.
As a teacher, you should understand
that your classroom is an artificial
world – your job as a teacher is to
bring as much reality into your les-
sons as possible. Because of this,
role plays are a critical component
of the English for tourism classroom:
students will still experience the safe-
ty of speaking English in a controlled
environment, but they will also find
themselves operating in unpredict-
able, real-world situations.
Not only are role plays useful linguisti-
cally, but there is nothing better than a
well executed drama exercise to bring
excitement and creativity into your
classroom. Here are six tips to ensure
each role play you use in the class-
room will be a hit:
HOW TO DEAL
WITH ROLE PLAYS
SUCCESSFULLY
1
GET READY: PREPARATION
The most basic rule of creating
an effective role play lesson is simple:
if the teacher is well prepared to lead,
the students will be well prepared to
learn. There is nothing worse than
watching a lesson where the teacher
fumbles through materials, explains
instructions poorly, and basically ex-
pects the students to read his mind.
To ensure a useful experience, confi-
dence and preparation is a must.
There are several important aspects
to consider while preparing for a role
play lesson. First, you should plan a
basic layout of the lesson. Do the stu-
dents need to revise any target lan-
guage? What needs to be pre-taught?
What is the overall target of the role
play – fluency or accuracy with spe-
cific language? Once you’ve decided
the outline of the lesson, it is time to
gather materials. Dialogue sheets,
42
role cards, paper, markers – whatever
it is you need for the lesson, make
sure you have it before the lesson
starts. Nothing derails a speaking les-
son like the teacher running out of the
room to grab something.
Finally, it should be noted that it is
always recommended to incorporate
a piece of realia whenever possible.
Realia, or objects from the real world,
serve to once again bring your les-
son closer to the real world. If your
role play focuses on booking a hotel
room, print off rates from the websites
of real hotels. If your students are
choosing a holiday, provide brochures
for them to look at. By moving away
from ESL-specific materials, students
will become even more engaged with
the activity as they see its value in the
real world.
2
KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID:
FOCUS ON SIMPLICITY
While it’s tempting to create an elabo-
rate role play, it is best to keep the ex-
ercise as simple as possible both for
the student’s understanding and the
teacher’s sanity. By keeping it simple,
I mean that there should be one over-
arching focus to each role play les-
son. During the preparation period it
should become quite clear what top-
ics are important when performing a
specific role play.
To ensure a successful role play, first
choose a theme. This is the easy part.
Themes might include checking in at
the hotel, getting directions, or small
talk with new people. Beyond the main
topic, it is best to choose only one new
language aspect to focus on. Typical-
ly, you would choose some new target
phrases or an aspect of grammar. Tar-
get language might include phrases
for talking about money, complaining,
or expressing opinions. An aspect of
grammar would be focusing on ques-
tion forms or a new tense.
By choosing a very narrow range of
language to practice, it is much easier
for students to express themselves
more freely. If you add too many new
aspects of vocabulary or grammar,
students get bogged down in trying
to remember everything, rather than
communicating with fellow students in
a natural way.
3
DON’T SWEAT
THE SILENCE
No matter what the class’s level, con-
fidence in spoken English, or your
preparation attempts, it is almost in-
evitable that there will be a period of
awkward silence at the beginning of
any role play. Don’t worry! It takes
some time for students to feel com-
fortable enough to slip into a new
character and manipulate the target
language into a new dialogue. Let
your students stare at each other, gig-
gle uncomfortably, and stumble over
their words at first – it’s all part of the
process.
It can be difficult as a teacher to lis-
ten to a fumbling class. However,
don’t compensate for the silence by
guiding your students word for word.
The whole point of role plays is for
students to manipulate the target lan-
guage themselves. Remind students
before each role play that there is no
script in real life and they must be
prepared to adapt their language as
situations change. Students familiar
with role plays should become more
confident even when they don’t know
what to say, but it does take time to
reach that level. Just be patient, en-
courage them to use stalling tactics,
and be amazed when they really be-
gin to interact!
If, however, students continue to be
quiet and hesitant during a dialogue,
it may be time to consider other rea-
sons. Be sure that there is not too
much new information in the role
play, the level is appropriate for the
students, and, most importantly, you
have taken the time to thoroughly ex-
plain what the targets of the activity
are.
4 PRACTICE MAKES PER-
FECT: ROLE PLAYS
ARE MADE FOR REPITITION
I once sat in on a lesson where the
teacher introduced a role play, had
the students run through it once, gave
corrections, and then simply moved
on. I was surprised – why bother
planning and setting up a role play if
the speaking portion lasts only a few
minutes? This teacher clearly thought
that students were not interested in
repeating role plays multiple times.
I argue that the opposite is in fact
true: the first time students create a
dialogue it is awkward and stilted. By
running through a dialogue multiple
times, the teacher allows students to
become more and more comfortable
with the material.
To keep students engaged, try several
things. First, it is important to switch
roles. If you’re doing a taxi ride role
play, make sure students act as both
the passenger and the driver. Second,
make slight adjustments to a situation
(for example, changing personal in-
formation or destination details). This
allows students to repeat the target
language while ensuring that they’re
always engaged and listening to their
partner to get that new information.
5 BE FLEXIBLE:
ADJUST BY LEVEL
There is nothing worse than conduct-
ing a role play with confused students.
Not only does it put a dent in the class’
confidence, but it can derail a well-
planned lesson. To avoid this disaster,
make sure that your role plays are ap-
propriately introduced and conducted
according to skill level.
For beginning levels, it is obviously
necessary to introduce each step of
the process and provide a clear out-
line for students to follow. One of the
best ways to ensure lower level stu-
dents feel comfortable is to give stu-
dents a completed dialogue. Make
sure that the class reads through the
text several times to practice pronun-
ciation and intonation. For total begin-
ners, it may be enough to simply read
the dialogue in pairs with no changes.
For pre-intermediate or intermedi-
ate students, you may underline or
leave blank the parts you want them
to insert their own information. This
method is very successful: weaker
students have a safety net and higher
level students have a chance to be
more creative if they want.
For upper-intermediate or advanced
students (or confident intermediate
students), the role play process will
be much freer. You should provide
students with a clear goal for the con-
versation (for example, purchase a
ticket to Mexico City or buy as many
souvenirs as they can for $20) and
any key phrases you want them to
use. Beyond that, it should be up to
the students to create their own dia-
logues. You should expect some dead
air at the beginning but, as mentioned
before, resist the urge to intervene.
AN EXCITED TEACHER = AN EXCITING
LESSON
What do you remember most vividly
from school: a lesson where you lis-
tened to your sleepy teacher lecture
unenthusiastically about something?
Or that one lesson where your teach-
er laughed, joked, and played games
with you? I feel confident that every-
one chose the second option. Unsur-
prisingly, your students feel the same
way you do!
In my experience, the number one
mood killer in an ESL classroom is a
teacher’s poor mood. Maybe you’re
tired, sick, or simply in a bad mood,
but once you’re teaching you need to
“fake it ‘til you make it”. If you’re not
interested in a lesson, your students
quickly pick up on that and mirror
your apathy. When leading a role play
lesson, this is especially important.
Happy students are more willing to be
enthusiastic and creative while speak-
ing: harness that positive energy and
make the lesson totally memorable.
The goal of an English for tourism
course is to give students the confi-
dence to use English freely while trav-
eling abroad or working with English
speakers. Because it’s usually impos-
sible to get students face to face with
native speakers in the real world, role
plays are the next best way to expose
students to language and boost confi-
dence in their spoken language. Next
time you lead a role play lesson, try
these tips and watch your students
speak with ease!
43
 Fun Ways to Bring International
Tourism into Your Classroom
CLASSROOM DECORATION IS AN
IMPORTANT PART OF THE ESL
CLASSROOM, HOWEVER IT IS OFTEN
OVERLOOKED.
Good classroom decoration can be
very motivating for ESL students, par-
ticularly when studying tourism. Being
surrounded by common travel para-
phernalia gives students some sense
of a physical goal (they could be the
ones drinking tea and speaking in
London next year!) which puts them in
the mood to study. These decorations
can also serve as the basis for various
activities throughout the year.
A well decorated English for tour-
ism classroom ideally contains both
realia (materials from the real world)
and student produced work. Student
projects not only provide the teacher
decorating materials: they also allow
students to have something physical
to link to their language learning. Here
are some examples of realia and re-
lated student activities to include in
your classroom next year:
HOW TO MAKE YOUR
CLASSROOM MORE
MOTIVATING
1 POSTERS
Posters are a cheap and easy
way to give your classroom a bright
punch of color. Examples of appro-
priate materials might include post-
ers showing countries or cities, travel
agent’s fliers, or tour group advertise-
ments. Not only can these posters
inspire discussion, they can provide
a useful template for students when
making their own.
Student activities: One of my students’
favorite classes is inevitably making
posters. It’s a fun break from doing
worksheets, it fosters students’ inter-
personal relationships, and it allows
them to get creative. Students should
choose a country or city and prepare
a poster highlighting its attractions. It
is useful to give students some guid-
ing questions to help them formulate
their poster. Questions might include:
44
What objects come into your head
when you think of ______?
What famous attractions are in
your country / city?
How will you lay out your poster?
(How much text? What pic-
tures?...)
Students will soon forget that they are
speaking English as they argue over
what to include in their poster. For
additional speaking practice, groups
should prepare a short presentation
about their final product.
2 BROCHURES
Brochures function similarly to
posters in the ESL classroom, but with
the additional benefit of encouraging
reading and writing skills. Brochures
of all kinds (airlines, hotels, tours, etc)
can be collected and displayed on the
classroom walls or kept in a box for
easy reference.
Student activities: You should start
by introducing the concept of a bro-
chure and giving a few examples us-
ing your realia objects. If you have
time, it may be useful to use the realia
as a basis for a short role play before
students create their own. Role plays
can include planning a day (provide
5-6 brochures to small groups of your
students and tell them to plan their
schedule for their day) or giving and
getting directions (provide students
with two brochures and a map and
have them decide the best route to
take). Doing these role plays are use-
ful as students are able to look at the
brochures closely and get an idea of
what is usually included on them.
Once students are ready to create
their own brochures it is often useful
to start by brainstorming what topics
could go on each page of the bro-
chure. Allow each group to choose a
country or city and, if you have enough
time, have each group write the texts
in their notebooks before creating the
final product. A two step process al-
lows for a neater, more coherent final
product. Like with the poster activity,
students should give a short presen-
tation about their final product.
3
MAPS
In the English for tourism class-
room maps are one of the best deco-
rations – not only are they visually
interesting, but they provide an excel-
lent basis for many speaking activities
during the lesson. You can search
for high quality maps online and print
them out but it’s far more interesting if
you can hang real maps on the wall.
Oversized, fold out maps are the best
as they are easy for the students to
see during the activities.
Student activities: One of the most
daunting tasks for many tourism stu-
dents is giving or getting directions in
English. Maps provide an excellent
resource to practice this task in the
classroom. Before you begin any of
these activities, be sure to pre-teach
all the necessary phrases for giving
directions. (Take a look at the map
you’ll be using before you begin to
anticipate any particular language dif-
ficulties like roundabout or dead end!)
Any number of role plays can be done
using a map.
The first role play revolves around
decision making. Divide students
into pairs. They are visiting tourists
and want to get to “Point A” to “Point
B” – together they should decide the
best way to get there. Feedback can
include the whole class discussing
alternate routes and defending their
choices.
