English Specific Purpose

Lecture : Dr. Bertaria Sohnata Hutahuruk, M.Hum

Arranged by :

Delfia Magdalena Sitompul

2001030072

FACULTY OF TEACHING AND EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

UNIVERSITY OF HKBP NOMMENSEN PEMATANGSIANTAR

PEMATANG SIANTAR

2022/2023
 CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY

Introduction

ESP (English for Specific Purpose) focuses on English for Business Purpose/Business
English (EBP/BE). The course aims to give an insight into teaching general and specific
purpose business courses in English. The students will become familiar with Business
English skills (meetings, negotiations, presentations), business writing, effective business
communication, job interview, e-business, sustainability in business, doing business across
cultures, knowledge management, forming corporate alliances, and other topics according to
students’ interest. The course topics may br of particular relevance to future teachers of
bilingual business courses as well as to students who intend to use English in a professional
context other than teaching. Participants will do a mini presentation covering one of the
Business English content areas, actively parcipate in class, fulfil homework assignments, and
pass a written end-of-term test. A reader will be made avaible by the beginning of the
semester.
 CHAPTER II

ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES

We will consider general and specific purpose business courses identifying who the learners
are, and the implication for the teachers and courses. We shall also discuss ways in which
interdisciplinary issues and research are altering perspectives. Aspect of language of Business
English and the role of the skills are covered in chapters 5 and 6. We begin here by
considering who is using what as Business English.

A. Characteristics of Business English

1. User of business English 

English has becoming the international language of business. A Finn conducting

business in South Korea uses English; a Brazilian doing business with the Dutch uses
English; the French in China often use English. And an American and German probably
also employ English. Thus most English medium communications in business are non-
native to non-native speaker (NNS-NNS), and the English they use is International English,
not that of native speakers (NS) of English medium countries such as UK and Australia.
This is a point made management books as well as language books, for instance Guy and
Mattock (1993) use the term ‘offshore English’ for the English spoken between Europeans
who do not share first language and have learned English for practical rather than academic
purpose.

2. A definition of Business English 

Business English is difficult to define and limit in linguistic terms, Pickett highlighted
the fact that there is more than one face to business communication with the some of it
being a lot nearer the everyday language spoken by the general public than many other
segments of ESP (1986:16). The diagrammatic representation he use suggests two particular
aspect to business communication: communication with the public and communication
within (intra) a company or between (inter) companies: for many business, communication
with the public is most likely to be the L1. The Business English that NNSs require is
mainly for intercompany and, in international conglomerates, intra-company dealings
(Nickerson, 1998).

The distinction Pickett makes is useful but probably not fine enough for today’s wide-
ranging business, the language requirements of the team negotiating, say a L2m contract to
build a generating station and of the team in charge of onsite installation be very different.
The purposes of the interactions, the topics covered and the professional relationships will
all after the choice of language.

B. The role of needs analysis in Business English

 Needs analysis may be even more fundamental in Business English than in say
English for Science and Technology as learners needs can be much more varied and the
spectrum of language and skills less predictable. The approach to needs analysis depends on
the situation and context. Pilbeam (1997) suggests that needs analysis should be concerned
with establishing both a target profile of language skills with the sets down the actual
activities that the participants have to carry out (Target  Situation Analysis) and profile of
personal ability in which the participants proficiency in these activities is evaluated (Present
Situation Analysis). Such a language audit is particularly relevant to in company work and
helps to decide how many hours of language tuition are needed to bridge the gap, or what
should be prioritised  where time is limited.

Brieger (1997) suggest needs analysis for business English will set out to identify the
range of general and specialist language knowledge required, together with the general and
professional communication skills (pp. 88-9).

A language audit may involve any of the techniques of needs analysis that are
discussed in chapter 7 plus a number of stages. Holden (1993) uses a three stage tabulates
information through which target language needs are identified the second stage is an
interview (or questionnaire) to establish learners perceptions of communication within their
corporate culture and the final stage is a questionnaire to establish preferred learning styles.
Another multi-stage approach is the LANA system which uses interviews and
communication modeling at corporate and departmental levels and a computer
questionnaire with individuals (Reeves and Wright 1996). Cost-effectiveness is and
important reason for carrying out a thorough needs analysis in the development of a
company-wide training programme  which may cover hundreds of employees over a
number of years.

