This blog has experienced a four month haitus because I've been doing an online course with International House for teaching business English. I'm almost at the finish line, writing the final essay, and now I'll be able to spend more time updating with ideas that I've only had the time to jot down in between work and the course.
I'd like to share some videos that are ripe for business English lesson adaptation and fit right into the skills and subskills of the business English world (meetings, negotiations, interviews, etc.). I haven't adapted any lessons to these yet, but at least they have a place to hang out until I do.
Sources:
TED talks - TED is my go-to source when I want to use video to spice things up. Often (and especially if I notice that the students could use a little change), I give a "Find a TED talk" homework assignment. I show them the 'browse video' page, how to search by various parameters (topic, length, popularity, etc.) and then tell them to find a video, watch it (with or without English subtitles), write down any vocabulary that they don't know, look up the words, and give a summary of the video to the class the next day. It's great how involved they get and how their choice of video allows them to share their personal interests with the class.
Film English: Kieran Donaghy, the creator of this site, finds interesting videos across the web and designs entire lesson plans based either on topic (lexis sets), or grammar. They're detailed, clear, interesting, and he even has a glossary of film terminology and concepts that range from ´cinematography´ to a breakdown of all different kinds of shots (aerial, birds-eye view, long, etc.), each with their own embedded example from films throughout the history of cinema. Preeetty preeetty good.
Videos to teach skills and subskills of business English:
Here are some videos I've found that can be incorporated into business English lessons. I'll list them by topic and by skill, whichever is the most relevant.
Fake Promo for a lawyer from Breaking Bad.
Meetings/Conference Calls/Technology
Presentations, Graphs
I'd like to share some videos that are ripe for business English lesson adaptation and fit right into the skills and subskills of the business English world (meetings, negotiations, interviews, etc.). I haven't adapted any lessons to these yet, but at least they have a place to hang out until I do.
Sources:
TED talks - TED is my go-to source when I want to use video to spice things up. Often (and especially if I notice that the students could use a little change), I give a "Find a TED talk" homework assignment. I show them the 'browse video' page, how to search by various parameters (topic, length, popularity, etc.) and then tell them to find a video, watch it (with or without English subtitles), write down any vocabulary that they don't know, look up the words, and give a summary of the video to the class the next day. It's great how involved they get and how their choice of video allows them to share their personal interests with the class.
Film English: Kieran Donaghy, the creator of this site, finds interesting videos across the web and designs entire lesson plans based either on topic (lexis sets), or grammar. They're detailed, clear, interesting, and he even has a glossary of film terminology and concepts that range from ´cinematography´ to a breakdown of all different kinds of shots (aerial, birds-eye view, long, etc.), each with their own embedded example from films throughout the history of cinema. Preeetty preeetty good.
Videos to teach skills and subskills of business English:
Here are some videos I've found that can be incorporated into business English lessons. I'll list them by topic and by skill, whichever is the most relevant.
Sales/Promotion, Marketing:
The first clip is an example of business failures from comedy central's Nathan For You. Students could rate the ideas from best to worst, discuss why the ideas failed, whether they've experienced something similar with their companies, and this could lead into a lesson on Sales/Promotion or Marketing lexis.
Fake Promo for a lawyer from Breaking Bad.
A humorous skit which shows all the problems with conference calling, but in real life.
Again, a ranking activity seems best.
Presentations, Graphs
Life After Death by PowerPoint by Don McMillan -
a great way to start a discussion about do’s and don’ts when presenting.
Negotiations
Mad men - Peggy negotiates her own office.
Miscellaneous
Michael Scott from The Office being a classy boss. Not sure where to categorize this, but maybe on the topic of company structure/hierarchy or human resources (bad practices?).
Michael Scott from The Office being a classy boss. Not sure where to categorize this, but maybe on the topic of company structure/hierarchy or human resources (bad practices?).
Thanks for reading and hope it's useful!
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