A second role play involves a little
more mystery. Again divide students
into pairs – this time with student A
and student B. Give each a map with
the same starting point. Student B’s
map should also have a finish point –
their home. Tell students that A would
like to visit B’s home, but doesn’t know
the way. Student B should direct stu-
dent A to their home without showing
the map. At the end, they can com-
pare maps and see if A arrived to the
correct location. Students can switch
roles and choose their own start / fin-
ish locations.
4 TRAVEL STATIONS
If you have your own personal
classroom or understanding cowork-
ers and a little bit of extra space, trav-
el stations are an excellent idea for
an English for tourism class. These
stations are located around the room
and represent different aspects of
traveling abroad or working in the
tourism industry. For example, your
classroom might have an airport, a
hotel, a museum, and a travel agency
station. If you can anticipate which
locations will be used most through-
out your course, these are obviously
the ones to choose as travel stations.
These stations are not only visually
interesting (each should be decorated
with at least a sign or poster) but can
help help students keep old lessons
and vocabulary in mind (vocabulary
and key phrases should be included
in that area).
Student activities: First of all, it is im-
portant to make these areas. In some
of your first lessons, you should as-
sign groups to create each travel sta-
tion you’ve decided upon. Be sure to
be explicit in exactly what you want
the students to produce – a specific
location and related objects. For ex-
ample, the travel agency station
should have a poster with its name
(“Liza and Marco’s Travel Agency”) as
well as some student-drawn pictures
of what you might find there (comput-
er, travel posters, etc). This process
should last about one lesson – by the
end you should have four travel sta-
tions to use in the future.
How exactly can you use these sta-
tions? After students have learned
vocabulary or key phrases from this
area, you should feel free to add the
most important in large, clear writing
to a poster in that area. The airport
station might have vocabulary such as
check in, security, and gate and target
language like “I’m flying to New York
today”, “Could I get an upgrade?”, and
“Is my flight on time?”. Your classroom
looks lively and whenever you revisit
these topics students have an easy
reference point.
5 MUSIC
While not a visual decoration,
music can be a wonderful addition
to the atmosphere of any classroom.
Songs relating to travel are perfect
for the English for tourism classroom:
they can teach new vocabulary, re-
vise grammar, and provide nice back-
ground music for various activities.
Student activities: Depending on the
level of your class, you should choose
an appropriate song somehow related
to travel or a specific location. Good
travel related songs include “Leav-
ing on a Jet Plane” by John Denver,
“Englishman in New York” by Sting,
or “I’ve Been Everywhere” by Johnny
Cash. Whichever song you choose,
you should prepare a short worksheet
to go along with it. A sample work-
sheet might include matching new
vocabulary to the correct definitions,
a copy of the song lyrics with some
words omitted, and discussion ques-
tions for after listening. Don’t be afraid
to listen to the song three or four times
in a class – the more students listen,
the better they will understand. After
completing the worksheet, play the
song again and encourage students
to sing. Some won’t, but you would be
surprised how many students are not
afraid to belt out a song in English.
For a tricky bit of revision, replay the
song during certain activities when
students are working individually. Not
only does playing music make the ac-
tivity suddenly more interesting, you
will see students lip-syncing as they
work on their task! To mix things up
a bit, teach more than one song and
rotate between them.
VISUAL AND AUDITORY STIMULA-
TION IN THE ENGLISH FOR TOURISM
CLASS NOT ONLY HELPS LIVEN UP
THE CLASSROOM, BUT IN FACT CON-
NECTS YOUR CLASSROOM TO THE
OUTSIDE WORLD.
By involving students in producing
and utilizing classroom decorations,
your English for tourism lessons be-
come more fun, more engaging, and
ultimately more effective.
45
 Fluency Over Precision
for Travel English
OFTEN ENGLISH FOR TOURISM
LESSONS ARE HIGH STRESS.
In my experience, students book a
fabulous summer holiday abroad,
panic that they don’t speak English
well enough, and sign up for my class,
hoping that in six short weeks I’ll turn
them into the perfect English speaker.
Unfortunately, it’s never happened
like that. No teacher can guarantee
miracles, but they can build up a stu-
dent’s confidence and ability to speak
English more freely. What’s most im-
portant for any travel class, whether
beginning or advanced, is to help stu-
dents face their fear of speaking. One
way to do this is to think less about
grammar (it’s difficult, I know) and fo-
cus more about fluency.
Here are six games and activities to
get your English for tourism class talk-
ing:
HOW TO IMPROVE
YOUR STUDENTS’
FLUENCY
1
“WHAT ARE YOU BRING-
ING ON HOLIDAY?” -
SENTENCE BUILDING
This game is a travel themed spinoff
of a basic chain game. The teacher
should model the target phrase, which
is something like “I’m going on vaca-
tion and I’m bringing a guidebook.”
Working around the room, students
should repeat the previous sentence
and add another object. For example:
“I’m going on vacation and I’m bring-
ing a guidebook and sunglasses.”
By the end of the exercise, the chain
should be quite long and students will
have fun trying to reproduce the full
sentence.
This game is excellent for lower lev-
els – the repetition is useful to cement
key phrases in the students’ minds
without being too challenging. The
chain activity can also be modified
for higher levels in several ways. One
option is to have students list items
alphabetically (“I’m bringing an apple,
46
a ball, a candle...”). Another option is
to limit the word choice in some way,
such as only letters beginning with “s”
or words longer than three syllables.
This game is very flexible and gets
students listening very carefully – they
don’t want to be the one to mess up!
2
ROLE PLAYS
AND DIALOGUES
Role plays are perhaps the single
most effective way to introduce Eng-
lish for tourism students to potential
real world situations. Role plays also
have the unique benefit of releasing a
student’s inhibitions in several ways.
Instead of an intermediate level Eng-
lish student making mistakes, it is the
concierge of a famous London hotel.
It has also been shown that students
are much more willing to express
opinions when these opinions are
the explicitly those of the student’s:
instead, ESL students are able to ex-
press themselves freely in the guise
of a travel agent or traveling tourist.
Examples of role plays in the English
for tourism are almost limitless. Con-
sider the needs of your class while
planning appropriate role plays. Will
they be working as a tour guide for
English speakers?, will they be trav-
eling abroad and staying in five star
hotels or will they be backpacking?,
how will they be traveling? and so on.
Role plays are fairly simple to prepare
and have myriad positive benefits for
students. Such dialogues encourage
close listening and communication
between students, while giving them
the chance to work on their oral flu-
ency in somewhat unpredictable situ-
ations.
3 CHAIN STORIES
Chain stories are an excellent
way to get students talking to each
other. To begin, the teacher should
designate a title (“The Worst Summer
Holiday Ever!”) or the first sentence
of a story (“I was sitting on the beach
with nothing but my umbrella...”). In
my experience, the funniest titles or
sentences inspire students more.
There are two ways to create chain
stories in the classroom. First, there
is the option to just practice oral flu-
ency. Create the first sentence of the
story, write it on the board, and ask
the first student to continue the story.
Going student by student, the story is
built by adding an original sentence.
Be sure to write the sentences on the
board so that you can read the story
again and correct any mistakes.
Second, you can add an element of
writing. Divide students into groups of
3-4 students (too many and inevitably
someone will not speak) and again
provide the first sentence. The group
should work in the same way as the
spoken game with each student add-
ing an original sentence. To ensure
that the group works together, have
the students designate one person as
the writer. This makes sure that the
students don’t separate and simply
write their own stories. If time allows,
consider posting the stories around
the room and have students get up
and read all of them. After that, mix up
the groups so that there is one person
from every group in the new groups.
Tell the students they must choose
one winning story. Watch the discus-
sions heat up as each argues for their
own story to win!
4 “WHERE AM I?” -
PRACTICING QUESTIONS
Where am I is a great way for stu-
dents to practice question structures
and question tags. The basic premise
of the game is similar to twenty ques-
tions, but one student (A) is a tour-
ist on a mysterious holiday abroad.
Student A is given a picture of a fa-
mous location while the rest of the
class asks questions to find out where
student A is. The catch is, of course,
that the class may only ask yes or no
answers. “Do people speak French
there?” is a good question, while
“what language do they speak there?”
is not. Encourage student A to answer
with a question tag – “Yes, they do”
rather than just “yes”.
As the level of your students in-
creases, this game becomes more
nuanced. Encourage higher level stu-
dents to cover a range of tenses by not
allowing two questions of the same
tense twice in a row. This almost guar-
antees that students will have to prac-
tice trickier forms like the present and
past perfect at some point. Switch the
tourist several times and don’t forget
to keep count of the questions – the
class loses if they don’t guess cor-
rectly after twenty questions.
5 “WHAT IS IT?” - DESCRIB-
ING UNKNOWN OBJECTS
It is important for students to under-
stand that when traveling abroad they
may not know or remember every-
thing they need – and that’s okay! By
giving students the tools to describe
objects, they can largely sidestep any
vocabulary problems they may en-
counter. This game is one of the most
useful for ESL students studying Eng-
lish for tourism because it gives them
practice describing objects without
naming that specific object.
There are several ways to play this
game. One option is to have cards
with previously studied vocabulary on
them. One student draws a card and
describes the word on the card with-
out using any form of the word (for ex-
ample, with “washing machine” they
could not say “wash” or “machine”).
The rest of the class should guess the
word. To make it more competitive,
divide the class into two groups and
have two students simultaneously de-
scribe the same word to their groups.
Whichever group guesses correctly
first gets one point.
Another option is to use this to teach
new vocabulary. This can be a little
trickier, but works well with higher
level students and effectively simu-
lates that it is possible to understand
someone without ever knowing the
specific word they’re using. Highlight
that this is incredibly important when
traveling abroad. To play the game
this way, you should provide cards
with pictures of the target vocabulary.
One student should draw a card and
describe what’s on it. The rest of the
class can either name the object (if
they know the word) or have certain
students draw what they think it is. Af-
ter a short time, compare pictures and
teach the new word if it wasn’t elicit-
ed. This game is an interesting way to
teach new vocabulary and encourage
English fluency, even when encoun-
tering an unfamiliar word.
6 DESCRIBE AND DRAW
Describe and draw is another
excellent general English activity
that can be modified for the English
for tourism classroom. This activity
is dually useful for students. First of
all, with the teacher choosing the ap-
propriate picture, students are able to
revise vocabulary. Secondly, while it
is important for students to use gram-
matically accurate structures in this
activity, even more important is to
practice giving, getting, and interpret-
ing vague instructions.
The game is simple: divide students
into pairs and give one a picture. It
should not be overly complex but
should have plenty to describe. If
you’ve just taught hotel vocabulary,
you can should a picture of a hotel
room. If you’re talking about summer
holidays, you might have a picture of
a beach scene. The student with the
picture should describe it as accu-
rately as possible without showing the
second student. The second student
should draw what the other student
describes. Have students compare
pictures after they are finished. They
are sure to enjoy the results! Don’t
forget to switch so each student has a
chance to describe and draw at least
once.
THESE GAMES ARE ALL EXTREMELY
USEFUL FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE A
BIT HESITANT TO TALK FOR FEAR OF
MAKING MISTAKES. THE ONLY TER-
RIBLE MISTAKE YOU CAN MAKE IN
THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM IS NOT
TALKING! FINALLY, REMIND THEM
THAT THE CONCIERGE WILL STILL
LET YOU CHECK INTO A HOTEL IF
YOU MIS-CONJUGATE THE VERB
“BUY”. REALLY.
47
 Passport, Please: A Crash Course
in Teaching English for Tourism
WHILE PERHAPS NOT AS POPULAR
AS GENERAL OR BUSINESS ENGLISH,
ENGLISH FOR TOURISM IS A CLASS
THAT YOU MAY BE REQUIRED TO
TEACH DURING YOUR CAREER AS
AN ESL TEACHER.
Whether your students are prepar-
ing to work in the tourist industry or
simply interested in improving their
language for future vacations, Eng-
lish for tourism classes contain infor-
mation essential to operating in the
English speaking world. English for
tourism lessons have the immediate
