BUSINESS ENGLISH - Level: Pre-Intermediate

This course is designed to improve learner's business English skills, confidence and fluency in using the English language within various situations and context. Upon completion of the course, students should be able to: * understand different business concepts and re-affirm grammar rules at the beginner’s level and extend their business vocabulary; * develop listening skills and enhance their comprehension of gist and listening for detailed information skills. * improve their speaking skills and discuss business topic and concepts with confidence and apply wider communication skills in a variety of business situations and contexts. * enrich their reading skills involving informative, stimulating, and up-to-date business-related texts. * develop writing skills, with specific focus on writing short e-mails. Skills development Students will be assisted in developing their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking through business English syllabus with exercises exploring: * skimming, * scanning, * detailed reading, * guessing unknown words from context, * understanding text organization, *recognizing argument and counter-argument; * distinguishing between main information and supporting detail, fact and opinion, hypothesis versus evidence; * summarising and note-taking. Writing skills will encompass: * Essay content and structure (patterns of organization, paragraphing, discussion – developing balanced argument and counter-argument, exposing advantages and disadvantages of issues discussed with original ideas in a coherent and cohesive manner with correct punctuation). * Functions (generalization, definitions, exemplification, classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, process and procedure, interpretation of data). * Style (avoiding passive constructions and verbosity). Listening skills will include: * conversations between several businesspeople in a variety of business situations requiring students to listen for gist and detailed information and evaluate the importance of information. * supplementary fun and stimulating audio-visual files exploring grammar and English in social situations. Speaking skills will include: * developing effective business communication skills through debating, pitching for a point, agreeing and disagreeing, clarifying, questioning and concluding. * Understanding and using simple presentation skills encompassing introductions, stating a purpose, signposting, highlighting key points of a paragraph, summarizing and developing convincing and logical conclusions. * listening to and comprehending equivalent to IELTS score 4.5-5.0); * speaking to peers and lecturers (within the framework of Breakthrough level-A1).