ELTWeekly Issue#16, Article: What can your Business English students teach you?

What can your Business English students teach you?

By Karenne Sylvester

This article first appeared on Kalinago English (http://kalinago.blogspot.com/)

 

I have another great secret.

My students are incredible people.

They are bankers, managers, managing bankers; they are CEOs and CFOs, web programmers and designers; they are parents, they are wives and husbands, they belong to groups and associations – they work in the Energy sector, the Automobile industry, in Finance and Marketing.

They’re champions.

They have hobbies. They have dreams, ambitions. They’ve failed at stuff, won awards and prizes, done a lot with their lives. They certainly know a heck of a lot more about business plans and web design than I ever will.

So you know what I do?

I listen and learn.

Sometimes they’re so passionate about all the things they can teach me how to do, that while they’re sharing their immeasurable knowledge, they completely forget they’re speaking in English. Sometimes, I feel like I’m floundering in a sea of vocabulary that I’m sort of, kind of aware of but don’t really know what it really means (the investment bankers).

I get them to teach the stuff they do in their normal lives as if I were one of their pupils.

I concentrate on the structure of the sentences while they do this, correcting their mistakes subtly, simply as a part of the conversation and encourage them to pay attention, to self-correct and auto-correct each other.

And all the while they are becoming completely themselves in my language.

Are your students special people too?

Who are they? What knowledge have they got, what do they really know heaps about that they ‘d enjoy teaching you? Are you willing to let them be the bosses?

What is something you’re interested in learning about? Or better yet, what is something you never ever thought you’d be interested in knowing more about? Are you sure? You’ve got some free schooling up ahead of you if you want it.

I must warn you, though, this exercise comes with a warning: your life, hobbies and interests could seriously change beyond repair.

 

**Reprinted with kind permission, Karenne Sylvester of Kalinago English (http://kalinago.blogspot.com/).