Some ideas for Business English

Students make presentations of their companies, jobs or departments. They can draw organagrams and then explain them.
Students bring in their company’s annual report and discuss, read, present and role-play meetings from it etc. A nice role play could be the board of directors versus the CEO; the board of directors want to know why the company has done well or badly. They want to know about the company’s performance.
Students take you on a tour of their company; they can explain the company and the various departments along with their roles in the company.
Students write their own meetings - role-cards, agenda etc or role-play “real” meetings.
Students bring in examples of letters, faxes and improve them (they may do this anyway).
Students collect articles about the industry/company in their first language and summarize in English.
Telephoning – when doing this in class ask the students to sit back to back in order to make it more realistic.
Call the students at work and speak to them in English for a few minutes (or they can call you.)
Use texts which give two viewpoints on a topic - students find all the arguments for or against and then negotiate to find a middle ground.
Pyramid discussions - use them on business topics e.g. 5 top companies in your country/area of business, qualities of a good manager/salesperson or on more general topics e.g. current events.
Dictate headlines from the morning news and ask the students to tell you what they know about these stories; this is a quick warmer.
Students give 1 minute presentations on autobiographical topics.
When teaching 1:1 have a feedback form i.e. incidental vocabulary, errors and suggestions i.e. offer students advice on how to improve their English.
List websites in which the students can learn business English.
Ask them to send you emails for homework.
Some more ideas



For themes and contexts use their work and lifestyles. Use realistic situations that they can relate to.
Complete the needs analysis and ensure that as you are covering the needs analysis areas tell the students. Make sure that your aims are clear and state or elicit them before and after an activity.
Ask the students to follow the news and to give you news bulletins at the beginning of class.
Try to tape/video presentations, feedback will be more effective this way.