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Business English On the Net By Linda Thalman You need Business English – which probably means you write emails, faxes and reports. You have to telephone clients, negotiate contracts and make presentations at conferences. You are responsible for organizing a seminar, giving a tour of your workplace and collaborating on a publication. You're looking for a job and must write resume. The business English you require may be for a specific field such as international investment banking or public relations for a cosmetic's company. Maybe you need general skills such as answering the phone, replying to email or reviewing the press in your field. If your job requires doing business globally, then no matter what business field you work in, you need a broad general English vocabulary, knowledge of the specialist language of YOUR field, general business skills and cultural awareness of the countries you work with. Can you accomplish all of these goals using the Internet? Perhaps not. Why? Because for most people, MASTERING a foreign language will mean travelling, living and/or working in the country of the language you want to learn. But you can maintain and, hopefully, improve your business English skills using the Internet. Desktop Video Conferencing is an exciting possibility using a desktop computer to send and receive video, audio and text in real time via the Internet. But can students and teachers realistically use videoconferencing to learn business English on the Internet today? Videoconferencing will allow you to practice making a presentation to your company's subsidiaries or to an international conference without leaving your office. You will be able to simulate talking to and a client on the other side of the world in real time and work together, for example, using a whiteboard to outline the agenda of a future meeting, polish an internal company memo or finalize your company's online product catalogue. Distance learning using videoconferencing for improving your Business English may well mean more effective, efficient and rapid communication in your job. Jim Duber, instructional media developer/consultant, of duber dot com http://www.duber.com/ says, "The current state of the technology is such that students of English can learn quite a lot via distance education over a videoconferencing system given the right circumstances (i.e., a good connection with good equipment, knowledgeable and skilled instructor(s) and motivated students). Under such circumstances, a room-size videoconferencing system can effectively obliterate the distance barrier among the participants." "Of course, nowadays a lot of attention is being paid to the Web and to desktop solutions for videoconferencing over the Internet. Bandwidth limitations still hamper the quality of this experience under most real-world situations, though that may change soon." Pioneering Internet teacher of English Ruth Vilmi from Helsinki University of Technology [See her King's Road projects at http://www.hut.fi/u/rvilmi/King/] advises teachers to "have a real pedagological aim for using videoconferencing and to plan VERY carefully beforehand. You must have back-ups, including email or faxed handouts of class tasks and mobile phones." "Classroom tasks need preparing MORE carefully than for normal lessons. Some questions need to be ready planned (by students and teachers); otherwise students are silent!. The lesson plan has to be done beforehand, minute by minute. Handouts have to be done using large fonts, not more than about 5 lines on a page, or they won't be legible." For writing practice you can find an internet keypal to correspond with by email or join email forums. See http://www.wfi.fr/volterre/keypals.html. Chatting on line is popular, but beware: good typing skills help as much, if not more, than knowing irregular verbs or the right preposition in a chatroom! There are a growing number of distance learning courses for which you can sign-up (and usually pay a fee). Aspera PrivaTeacher is a good example of an 24-hour a day site for learning English at http://www.privateacher.com/ Career City at http://www.careercity.com/ is one of many sites that has useful advice on job hunting, resumes, cover letters, negotiating, interviewing, as well as jobs and resume posting for the USA. Surf, explore and practice your busines English on the Net! Visit http://www.wfi.fr/volterre/businessenglish.html for more resources on Business English for Teachers and Learners. Linda Thalman is Editor of Volterre-Fr English & French Language Resources http://www.wfi.fr/volterre/ – On the Web since September 1995. She has an M.A. in TEFL & Linguistics and taught English for 20 years in Europe before becoming Director of WebFrance International, http://www.wfi.fr/.

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