benefit of demonstrating inherently
useful, real-life situations to students.
Unlike some lessons where students
struggle to understand the purpose,
each tourism lesson is concrete and
necessary. Your job as a teacher is to
make sure that your classroom stays
lively and engaging.
Approaching a tourism course for the
first time can be intimidating – the ma-
terial might be new to you and often
students are taking your class with a
specific goal in mind. One of my stu-
dents was taking my six week course
and traveling across Europe for a
month immediately after the last les-
son. Talk about pressure!
Take a deep breath, try to manage
your students’ expectations, and here
are some tips to make the most out of
every lesson:
HOW TO MAKE MOST
OF ENGLISH FOR
TOURISM
1 DON’T (NECESSARILY)
RELY ON COURSEBOOKS
While there are many decent text-
books for tourism English, they often
focus too heavily on grammar and
written tasks. Of course these skills
are critical to language learners, but
they are not usually the primary focus
of the more common, conversation-
based English for tourism courses.
If your school allows you some flex-
ibility in terms of course material, you
should consider creating your own
48
course and lesson plans. Creating
your own course and planning les-
sons from scratch may sound like a
lot of work, but in fact English for tour-
ism is an easy topic for doing just that.
Each lesson can focus on one aspect
of tourism – for example at the airport,
taking a taxi, at the hotel, etc. Very
quickly it becomes clear that planning
a personalized curriculum is not such
a burden after all. Not only does plan-
ning your own course allow you free-
dom to explore topics your students
will find most interesting, but your
exercises and activities are almost
certainly more exciting than forcing
students to work through a textbook.
Planning a 60 - 90 minute lesson can
take about 15 minutes once you un-
derstand the basic structure of your
lesson plan. (Another bonus: not too
many materials are needed!) Most
lessons could go something like this:
warmer (revision from the last lesson),
introduction (discussion questions re-
lated to the topic of the day), vocabu-
lary (a few worksheets and games to
introduce vocabulary), set up a role
play (explain the role play and read
through the role play as a class), con-
duct the role play, and feedback (5
– 10 minutes of error correction from
the role plays). If you have time, you
may want to play a game at the end
of class to revise new vocabulary or
language points.
Fairly simple to prepare and execute,
a custom class has high impact for
English learners.
2 EMBRACE ROLE PLAYS
Because students are prepar-
ing to interact with native speakers, it
is critical for teachers to expose stu-
dents to useful and authentic struc-
tures as much as possible. Role plays
are particularly useful in the English
for tourism classroom because most
interactions students will have while
abroad are easily anticipated. Many
situations, such as checking in to a
hotel, can also be quite formulaic. It is
much easier to anticipate what ques-
tions custom officials at security or
concierge at a hotel will ask, rather
than what a native speaker might talk
about while at an office party.
Role plays can (and should) be used
for every topic taught in an English
for tourism classroom. To ensure suc-
cess, it is most important that students
should already be fairly comfortable
with the the target language in the
role play. Teachers should explain the
premise of each role play simply and
thoroughly – nothing is worse than
students stumbling through a dia-
logue with an unclear goal. For lower
level students, it is useful to provide a
full example of a dialogue: allow them
to read through the dialogue several
times as is, and then introduce situa-
tions that require students to change
details, while retaining the target lan-
guage structures. For more advanced
students, you may be able to simply
elicit the structures you would like
them to use and allow students more
freedom in this speaking activity.
Tourism role plays are easy to create
and tailor to a specific class or theme.
Regardless of your students’ profi-
ciency in English, you should provide
role plays as examples of what stu-
dents should expect when abroad.
3
PREPARATION, PREPARA-
TION, PREPARATION
Like any kind of conversation class,
English for tourism requires slightly
more work than a general English
lesson where teachers go straight
through the book. There is nothing
worse than feeling unprepared as
you head into a classroom: you know
it and very soon after your students
know it. Keep your students’ trust
and interest by spending time with
your materials before lessons. This
is particularly crucial for conduct-
ing role plays. A badly explained role
play will lead to confused students, a
frustrated teacher, and disastrous dia-
logues. Remember that your class is
like a mirror: an unmotivated teacher
reflects back and makes for an unmo-
tivated class.
4 LET THEM MAKE ART
Many teachers think that Eng-
lish learners older than elementary
age aren’t interested in creative activi-
ties. This simply isn’t true! One way to
bring color into your English for tour-
ism classroom is to plan art-based
activities. Examples of art projects for
the tourism classroom include bro-
chures and posters on any number
of subjects: countries, cities, guided
tours, etc.
On the surface, art lessons are a way
to give teachers and students alike a
break, but in fact, there are a multi-
tude of educational purposes to such
tasks. First of all, for mixed ability
classes these projects may level the
playing field. Weaker students who
don’t speak well may have a chance
to show off their skills in drawing or
organization. Stronger speakers are
able to lead group discussions and
help weaker students. Creative proj-
ects also create a relaxed, informal
environment that doesn’t put pressure
on students. Secondly, an interesting
task will be far more memorable to
students than a simple worksheet. Art
projects allow students to revise and
reproduce learned knowledge and
does it in a way that they are re much
more likely to remember. Finally, each
project should come with a lot of stu-
dent talking time. Students should
discuss ideas in English while working
on the project. Be sure to allow time
for each group to do a short presenta-
tion about their final product.
5 ENSURE EQUAL EXPOSURE
In my experience, it is natu-
ral for teachers to gravitate towards
the students who like to talk a lot in
class. Although it is wonderful to have
at least one student who always has
an opinion, remember that your job
as a teacher is to include every stu-
dent. Ensuring that the shy or uncon-
fident students get talking is difficult,
but necessary for them to get their
money’s worth during the course. Re-
member that in the real world there
may not be someone else to answer
for them. There are various ways to
encourage quiet students, and you as
the teacher should tailor these tips to
each individual student.
One easy way to encourage students
to talk is by playing games. Games
like 20 questions require students to
speak, but in an informal, low pres-
sure situation. By introducing the tar-
get language before the game begins,
the pressure is off the student: know-
ing exactly what the teacher wants is
a major relief and motivates students
to get talking. Partnered role plays are
also excellent models for unconfident
speakers. Again, a clear structure
of the desired output can give confi-
dence to even the quietest student.
6 WHICH ERRORS
TO CORRECT?
In many cases, the English for tourism
classroom does not have a specific fo-
cus on grammar. Instead, classes fo-
cus on vocabulary and key structures
that can be memorized and used in
various situations. Keep this in mind
while error correcting. If your class
does go through grammar exercises,
then feel free to correct grammar mis-
takes. However if your class is more
conversational, it doesn’t make sense
to correct too many grammar mis-
takes unless it impedes understand-
ing or directly relates to the lesson’s
target language.
Focus on errors of target language,
pronunciation, and vocabulary. For
most students learning English for
tourism, oral fluency is more impor-
tant than grammatical accuracy. Keep
that in mind as you choose the errors
to focus on in you feedback sessions.
ENGLISH FOR TOURISM CLASSES
ARE AN EXCITING CHANCE TO TEACH
YOUR STUDENTS LANGUAGE THAT
IS REAL-WORLD APPLICABLE.
To ensure that students will remember
what they have learned, it is important
for teachers to keep students talking
and classes lively. If you follow these
tips, who knows? Maybe next time
your student is showing his passport
and answering questions at passport
control, he will think of you!
49
 Where Do I Go From Here?:
English for Travelers
TEACHING ESP (ENGLISH FOR
SPECIAL PURPOSES) CAN BE A
CHALLENGE AT TIMES BECAUSE
THE ENGLISH YOU ARE TEACHING
IS VERY SPECIFIC TO THE FIELD OF
THE LESSON.
There are always things you can do
to make it easier for yourself as the
teacher as well as for the student to
commence with the English lessons.
Today we will talk about some neat
tips and tricks to help you teach Eng-
lish to students who are planning to
travel.
HOW TO TEACH
POTENTIAL
TRAVELERS
1 IMPORTANT PHRASES
Depending on the mode of
transportation your students will be
using, there are several different sets
of phrases and vocabulary they may
need. I find that there is one exercise
that really helps. Ask your students
to come up with some questions and
phrases they may need for different
situations such as getting a taxi, and
figuring out their situations in airports.
They can do this in their native lan-
guage since it is easier for them and
they will have the necessary vocabu-
lary. The next step will be to write all
the phrases your students have come
up with on the board in class and
then work with the class to translate
them. You should also have a list of
possible phrases for the situation you
will assign to them and retain it for af-
terwards as homework or to supple-
ment the phrases they come up with.
For a good list of hypothetical phrases
for airports check out this site: www.
teacherjoe.us/TravelAirport.html
2 EFFECTIVE ROLE PLAY
Role play exercises are also a
great way to prepare your students
for travelling abroad. From my expe-
rience, role playing activities are the
most effective way to get students
to practice their spoken English as
well as to react in appropriate ways
50
to different situations. I found a page
which I have used several times in my
classes for travelers. It gives a sample
role play exercise. It focuses more on
getting through customs in English
speaking countries as well as an ac-
curate portrayal of the scenarios they
may encounter. I really like this page
because they provide you with work-
sheets and all the necessary items
for the lesson, including a teacher’s
lesson plan. It is very detailed and
extremely helpful. http://boggles-
worldesl.com/survival_travel_english/
airport_english.htm
3 TAXI SITUATION
Another situation your students
need to be prepared for is taking
a taxi. It is always important to give
travel students helpful travel advice,
such as making sure that they check
to make sure that taxi drivers turn on
the meters after they enter the cabs,
and if they seem to be “taking the
scenic route” (going in circles or tak-
ing you on a long roundabout way),
they should write down the registra-
tion number and call the taxi company
later. Another thing would be to tip the
taxi drivers 10-15 percent depending
on where they are because in many
cultures tipping is nonexistent or rare.
It is also good to let them know that
most taxi drivers are honest and so it
is good to relax and talk to the driver
about the city or town they are visiting.
There are some useful phrases which
can help them to get to where they
are going in a safe manner. Some of
these useful phrases may include:
• I need to go to _____ hotel /
restaurant / address.
• Where can I go for good _____
food? (Chinese, Korean, Indi-
•
an, Greek, etc.)
Where do you suggest I go
while I am visiting?
• Are there any good places to
go out dancing near _____
(your hotel, or destination)?
4 TALKING TO STRANGERS
Another useful skill for you to
teach your students would be how to
start up a conversation with a strang-
er. The best time to do this would
be when they are sitting somewhere
or standing in line where you will be
stuck for a while. It is easy to do by
saying something generic such as
talking about the weather, or by asking
if they are from the area. Many times,
people will also start talking to you if
you look like a tourist by asking where
you are from and if you are on vaca-
tion or if you are traveling with people.
It is important to teach them how to
recognize if someone doesn’t really
want to talk as well, by teaching them
about one word responses, or moving
away or being rude. Usually, you can
tell if people want to talk by looking at
their facial expressions and by their
responses and whether they turn to-
wards you and other such gestures. It
is also important to let your students
know that these conversations usually
only last a few minutes and that they
should not feel bad if the conversation
dies out pretty quickly because there
are innumerable opportunities to con-
verse with people while traveling.
5
FINDING YOUR WAY
One of the most important things
people will need to do when traveling
is asking for directions. When your
students are looking for a particu-
lar place and they cannot find it, it is
necessary to ask for directions. When
they ask for directions, then they need
to do the most important part, which
is to understand and follow the direc-
tions given to them. The examples be-
low will be labeled “T” to refer to the
student who will be traveling and “L”
will represent the answer of the per-
son giving directions.
1. T: Excuse me, do you know
where the Post Office is?
L: Yes, go down this street for
4 blocks and it should be on
the right hand side on the cor-
 ner of 21 and 46.