For short intensive courses, less time and fewer resources will be available but the
EBP teacher can usually obtain some pre-course information participants may be willing to
complete a short from and supply examples of commonly used documents. This information
means that the EBP teacher can design the framework of the course before participants
arrive and determine specific needs when the learners are on site. In  a one-to-one situations
this can be achieved through quite extensive interviewing and discussion as the learner is
situations, learners may not want to speed much time sharing needs however, the early
activities can be designed to combine this and language practice. In twos or these learners
can interview each other about their job, their use of English and then report back
individually or summarise similarities and differences. The on going evaluation we discuss
and recommend in chapter 7 is also effective for needs analysis.

On extensive courses EGBP courses less effort may be put into establishing individual
learners needs. There are reports of attitudes such as ‘We just use chat before the course
starts, ‘Our student are happy with a set course book’ (Nelson, 1995). Nelson suggested that
‘these kinds of attitudes to needs analysis were still quite widespread in the industry’. To
combat this he has created a computer-integrated system which combines questionnaire
responses with the placement test result. These can be administrated at the start of the
course and quickly provide details for the selection of suitable material.

C. Teachers of Business English 

Personality, knowledge and experience are important to a Business English teacher. In

the larger EAP classes there may be few opportunities for personal contact, on a one-to-one
or small intensive course, personal contact is a key factor and trainers need to be outgoing,
tactful and genuinely interested in business issues (Ellis and Johnson, 1994; 27) Successful
Bussines English teachers will have the flexibility and adapt ability of any ESP teacher, they
will like people and be good at handling them.

Most ESP teachers have a language teaching background and do not have fist-hand
experience of the content and context of other disciplines or business. There can be a good a
deal to learn and, for an EBP teacher, more in one respect than for an EAP teacher. EAP
teachers have all been students themselves and been through the academic environment.
They study skills that are integrally linked on many courses with language development are
familiar. A teacher can say of examinations listening to lectures, note-talking, I’ve been
there, I’ve done that although their environment may have differed from that of some of
their learners in various ways including subject culture and genres.

Most EBP teachers have not worked in business, they cannot say of budget setting
meetings or sales negotiation, ‘been three, done that’, in non-EAP situations fewer teachers
have experience of or actually work within their student context. Acquiring such knowledge
and skill takes time and comes from reading, from talking to people-perhaps shadowing
them at work-from attending courses and conferences, and through experience. Howe
(1993) describes how, after some criticism of her well-intentioned efforts, she set out about
the law because I could tangle with the law School again (P.148). On-going professional
development of this kind is essential for ESP practitioners. The interdisciplinary nature of
ESP is both a stimulus and challenging demand!

Being an effective business communicator depends not only on verbal language

proficiency but also on personal and interpersonal and skills. Increasingly ESP practitioners
who work in-company specific courses are delivering both language and skills. The trend is
towards ‘shorter, highly job-specific courses are delivering both language and skills
courses’ (Pilbeam , 1992, 13.1 :3) In addition, intercultural issues are increasingly a
component of such courses. The complexities of effective international communication
place increasing demands on us as English for business Purpose practitioners.

Particularly for those involved with company language training acquiring knowledge
and understanding in five areas seems necessary.

 A knowledge of the communicative functioning of English in business

contexts.
  An understanding of the business people’s expectations and learning
strategies.
 An understanding of the psychology of personal and interpersonal interactions
in cross-cultural settings 
 Some knowledge of management theories and practice
 First-class training skills.

D. Key Issues For Business English

1. The communicative functioning of English in business contexts.

We shall look at some of the research findings into language and communications in
Business English under four categories, moving the macro-level of discourse communities 
and genre to key communicative and event and the micro-level of grammar and lexis.

a. Discourse communities

In the area of ESBP the trend towards finding out how discourse communities
operate, noted in ESAP, is increasingly important. A concern for Business English
reseach is to discover how the language and discourse used in business
communication relate to the context-the business relationship-in which it takes place.

b. Business genres

Swaless (1990:54) notes that ‘a discourse community’s nomenclature for genres is an

important source of insight’. In the academic community the use of terms such as
‘academic article’, ‘review article’,’letter’ and ‘essay’ are significant and an indication
that there will be important generic differences between them.

c. Key communicative events

There is more of a consensus on the key communivative events of business. Some the
result of needs analysis (Holden, 1993; Yin and Wong, 1990; Kho, 1994) and current
prublished materials (Longman Business English Series) identify seven core events.
The five events requiring primarily oral language are refered to as: telephoning,
socialising, making presentations, taking part in meetings and negotiating; those that
require the written form are: corresponding and reporting.

d. Functions, grammar and lexis

Until recently, Business English has been an experience, intuition and materials-led
movement, and reported research findings have been slow to emerge and feed
practice. Thus earlier textbooks taught quite-elaborate gambits for function such as
taking turns, expressing opinions and disagreeing.

