Business English: Communicative Writing Activities

The Reformatting Chains Approach.

It goes without saying that business people write as a reaction to a circumstance or to bring a measurable result to the benefit of their companies. With this in mind, teachers of Business English need to approach writing tasks in way that can bring business-like circumstances onto classrooms.

One way to achieve that goal is through designing some communicative classroom activities that eventually lead to a given writing task. ‘Prove that you can use the language’ approach that many teachers adopt may at times prove unsuccessful. However, if the same tasks are approached differently, motivation will be injected and the writing activity will be more enjoyable. Crudely put, in business English classrooms, writing should have communicative purposes.

To put this idea into practice, let’s look at the following writing topics. The latter can either be approached conventionally (teacher asks students to write without any pre-designed activities) or through other communicative activities. The latter approach is referred to as the reformatting chains approach.

Below are sample of communicative classroom activities that can lead writing :

A memo informing staff of a management decision.

Many things are not going well and these negatively affect your company’s reputation in the market.

In small groups conduct an urgent meeting to discuss the matter .You need to agree on an action plan or a decision to implement in your company.

After the meeting, write a memo to inform staff of the management decision.

A letter confirming the details of the deal.

[in Small groups: one group represents the company and the other represents a supplier]

Your company want to buy new modern machines and now you are going to negotiate an offer from High-Tech machine supplier. Negotiate the offer and bring the deal to a close.

Now write a letter to the supplier company to confirm details of the deal.

A letter offering someone a job.

Your company want to hire a new employee. In small groups conduct a meeting to discuss, personnel qualifications, the job description and specifications.

Write a small ad for the job and pin it on the classroom board.

In pairs sts role-play a simulated interview, one student as job applicant and the other as an interviewer.

Either in class or as a homework interviewers write letters offering jobs to the person they interviewed. At the meantime the interviewees write back accepting the job offer.

A letter asking a salesman to come to your company to demonstrate his product.

As a role play students carry out a phone call. Sales person make a ‘cold call’ to present their products. Purchasing managers receive the call and show interest in the product.

After this call write a letter to the salesman to ask him to come to your company to demonstrate their product.

Unfortunately, after the demonstration you changed your mind. Now write:

A letter thanking someone for their product demonstration, but informing them that you don’t intend to purchase