2. T: Excuse me sir, would

you happen to know
where the Bus station is?
L: Yeah, just go down two
blocks, take a right, then walk
two more blocks, and then
on your left will be a grocery
store. It is right behind the gro-
cery store.

6 TRAVEL VOCABULARY
One of the last things you will
need to teach your students are the
same thing you will need for every
English lesson: vocabulary. I have
found that it is very hard to narrow
down the words needed for traveling
because so many of them also re-
late to different fields, however I have
scoured the web and found a couple
sites with pretty good lists of vocabu-
lary and exercises for teaching Eng-
lish for travel students.

1. PDF worksheet for English travel

vocabulary (bit.ly/15p6viV)

2. Simple list with definitions (busy-

teacher.org/8551-travel-vocabu-
lary.html)

3. Interactive travel vocabulary

workpage (www.languageguide.
org/english/vocabulary/travel/)

4. Webpage with pictures and corre-

sponding vocabulary (www.eng-
lishexercises.org/makeagame/
viewgame.asp?id=7006)

OF COURSE THERE ARE MANY

OTHER FACETS TO CONSIDER WHEN
TEACHING ESP HOWEVER; YOU CAN
ALWAYS LOOK FOR MORE GREAT
ARTICLES AND WORKSHEETS HERE
ON BUSY TEACHER TO HELP YOU IN
PLANNING YOUR LESSONS.

51
 Hi, I Would Like to Check in
Please: ESP for Hotel Staff
TEACHING ESP (ENGLISH FOR
SPECIAL PURPOSES NOT EXTRA
SENSORY PERCEPTION) DOES NOT
NECESSARILY HAVE TO BE A CHORE.
It can be fun and easy as well. You
always have to remember that it is
not very different from teaching Eng-
lish on a whole, except that you focus
more on the appropriate grammar and
vocabulary for the field of the students
you are teaching to. Today we will talk
about teaching English to hotel staff.
There are two main elements we
will be talking about. These are the
same for all specialized industries,
vocabulary and sample phrases. For
some great examples, please refer
to - busyteacher.org/classroom_ac-
tivities-vocabulary/travellingculture_
studies/hotel-worksheets/
SAMPLE
VOCABULARY
I will start off by giving some sample
vocabulary terms pertinent to the ho-
tel industry as well as some example
sentences. These terms are Sample
Vocabulary your students may need
when working in the hotel industry.
1 Adjoining rooms – Two hotel
rooms with a door which joins them
If you would like, we can book two
adjoining rooms, for you and your
children.
2 8
Baggage, luggage – Bags and
Suitcases with clothing and personal
belongings
We can send your luggage up to
room for you while you check in.
3
Bellboy – a person who works
for the hotel moving luggage
The bellboy will be right up with
all your baggage Mr. Johnson.
52
4 Fully Booked – When the hotel
Would you like to book a room
with a twin or double bed Mrs.
Gill?
is full and there are no rooms avail-
able
10
I am sorry Mr. Henderson, we
are fully booked for the next four Floor – Level on which the
days. rooms are located
5
Would you like for us to book you
a room on the tenth floor?
Check In – When someone
11
comes into the hotel and receives the
keys for his or her room
Housekeeping – Staff
You can check in any time after 2 members who are responsible for
in the afternoon. cleaning the rooms and changing the
linens
6
Housekeeping usually comes
Check Out – When someone re- around 6 to twin, however if you
turns the keys to the front desk and do not need the cleaning ser-
pays the bill vices, just put the “do not disturb”
sign on the door.
When you check out at 11 o’clock
12
tomorrow morning, we will need
the keys for the room as well as
the parking pass. Jacuzzi, hot tub – a small
hot pool usually with jets, for relax-
7
ation
Complimentary (services) – Any
services that are free of charge
The honeymoon suite comes with
its own Jacuzzi.
13
Mr. Kingsley, since you are plati-
num member you have compli-
mentary access to our pool, gym, Kitchenette – A miniature
spa, and breakfast bar. kitchen
All our double rooms come with a
small kitchenette
Deposit – amount paid ahead of
check in in order to secure someone’s
reservation
Unfortunately, we cannot refund
14 Maximum capacity – The
most amount of people allowed some-
your 100 dollar deposit unless where
you cancel at least 5 hours before
check in. I am sorry sir, however our rooms
have a maximum capacity of 5
9
guests.
Double bed and twin sized bed–
A bed large enough for two people to
sleep on and one person to sleep on.
15 Valet – Member of staff
that is responsible for parking vehicles
Would you like me to call the valet
and tell him to bring your car to
the front?
FRONT DESK
RECEPTIONISTS
The front desk person is the person
who will deal with the customers when
they are checking in or checking out.
There are several key phrases that
will allow them to do their jobs well
and leave a good impression. Though
some of the following questions are
not always applicable most of them
will help to clarify any confusion the
guest or receptionist may have. The
following questions are only the tip of
the iceberg when it comes to useful
questions that they may need to use.
For more sample questions please
refer to this website, which I have re-
cently begun to use more frequently:
www.englishformyjob.com/ell_hote-
lindustry.html. The site mentioned
above will give you excellent tests and
ideas for your own classes. I will give
you the sample question or comments
that the receptionist may use then the
hypothetical responses.
you be paying for this today?
G: You can just charge it to the
card you have on file.
R: Enjoy the rest of your holiday
G: Thanks enjoy your day.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO REMEM-
BER THAT THERE IS NO SET SCRIPT
FOR PEOPLE TO FOLLOW, HOWEVER
WHEN TEACHING HOTEL STAFF
ENGLISH, IT IS IMPORTANT TO TRY
TO HAVE THEM COME UP WITH
SAMPLE SCENARIOS AND ACT THEM
OUT WITH EACH OTHER.
This allows for the element of sponta-
neity that would occur when a guest is
checking in. It is necessary because
guests will not follow a script and the
employees will need to be ready for
any situation that they may be thrust
into.