2. Learners’ Expectations and Strategies

 The expectations of business people can differ substantially from those of secondary
and tertiary level students and place very different demands on providers of ESP courses.
There may be expectations concerning the physical resources , the management of the
course and the learning strategies. Business managers attending ESP courses may expect
small groups of no more than 6-8 people, or to have one-to-one tuition. Time is a valuable
commodity and they expect to maximize  it’s use, so many courses are short-a few days-
and intensive. Participant may expert up to eight hours a day contract time plus some
language preparations or practice in the evenings. Each session needs to be well paced, with
continuous momentum and clear objectives. As professionals, paying directly for the
course, they will book for high standards, quality and value for money.in many countries,
the average academic classroom would be considered unsuitable , carpets, whiteboards,
overhead projecttoors , small tables and comfortable chairs are minimum requirements and
handouts need to be more up-market than the ubiquitous wads of blurred photocopies. 

3. The role of cross-cultural communication

One description of cultural is ‘the way we do things round here; another is ‘the way in
which a group of people solves problems’ (Schein,1985 cited in Trompenaar, 1993: 6).
Cultural is complex and comprises different aspect such as national, professional,
organisational and personal cultural. The essence of cultural is not in fact what we can easly
see (the tip of the iceberg) but what lies underneath.

A sensitivity to cultural issues and an understanding of our own and others’ values
and behaviours is important in ESP. Language reflects cultural and cultural can shape
language. When we and our learners are aware of the issues we may avoid
misunderstanding and conflict which can unintentionally arise from an inappriate use of
language.

4. Management theory and practice

This reading and listening may be in English or other languages. The advantage of
acces to English-medium sources is that at the same time as acquiring a feel for the business
concepts the BE teacher can also acquire the lexis and typical phares. Business is good at
inventing new terms for its activities, and keeping abreast of these and their acronyms is
hard. Ask many a non-business native English speaker what JIT, TQM, the 4Ps and SWOT
stand for (just-in-time; total quality management; price, product, position and promotion;
strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats), or the difference between downzising and
re-trenching, and they may not know (cutting the workforce, cutting expenditure).

5. Communication skills training

There is also an interface between language and communication skilss; in some areas
language and skills cannot be separated. A spoken message comprises the words themselves
and the way in which they are spoken; a face-to-face spoken message also contains body
language. The impact of each of these components depends on the context. What is
significant is thet the words can paly a very small role in the impact of the message.
Mehrabian (1971) reseachched this interplay and found that only 8 per cent of listeners’
belief in amessage came through the words, 37 per cent came through how they were said
and 55 per cent through the body language. If people ‘hear’ on thing in the body language
and another in the words, it is the body language they believe.

While the main focus of BE course for effective spoken language may be language,
pronunciation, and intonation, body language and basic communication skills cannot be
ignored; the language may be fine but how effective will a presentation be if the presenter
faces the overhead projector screen and the audience just sees a back? Similarly, a course
which develops effective written langauge will need to take account of audience, purpose,
planning, information atructuring and layout of text, because choises at the macro-level
affect the language.
 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSSION

Business English is the current growth area in ESP and covers both courses for pre-
experince learners (EGBP) and course for job-experienced learners (ESBP). The primary
concern is to communicate effectively, not necessarily tottaly accurately. As professionals,
business people have very clear purpose and expext high quality, value for money and
professionally delivered course. More course now combine language and skills development
and more account is taken of the business context and business relationship. It is being
recognised that the language depends on variables such as status, power and how well
established the relationship is. Although many of the short, intensive courses are for spoken
interaction, writing is important. With more personal computers and e-mail and less
secretarial support, more business people have to compose their own correspondence. With
the growth of transnational corporations, NNSs may hvae to write in English because
documents will be read or copied to a NS Head Office or to NS staff. The professional
demands placed on Business English teachers may well be higher that on those in other
fields.