Business English with International Trade Law

Students on this course

This course is appropriate for students, who have completed business, finance, insurance or law studies, or for experienced professionals, executives and managers, who intend to improve their English language skills in a commercial context. The course is intensive, but rewarding. ELSL recognises that people come to us because their time is valuable - they need a course that will quickly deliver real benefits for them and their organisation.

Overview of course content

Students are expected to actively participate in the frequent role-plays and simulations, which are created to extend important language skills.The ELSL methodology incorporates a variety of key disciplines, that are necessary for language-development: listening, remedial grammar exercises, and vocabulary-building activities.

Course content is up to date and relevant to the workplace. By actively engaging in the tasks provided, progress is assured and students become more confident, as fluency and accuracy, within the English language, rapidly improve.

Whether students choose to follow one of the General English courses, or prefer to select from our Business English courses or Legal English courses, students can expect to improve their English skills in the following ways:

• by expressing themselves more accurately and fluently, enabling students to communicate more confidently and participate more successfully in business meetings and social settings.
• by expanding their professional vocabulary and improving their understanding of English grammar, students will be able to write more coherent e-mails and create a more professionsl draft of other written matter.
• with improved English language skills and expanded professional vocabulary, students will have greater confidence to socialise and network.
• work comfortably and competently in a cross-cultural environment

From following this course, students will have acquired many benefits. Students will have expanded their business vocabulary and gained skills that will enhance their performance in meetings and negotiations; presentations will also be much more effective; and the student will experience greater confidence when using the telephone.

Design of Course

The course structure is designed to enable students to extend their English language and communication skills. Students will cover the following:

• Student presentation of his/her job, organisation, products and/or services.
• Role-playing scenarios of business meetings and negotiations.
• Analyse and discuss case studies.
• Business issues such as finance, production, distributions and marketing.
• Human resources issues, workplace communications and industrial relations.
• Perform a SWOT analysis of a company.
• Presenting figures and graphs depicting socio-economic movement.
• Comparison of national economies and business culture.
• International sale contracts, methods of financing, carriage of goods by sea, marine insurance, conflict of laws, arbitration.

Practical participation in the activities created for this course, ensures that essential communication skills are developed. Students will gain greater confidence, by nurturing strategies for dealing with situations that involve::

• asking appropriate questions.
• agreeing and disagreeing.
• interrupting/interjecting.
• clarifying and confirming.
• challenging/defending an opinion.
• making persuasive points and venturing to compromise.
• making suggestions and proposals.
• offering/accepting.
• eliciting comments.
• condensing and concluding.
• opening/closing meetings

Effective networking, handling social activities, using the telephone, entertaining clients etc, all require confidence and the cultivation of particular professional and social skills. The students will, therefore practise through simulation:

• meeting and greeting
• receiving guests
• socialising
• effective telephone usage
• effective listening skills
• expressing and debating more intricate issues.

LEVELS: 4 - 8