CHECK IN
R: Whose name is the reservation
under?
G: The reservation is under my
name, James Gill
R: How long will you be staying
with us?
G: We will be staying for three
nights.
R: How many people will be stay-
ing with your party?
G: It will be just the two of us.
R: Do you have a credit card we
can keep on file?
G: Sure, here it is.
R: Will you need a wake up call in
the morning?
G: Yes please, can we have it at
7 tomorrow morning, and can you
send up a newspaper as well?

CHECK OUT
R: Are you ready to check out sir?
G: Yes, thank you.
R: Can I have your name and room
number please?
G: My name is James Gill, and I
was in room 403.
R: How did you enjoy your stay
with us?
G: It was great, thanks.
R: Your total is $250.49. How will

53
That Will be 14.50; Here is
Your Change: ESP for Cashiers
Teaching English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) can be tricky, especially when
dealing with obscure fields such as ar-
chitecture, or structural engineering,
however when teaching English for ca-
shiers, which is a pretty common job
and does not necessarily require a high
level of English, your job as a teacher
becomes a lot easier.
A cashier is someone who handles cash
and other forms of payment in a store,
restaurant, bank, or other business.
Other terms for cashiers can include
clerks, CSR’s (Customer Service Rep-
resentatives), Sales Associates, or tell-
ers in banks. Depending on the size of
the business in which the cashier works,
their responsibilities will differ. For the
purposes of this lesson guide, we will as-
sume that the cashier also handles cus-
tomer complaints and guiding customers
to products in the store.
As with most ESP lessons, role playing
will play a big part in the lessons. It is, in
my opinion, one of the most useful and
effective methods for teaching English to
people who need it for specific fields. It
is important to realize that your students
who are cashiers will have lots of stress
because many companies will charge
them for any mistakes they make and
most customers will not point out a mis-
take or even notice it until later on. It is
best to let your students know that cus-
tomers will be nicer and more coopera-
tive if they say “I am in training, so please
forgive any mistakes I may make.” This
phrase has been proven to save many a
cashier from trouble in the past.
CASHIER ROLE PLAY
In your role playing exercises there are
some key phrases your students will
need to know and I will give them to
you know with hypothetical responses
as well. There are also many other rel-
evant questions and useful phrases that
can be used when working as a cashier
and in order to ensure that you cover
every possible angle, you can ask the
students to bring in their training manual
in order to teach them specifics of their
job in case they don’t understand certain
aspects of it. In the following examples
“S” will stand for your student who is the
cashier and “C” will stand for customer.
54
S: Do you have a membership or a
discount card?
C: Yes, I have a gold membership
card. Here it is.
S: Will you be paying with cash or
credit?
C: Do you accept Visa or Master-
Card?
S: I am sorry. Your card has been
declined. Do you have another form
of payment?
C: Sure, Try this card, and if it does
not work, I will pay in cash.
S: I just need to see some form of
identification to verify your card.
C: That will not be a problem. Here
is my driver’s license
CUSTOMER SERVICE
In many smaller businesses, cashiers
will also have to deal with customer ser-
vice, including, complaints, comments,
questions, and helping customers find
the things they need in the store. It
is important to use role play and situ-
ational improvisation for your students
in order for them to succeed in learning
cashier English properly. It is important
to remember that in many businesses,
the cashier is the face of the business
since, he or she would be one of the few
employees that the customer actually
speaks with. Cahiers, need to be friendly
polite, and diplomatic. It is important to
teach them the appropriate vocabulary
needed for the job and ensure they know
how to keep a customer happy. I will
give you a list of phrases that are very
important for any person who works as
a cashier with customer service respon-
sibilities.
Welcome to ____ (name of store,
business, restaurant, bank, etc.) I
hope you can find what you are look-
ing for.
How can I help you?
I can solve this problem for you.
I do not know, but I will find out for
you.
Thank you for your business / pa-
tronage
I understand your concern and will
call my manager to come deal with
the issue.
I am sorry for the inconvenience this
has caused you.
What seems to be the problem, and
how can I help to solve it?
Do you have a receipt for this _____
(item the customer wants to return of
complain about)?
Although I understand your com-
plaint, due to company policy there
is nothing I can do to help.
The last important part of teaching Eng-
lish to cashiers / customer service repre-
sentatives will be the extensive vocabu-
lary they will need. Working in this field
requires certain specific phrases and
words which can be confusing for some.
After doing some research, I have come
up with a few resources that will help you
to teach the vocabulary necessary for
students who are cashiers:
1. e s l . a b o u t . c o m / o d /
businessspeakingskills/a/customer_
ser.htm - This page has several key
phrases and sample conversations
for role playing which are handy
when teaching cashiers and cus-
tomer service representatives.
2. quizlet.com/3586452/customer-ser-
vice-vocabulary-flash-cards/ - This
page has an interactive list of key
terms with audio to help students
learn.
It is also a good idea to have your stu-
dents bring in their training manual and
pick out the words they do not know and
write them on the classroom chalk or
marker board and then go through them
with the students and define them as well
as use them in sentences for examples.
AS I SAID EARLIER ON, ROLE PLAYING
WILL BE YOUR BEST TEACHING
TOOL WHEN TEACHING ENGLISH TO
CASHIERS.
It is ideal for this particular program be-
cause students will be able to hypoth-
esize and come up with new comments,
questions, and information based on
their respective work places. It will help
them to be more comfortable with the
language and will allow them to use
words that they are comfortable with as
well. Using their training manuals and
words that they have come across when
working will also be very beneficial be-
cause they will be able to personalize
the information and the lesson and apply
it to their own work lives.
Spic and Span: ESP for Maids
or Cleaning Staff
Teaching English for specific purposes
can be trying at times, however there are
always two main things that you have to
remember. Firstly you will be focusing
only on English that is pertinent to the
field of the students and so your lessons
will be more targeted, and secondly,
you will have to put a lot of emphasis on
words and phrases related to the field
your students wish to learn about. Today
will talk about how to teach English for
maids or cleaning staff in homes.
Housekeeping is a broad term used to
refer to people who do domestic work,
especially cleaning and upkeep of the
home or hotel in which they work. Your
students in this field will either be look-
ing for a job or will already have a job in
the housekeeping department of a ho-
tel or in someone’s private residence. It
is important to differentiate the workers
in hotels from personal homes because
though the job is essentially the same,
there are some differences in the work
and in the English phrases they will use.
For the purpose of this article we will fo-
cus mainly on housekeepers who work
in private homes. As with most lessons
in ESP, roleplaying and vocabulary and
phrase lists will be your best teaching
tools. If your students have not yet found
a job as a housekeeper, it is important
that they understand the terminology
that they may see in advertisements
in the newspapers. It is important that
you as a teacher come up with several
mock ads and use some of the following
phrases in them in order to get your stu-
dents familiar with the terminology.
HOW TO PROCEED
1
DETAIL ORIENTED
The employer wants someone
who will clean everything rather than
“sweeping the dust under the rug” and
skipping over things.
2
FLEXIBLE
The employer wants someone who
can work whenever he or she is needed
rather than having a set schedule.
3
LIVE-IN / LIVE-OUT
(a) Lives in the house where he or
she works.
(b) Housekeeper lives in their own home
and travels to work.
4 PAY IN EXCHANGE
FOR ROOM AND BOARD
Instead of being paid, the housekeeper
would work in someone’s home and be
provided with a room and meals (some-
times a small amount of pay will be in-
cluded).
5
VERIFIABLE REFERENCES
The employer wants the house-
keeper to tell them where they have
worked before and to be able to call the
previous employer to verify whether or
not he or she is a good worker.
This is a sample list of words that you
should include in your mock ads to teach
your students what to be on the lookout
for. In the mock ad exercise, you could
come up with 5 - 10 different ads and
then come up with the same amount of
descriptions of housekeepers which you
can match to the ads. Have the students
read them and try to match the house-
keeper to the job that is right for them.
This will encourage them to read and to
improve their logic and cognitive skills in
English.
One of the hardest things for house-
keepers with a limited vocabulary in
English to do may be understanding
their employer’s instructions. They al-
ways have the option to ask the employ-
er to speak more slowly if they cannot
understand, however this may not seem
professional in some cases and so the
solution for this would be to have your
students come up with a checklist of
chores or duties they may need to per-
form in the house. The checklist would
include things like sweeping, mopping,
laundry and any other duties they need
to perform. A great exercise would be to
draw a table with three columns as illus-
trated below with duties, a check box,
and an empty column for details if need-
ed. Have the students come up with the
duties they may need to perform and
then have them define the terms. You
can then pretend to be the employer and
write in the specifications for the task
and teach them what they mean.
DUTY YES / NO SPECIFICATIONS
Sweep YES Kitchen, Living Room,
Bedrooms
Laundry NO
Bathrooms YES Master Bedroom,
Mudroom
It is important to have roleplaying exer-
cises as well to ensure that they become
more comfortable with speaking Eng-
lish and can understand the different
things their employers may ask or say.
For these types of exercises, you can
either have your students interact with
each other or you can pretend to be the
employer and have one student respond
at a time. Some of the key phrases that
they may need are listed below.
If they are unclear about something
Excuse me.
Sorry?
What was that?
Can you please repeat or explain
that again.
If they understand something
I Understand.
Right away sir/ma’am.
Yes, I will do that.
One of the most important things to
use which I mentioned earlier, is a list
of vocabulary specific to the field you
are teaching for. There are not very
many resources online which talk about
teaching English for maids, however af-
ter quite a bit of Googling, I found one
page which has an extensive and very
comprehensive list of words and terms
that will be useful for your housekeep-
ing students to learn and use on a daily
basis. The site divides the list of vo-
cabulary into seven different categories
which include the rooms of the house,
furniture and décor which may be found
in the house, all the major appliances
that can be found in the home, clean-
ing supplies, laundry and linen terms,
descriptive words that employers and
housekeepers may find themselves us-
ing in conversation, as well as action
words that they may come across. The
site is - www.englishclub.com/english-
for-work/housekeeping-vocabulary.html
55
 May I Take Your Order? :
ESP for Food and Beverage Staff
Teaching English for specific purpos-
es can sometimes be challenging, but
there is no reason for you as a teach-
er to rip your hair out in frustration.
There are always some hints, tips and
tricks you can use to teach English to
restaurant and bar workers (Food and
Beverage staff). As with most fields in
ESP there are three main tools you
will use. These are vocabulary lists
and terms, phrases that will come in
handy and lastly, role playing exer-
cises.
The first thing we should do when
teaching restaurant workers and bar-
tenders English will be to have them
bring in the training manual or em-
ployees handbook provided to them
by their employers, and if they have
not yet found a job, you can always
find samples such as this - www.
scribd.com/doc/78336277/Waiters-
Training-Manual. When you have
the employee handbook or training
manual, you should go through it with
below.
May I interest anyone in a drink/
beverage to start?
Has everyone decided yet, or do
you need some more time with
the menu?
Today or specials are _____.
How would you like your steak/
burger cooked?
Is this all together or would you
like separate tabs?
For a more complete list you can
check on sites like: www.phrasemix.
com/collections/english-expressions-
that-waiters-waitresses-and-restau-
rant-s.
Bartenders are the food and bever-
age staff who work behind the bar and
serve drinks. It is imperative that you
let your students know that bartend-
ers are also “part time psychologists”
and everyone’s friend. A bartender
needs to be able to speak with all of
English, it is usually a lot easier to
teach them, since they will not nor-
mally need to communicate directly
with the customers. Even though they
do not normally need to communicate
with the customers, they will need to
be able to understand any specific re-
quests from the customers delivered
by the wait staff. They will also need
specific lists of jargon -- however
these are not always absolutely nec-
essary depending on the type of jobs
they perform. Some of these lists can
be found on sites such as: chefsblade.
monster.com/training/articles/1214-
kitchen-jargon-glossary
There are however many phrases
they will need to understand which
the wait staff will use which I will show
you below as well as some sample re-
sponses.
HOW TO PROCEED

the student or class and ensure that
they can read and understand every-
thing while defining and clarifying any
points of confusion.
Waiters will need to know the menu,
and understand that certain people
have special dietary restrictions (lac-
tose intolerant, gluten intolerant, food
allergies, etc.). It is also necessary for
waiters to have a good knowledge of
the bar and the items that are on the
special board daily.
It is important when you are teach-
ing wait staff English will be to talk
to them about how to serve a table.
You can use role playing exercises
to encourage them to overcome their
shyness with the new language and
1
his or her customers and make them
feel welcome in the establishment
where they work. Being a bartender
Can I get a rush on this or-
will require a much larger vocabu-
der for table 16 please?
lary than being a member of the wait
Sure, no problem. It will be out in
staff since bartenders normally speak
about 10 minutes.
more in length and about a wider vari-
ety of topics with the customers. If you
are teaching students who will work or
currently work in bars, you will need
to assign long lists of appropriate vo-
2 What is the ETA (estimated
time of arrival) of the soup and
cabulary such as the lists found on
salad for table 4? (This will be used
the following websites since bartend-
when they need to know how long
ers need to know a lot of job specific
the food will take to be sent out.)
jargon.
It should not be more than 5 more
minutes.
1. g i z m o d o . c o m / 5 9 1 8 6 8 3 / t h e -
49-bits-of-booze-jargon-every-
drinker-needs-to-know

terminology and it will also allow them
to become more comfortable with any
potential questions that people may
ask. As a teacher it is important to
come up with a list of questions that
customers may ask and have the stu-
dents respond properly. Some of the
questions that you will need to ensure
the students learn in order to work
well as a waiter or waitress are listed
2. www.drinksmixer.com/guide/2-1.
3
day?
What are the specials for the
php.
The specials are the lime and
chicken soup and the barbeque
The third group of people who work
ribs.
in the food and beverage industry are
what we call the Back of the House.
Some of the jobs in this category in-
clude bakers, dishwashers, busboys,
cooks and chefs, short order cooks,
4 Table 6 sends their compli-
ments to the chef.
and many more. When you have stu-
Thanks. Send them this dessert on
dents in this field who wish to learn
the house (free/complimentary).

56
5 This hamburger is not well
done. It needs another couple
minutes on the grill.
Sure, it will be out in just a min-
ute.

ROLE PLAYING IS THE MOST IMPOR-

TANT AND EFFECTIVE TOOL YOU
CAN USE WHEN TEACHING ENGLISH
FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES.
In order to do the roleplaying exercis-
es, with wait staff, you can have some
students pretend to be customers and
come into the restaurant and have
one student at a time take turns to be
the waiter or waitress while you eval-
uate and give suggestions to them
when they are practicing.

When you want to get your students

who are bartenders to practice their
English, you can set up a table with
several chairs behind it and pretend it
is a bar and have your students take
turns as the bartender and pretend to
serve the customers and have polite
conversational interactions with them.

Lastly, in order to practice with em-

ployees who are back of the house
workers, you should have them come
up with phrases and words that they
hear at work but do not understand
well and have them practice these in
class along with any other vocabulary
and phrases you can find that may be
of use.

57
On Your Left You Will See… :
ESP for Tour Guides
WHEN YOU ARE TEACHING ENGLISH
FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES, IT IS IMPOR-
TANT TO REMEMBER THAT MOST OF
YOUR STUDENTS WILL HAVE AT LEAST
A BASIC KNOWLEDGE OF ENGLISH
AND NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR
ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES AS
THE NAME SUGGESTS.
When you are teaching ESP to tour
guides it is important to remember that
the most important things will be vo-
cabulary lists with specific jargon for the
field, useful phrases and sentences, and
most importantly you will use the most
effective tool for ESP which is role play-
ing.
The main responsibilities of the tour
guide are to explain all the safety pro-
tocols, and rules as well as the etiquette
that must be adhered to during the tour,
answering any of the questions that the
tourists may have about the tour or the
destination, to explain the places of in-
terest that will be visited during the tour
and they must be able to retain histori-
cal facts, anecdotes, and dates, then be
able to discuss this information with the
visitors in an entertaining, and simple to
understand manner. For these reasons
teaching English to tour guides is some-
times tricky.
One of the best methods you can use to
ensure that the students learn the Eng-
lish which is appropriate for their tours is
to have them write down all the terms,
dates, and topics for a specific tour then
have them give a mock tour in the class-
room. It is important to help them with
their English while they give their tours
and record it if possible then have them
write a script in proper English to prac-
tice their tour.
The first and one of the most important
things any tour guide will need to do
will be to explain all the safety regula-
tions and rules which the tour company
has stipulated for the tour as well as the
etiquette that they must adhere to. This
is easily done because most tour com-
panies will have a scripted set of rules
and regulations as well as expected
etiquette. You can have your students
bring in their manual which is provided
58
by the company and help them to prac-
tice it and understand what they mean.
EXPLAINING RULES
AND SAFETY
Please keep your seatbelts fas-
tened at all times.
Please do not walk off the desig-
nated paths.
There is no flash photography al-
lowed inside the museum
Please remember to hold on to your
garbage until you reach a garbage
bin.
These rules are for your own com-
fort and safety.
EXPLAINING
ETIQUETTE
It is customary to tip your taxi driv-
ers “X” percent.
In this area of the country, it is cus-
tomary to hug and give air kisses
on the cheeks rather than to shake
hands.
If you wish to stop the bus, just
wave your hand at the driver.
Please to not remove clothing in the
villages until you get to the desig-
nated swimming areas, in order to
respect the local people.
Please to not use profanity in the
churches since it is considered dis-
respectful.
Tour guides will need to answer ques-
tions from tourists and this can be one
of the most challenging aspects of the
job because many times, the questions
may contain words they do not under-
stand, however it is possible to antici-
pate certain questions. You can do this
as a teacher by having them give their
mock tour and then asking questions as
a tourist. Some of these can include the
following general questions which can
be applied to almost any tour.
When was the site discovered?
What else is there to do in the sur-
rounding areas?
Where is the nearest bathroom?
How long did the renovation take?
Which restaurants would you rec-
ommend for my family and I try out?
It is important for tour guides to always
introduce themselves at the beginning of
their tours and then also to maintain the
dialogue since silence can be uncom-
fortable during a tour. It is important that
the students know as much as possible
about the history of the sites, the culture
of the local people, as well as interesting
places to visit in the area. Since many
tour companies will give their guides a
script which they should follow for the
tour, there are times, in between, where
silence will arise. One way you can help
your students to deal with this will be to
teach them some of the following phras-
es which can be used to show places
and things of interest, especially on
guided bus tours, or train tours, or walk-
ing tours of the city. The blanks will be
filled in with whatever information they
have regarding the region, site, or his-
tory of the place.
On your right / left you will notice
_______.
I would like to point out that
_______.
Keep your eyes peeled for _______.
As you may have noticed, there are
_______.
As we round this corner up ahead,
you will see _______.
You should use role playing in as many
of the activities as possible in order to
get the students familiar with spontane-
ous situations. It is also imnportant that
along with role playing and useful phras-
es, that you teach them vocabulary that
is appropriate for the field. One set of
sites I find useful for teaching vocabu-
lary to people in the tourism industry are
listed below. I particularly like these sites
because they are interactive and focus
specifically on vocabulary:
• www.englishformyjob.com/english-
tourist-information1.html
• www.englishformyjob.com/english-
tourist-information2.html
• www.englishformyjob.com/english-
tourist-information3.html
Where Are We Going Today Sir? :
ESP for Taxi Drivers
Teaching English for specific purpos-
es differs from teaching ESL in many
ways, however the most significant is
that your students typically will have a
basic working knowledge of the English
language. People who seek lessons for
specific purposes need to learn English
in order to communicate with people in
their field. It can sometimes be a dif-
ficult task -- however this is does not
need to be the case. There are always
three key factors you will need to con-
sider, which include, specific sets of
vocabulary, terms and phrases they will
use in their field as well as the most im-
portant tool that you as a teacher can
use, namely, role playing exercises.
In order to teach taxi drivers, there are
several key sets of vocabulary which
must be taught, which include talking
about time (ETA for the trip), prices,
weather, days of the week, ordinal num-
bers and months, as well as numbers.
These will be easy for teachers to teach
since there are many different lists of
words in these categories which are
easily accessible online.
One of the most challenging aspects of
being a taxi driver will be to make small
talk with their fares. Some phrases that
are useful include, talking about nation-
alities, where people are going, and
why they are going there, and general
information about the place where they
do business. For the following exam-
ples, we will assume that the taxi driver,
your student, is working in New York
City and that his/her fare is a tourist.
I am from Istanbul, where to you
come from?
Have you been to see any of the
local sights like the Empire State
Building yet?
The trip may take a bit longer than
expected because we will be stuck
in rush hour traffic.
There is so much to do here, espe-
cially in the downtown area.
I really recommend taking a day to
walk through central park and the
surrounding areas. There is a lot to
do and many things to see.
Taxi drivers are often expected to know
a lot about the city in which they work
and tourists as well as local fares will
often ask the taxi drivers for recommen-
dations. For this reason, it is important
that you teach your students about the
local sites, as well as encourage them
to make small talk with their customers
to learn about the places where they
are going. This is an ideal time to use
role playing. You can do this by pre-
tending your student is taking you to a
local restaurant which he did not previ-
ously know. Have your student ask you
questions about the restaurant such as
the type of food, what the prices are
like, and what there is to do in the sur-
rounding areas. This is important be-
cause there will be many times where
customers will ask the taxi driver to
take them to the nearest hospital, Ital-
ian (or any other type) restaurant, bus
station, museum, etc. These exercises
will allow them to learn the right types of
questions to ask and encourage them
to learn the city. It will also help them to
practice their English and expand their
vocabulary.
When your student has finished taking
their fare, the next big step is to talk
about arriving at the destination. Some
of these phrases may come in handy:
We will be there in 5 minutes. (this
helps the customer prepare them-
selves to onboard the taxi and pay)
If the customer asks to stop at a specific
place, your student could say one of the
following:
• No problem.
• I am sorry, I cannot stop here,
but I can stop half a block up.
Your fare is 32 dollars and 50 cents.
Here is your receipt.
If the passenger asks you to wait and
keep the meter running, some possible
responses are:
Sure, I will be here.
I will have to park across the street.
I am sorry but I cannot wait here,
however I can give you my number
if you would like to call me to come
get you.
I cannot wait here, would you mind
getting another cab?
There are many other useful phrases
that the taxi drivers will need to know
and may come in handy. You can prac-
tice these with the students in the role
playing exercises that were mentioned
earlier. Some of the many useful phras-
es that taxi drivers will need to know
are welcoming, understanding the pas-
senger, traffic conditions, fare and fees,
goodbyes, special requests, and to tell
a customer where there is no service.
UNDERSTANDING THE PASSENGER
Please speak more slowly.
Do you know the address of the res-
taurant?
Sorry, I do not understand.
Would you mind repeating that
please?
TRAFFIC CONDITIONS
There is a traffic jam.
Traffic is horrible right now, you may
want to walk the next two blocks.
I think we are stuck because of the
pileup on the freeway
I will have to take 5th street to avoid
the traffic.
FARE AND FEES
The fare is 15 dollars.
Thank you for the tip.
Do you have smaller bills?
If you want me to go on the toll road,
you will need to pay the fee.
I do not have any change for a hun-
dred.
GOODBYES
Watch your step when you get out.
Do not forget your bags.
It has been nice talking to you.
I hope you enjoy your stay.
If you need a taxi, feel free to call
me anytime. Here is my number.
Watch out for cars when you get
out.
NO SERVICE
I am sorry, that is out of my service
area, but I do know taxis that can
go there.
If I go all the way out there, the price
would double since I would come
back empty.
Sorry, I am not registered to go to
the airport.
My car needs some servicing, sorry.
I can call another cab company for
you if you would like.
59
 Stop Right There! :
ESP for Police Officers
Teaching English for Specific purpos-
es can sometimes be a difficult task,
however it does not always need to
be. There are some useful told which
teachers can use in order to make it
easier on themselves. When teaching
ESP it is always important to remem-
ber that your students will usually
have a basic grasp of the English lan-
guage and they simply need to learn
specific English that relates to their
fields. Police officers are the hands
of the law, and their duty is to serve
and protect the people. As police of-
ficers, in English speaking countries
or elsewhere, you will come across
people who only speak English, typi-
cally tourists or retirees. Sometimes,
getting information is the key and will
help to solve a crime more quickly and
your students may not always have
time to wait for an interpreter. Today
we will talk about some phrases and
roleplaying activities you can use to
help your students become more flu-
ent. I will also give you some excellent
vocabulary resources for teaching
English to police officers.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 PULLING PEOPLE OVER
One of the most common things
that police officers will do when on car
patrol or speed patrols will be to pull
people over for various traffic offenc-
es. You can work through some ro-
leplaying exercises with them where
you pretend to be the driver who was
pulled over and have them approach
the car correctly. They will normally
have training that teaches them the
proper etiquette for pulling g someone
over and you can have them bring
in the training manual given to them
and work on the phrases given in the
book. There are some phrases that
will come in handy such as the ones
listed below.
Have you been drinking tonight?
Do you know why I pulled you
over?
Is this a rental car?
Do you know the speed limit in this
part of town?
60
You are driving down a one way
street.
You ran a red light.
Why are you not wearing your
seatbelt?
I am going to have to give you a
ticket, which you can pay at the
police station or city hall.
2 INTERROGATION
AND SOLVING CRIMES
Another excellent roleplaying exer-
cise which you can use to involve
the students and get them to practice
their English and deductive skills, will
be to solve a mock crime. For a great
sample, check out www.cyberbee.
com/whodunnit/crimescene.html.
You can assign roles to different peo-
ple then have a team of your police
students, solve the crime. The roles
of witnesses will be assigned to some
students and you can have the po-
lice team question the witnesses and
figure out “who done it.” Some ques-
tions you can encourage them to ask
are listed below along with sample
answers. You should also encourage
them to ask any other questions they
may feel like they need to ask to solve
the crime.
• Did you see what
they were wearing?
Yes, the 3 of them had on
black ski masks, brown pants,
and white t-shirts.
• Did they have any weapons?
Yes, they all had big machine
guns and one of them had a
knife.
• What kind of car did they
escape in?
They were driving a black
pickup but I do not know what
kind, and I saw the first couple
numbers of the license plate.
They were 34f5.
• Did you see any distinguish-
ing marks?
Yes. One man was missing
his thumb on his right hand,
the second man had some
scars on his arms, and the
third guy had a huge tattoo of
a dragoon on his whole right
arm.
• Do you know if their weapons
were loaded?
They definitely were because
they shot their guns a couple
times.
3 HELPING TOURISTS
Police officers are also very
commonly regarded as people who
are trustworthy to talk to and reliable
when it comes to getting information
from them. For this reason, tourists
will often ask police officers for direc-
tions and for information about other
things and problems they may have
encountered. It is important that you
let your students know about this
and have them prepare for it by do-
ing some simple roleplaying exercises
with answering questions that tourists
may ask. It is also important that they
are fluent when it comes to giving di-
rections to local hotels, landmarks,
embassies, etc... Some questions
they may encounter are:
I am lost. Do you know how I can
get to the Grand Plaza shopping
mall?
Do you know where I can find the
British embassy or consulate?
Who can we trust to change mon-
ey with?
I lost my wallet, what should I do?
A thief just stole my purse, please
help me.
4 GETTING ID’S
Police officers will often need
to ask for some form of identification
so it is important that you teach them
about the different types of identifica-
tion card they may encounter, espe-
cially if they work somewhere with
many tourists since every country
has their own forms of identification.
In some countries, people will carry
a social security card, or a driver’s li-
cense, while in others people are re-
quired to use a national ID card, and
in other countries, people will need to
carry their voter’s registration cards.
Some of the useful questions that you
should teach your students include
the following:
May I see your passport please?
Can I have your driver’s license
and car registration? (if pulling
someone over)
Are you here on holiday? How
long have you been here?
Do you have another form of iden-
tification?
Can I see some form of photo
identification?

5 VOCABULARY
It is very important to remember
that when you are teaching ESP that
there will always be vocabulary lists
that you will need to assign to your
students. For some excellent vocabu-
lary lists for police officers please refer
to www.myvocabulary.com/word-list/
law-enforcement-and-police-vocab-
ulary/. This is a very comprehensive
resource with 463 different terms that
are applicable to the law enforcement
and police field. It does not however,
come along with definitions. It is a
great resource to assign homework
from to encourage the students to
personalize and internalize the infor-
mation.

61
Welcome Aboard Flight 2345:
ESP for Airline Employees
Teaching English for special purposes
often poses a challenge to ESL teach-
ers however this does not need to be the
case for you. The most important differ-
ence to remember is that your students
will normally have a basic understand-
ing of the English language and that the
thing they need to learn is mostly vocab-
ulary and phrases related to the field you
will be teaching. In this case, we will be
talking about teaching English for people
who work for airlines.
The airline industry employs a wide va-
riety of people for a wide variety of jobs
which range from pilots to fight crews,
to baggage loaders and caterers as well
as ground crews (people who guide the
plane and people responsible for check-
ing you in). From my research I found out
that most airline companies require that
the flight crew be fluent in at least two
languages, and English is the second
most common language for crew mem-
bers.
When teaching the flight crew and others
members of the airline industry it is im-
portant to remember that there are three
main tools that will make your life eas-
ier. These are vocabulary lists, sample
phrases and terms they may need and
role playing exercises. When customers
first interact with airline staff it is to check
in so this is where we will start. You can
get your students involved by having
them bring in their training manuals or
having them tell you a list of questions
they normally ask at check in in their
native language and then help them to
translate it and help them to grasp the
concepts. After you have your questions,
you can involve them in a roleplaying ex-
ercise using the sample questions and
responses below. “C” will stand for check
in worker and “P” will stand for passen-
ger:
C: Good Morning, do you have your
ticket miss?
P: I am not sure which of these is my
ticket but here are the papers.
C: Can I see your passport?
P: Yes and here is my wife’s passport
as well.
C: Do you have any bags you would
like to check today?
P: Here are the two that I need
checked.
C: Here is your boarding pass ma’m.
62
P: Thank you, have a nice day.
C: Do you need any help with your
luggage or perhaps a wheelchair? (to
an older person)
P: Yes, dear, that would be very help-
ful.
C: Would you like a window or an
aisle seat?
P: Let’s go with window, I have never
been to New York before.
C: I am afraid your passport is ex-
pired sir, you cannot travel with it.
P: Is there anything you can do?
C: If you do not have your ticket you
can give me your name and passport
and I can look you up in the system
quite easily.
P: Great, here they are.
C: Here is your boarding pass. You
will need to be at the gate before
10:30 which is when boarding starts
Mr. Headley.
P: Thank you. Is there anything else
I need to do?
C: Please make sure your luggage is
not left unattended.
P: I will make sure to keep it with me
at all times.
Another important thing your students
will need to learn to do will be to give
announcements. There are always an-
nouncements being made in the airports
to notify people of things they need to do,
to let people know about what is happen-
ing with their flights if they are delayed
or something like that. A great way to
teach these to your students will be to
do what we did earlier and bring in their
handbooks from work and have them se-
lect specific announcements they have
trouble with and then go through it and
define any words they do not understand
and lastly have them practice giving the
announcements as if they were at the air-
port working. I will share with you some
simple short announcements that are
generic and can be used by any airline
employee which were retrieved from ai-
rodyssey.net/reference/inflight/ (contains
many different airline announcements)
and from www.airlineannouncement.
com/ (contains a full safety briefing)
1. In preparation for takeoff, please
ensure that your seat backs and
tray tables are in their full upright
and stowed positions, your seat
belts are securely fastened and
all your carry-on items are se-
curely stowed. Federal Aviation
Regulations require customers
to comply with the lighted cus-
tomer information signs, other
posted signs, and crewmember
instructions. Please observe the
FASTEN SEATBELT and other
lighted signs until they have been
turned off by the Captain. The
NO SMOKING sign will remain
illuminated for the duration of
the flight and smoking is prohib-
ited throughout the cabin and in
the lavatories. All lavatories are
equipped with smoke detection
systems and Federal Law prohib-
its tampering with, disabling, or
destroying these systems.
2. Ladies and gentlemen, the Cap-
tain has turned off the Fasten
Seat Belt sign, and you may now
move around the cabin. However
we always recommend keeping
your seat belt fastened while you
are seated. You may now turn
on your electronic devices such
as calculators, CD players, and
laptop computers. In a few mo-
ments, the flight attendants will be
passing around the cabin to offer
you hot or cold drinks, as well as
breakfast/dinner/supper/a light
meal/a snack. Alcoholic drinks
are also available at a nominal
charge/with our compliments.
(On long flights with inflight enter-
tainment: Also, we will be show-
ing you our video presentation.)
Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy
the flight. Thank you.
Lastly it is important to teach your stu-
dents the necessary vocabulary for the
airline industry. As a teacher this may be
difficult since you do not work in the air-
line industry, however you can use their
training manuals to pick out words they
do not understand, and you can also use
sites like the following in class or as a
homework assignment for your students.
• www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learnin-
genglish/flatmates/episode50/lan-
guagepoint.shtml
• www.flashcardexchange.com/cards/
airline-vocabulary-the-travel-acade-
my-1558206
• www.businessenglishresources.
com/business-vocabulary-air-travel/
Do You Have Insurance?:
ESP for Medical Professionals
Teaching English can be a challenge
and ESP can be even more challeng-
ing, however it is always important
to remember that your students will
normally have a basic understanding
of the English language when they
come to you. When you teach English
for specific purposes for medical pro-
fessionals you need to remember that
there is a lot of specific jargon that ap-
ply only to their field. Along with vo-
cabulary lists, you will need to involve
them in role playing exercises to en-
courage them to use their language
skills.
Some of the main things that nurses,
doctors, and other medical profession-
als will need to know are the names of
the parts of the human body, medical
supplies, and visiting hours (identify-
ing family members). Along with some
phrases that relate to these topics
which I will give you below, it is impor-
tant to use vocabulary lists and role
playing exercises for situations such
as giving news to patients and inter-
acting with them.
It is important for medical profession-
als to identify the different parts of
the body and there are many ways to
learn them in English. One site that is
very helpful is: www.dummies.com/
how-to/content/medical-terminology-
for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html. If you
would like a longer list of body parts.
Below you will find a list of the different
basic parts of the human body which
are needed for all medical workers to
know.
HOW TO PROCEED
1 HEAD
Brain, Hair, Face, Forehead,
Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Lips, Tongue,
Throat, Cheeks, Chin, Ears, Jaw,
Neck
2 UPPER BODY
Collarbone, Chest, Breasts,
Nipples, Ribcage, Stomach, Waist,
Navel, Belly Button
ARMS: Shoulders, Armpit/Under-
arm, Muscles, Triceps, Biceps, El-
bow, Wrist, Forearm, Hand, Fingers,
Thumb
3 LOWER BODY
Hips, Penis, Vagina, Gluteus
Maximus (Butt)
LEGS: Thigh, Knees, Shin, Calf, An-
kle, Foot, Toes, Toenails
MEDICAL SUPPLIES
There are many items which will be
found in a hospital, however, I will
give you a list of common items which
can be found in doctor’s office, oper-
ating rooms, and medical kits. This
list will be very concise, however it is
always a good idea to write them on
a black board and then have your stu-
dents give you any other items they
use often while at work. You can al-
ways have them give the names of
the items in their own language and
translate with them. For a varied list
please check this site: bit.ly/12c4FxO.
Antiseptic
Bandage
Blood pressure monitor
Dressing
Elastic tape
Eye chart
Forceps
Gauze
Hypodermic needles
Otoscope
Oxygen mask
Scales
Stethoscope
Syringe
Thermometer
VISITING HOURS
(FAMILY MEMBERS)
Part of being a medical professional,
especially a nurse will be to deal with
the family members and friends. It is
important that they be able to iden-
tify the different members of their
patient’s immediate family, extended
family, and other loved ones (friends
and room-mates etc.)
Immediate family includes parents
(mother and father), spouse (husband
or wife), children (sons or daughters),
and siblings (brothers and sisters)
that are related directly to the patient.
When we talk about extended fam-
ily, you will need to make sure your
students know about the following:
grandparents (grandmother/father),
aunt and uncle, nieces and nephews,
and lastly, cousins. The last groups
of visitors are the other loved ones
which include friends, room-mates,
neighbors, co-workers, fiancé, and
boyfriends and girlfriends.
In order to help your students learn
more English, roleplaying is the best
tool you will be able to use since most
of the interactions they have will be
with patients and their patients’ fami-
lies. Some role playing activities you
can practice with the students are
nurses asking for information when
people are trying to check in to the
hospital, doctors or nurses giving in-
formation to the patients about their
conditions or to their family members
about their condition. Below I will give
you some sample sentences that they
may use, however it is also a good
idea to have the students come up
with their own sentences and plays
based on how they would normally
interact.
NURSES QUESTIONS
FOR PEOPLE
CHECKING INTO
THE HOSPITAL
What is your full name?
Do you have any pre-existing con-
ditions?
Do you have insurance?
What is your reason for coming in
today?
What is your home address?
What is your phone number?
Do you have any people you would
like to list as emergency contacts?
Where does it hurt?
Have you been to this hospital be-
fore?
How old are you?
63
 GIVING NEWS TO THE
PATIENTS OR FAMILY
MEMBERS
It is always important that you teach
the students how to be compassion-
ate and use words very selectively in
order to keep the patients and family
calm. It is important to skip over the
medical jargon that people will not
normally understand. It is also impor-
tant to teach about cultural differenc-
es since certain cultures react differ-
ently than others. The Buckman’s six
step model will also play a vital role
in the way they deliver bad news. A
complete guide can be found on sci-
encecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/files/
bad_news_notes.pdf. The six steps
are listed below:

1. Getting started

2. Finding out how much the patient

knows

3. Finding out how much the patient

wants to know

4. Sharing the information

5. Responding to the patients’ feel-

ings

6. Planning and follow through.

64