BELF 101: understanding BELF basics

As usual, after the input, we split into breakout rooms to discuss the presentation and how its concepts apply to each attendee’s own context. Some of the points participants mentioned were:

Students’ needs. As the presentation remarked on the crucial role of needs analysis, different contexts were mentioned. Fo example, although some learners don’t use English immediately, some need it for yesterday. In some cases, English isn’t their workplace lingua franca and some focus on passing tests. Some students also chose to learn a specific variety of English, suggesting some are more prestigious than others, which requires more compromise to address BELF in the classroom.

Rapport. One significant aspect of building rapport is small talk, which is underrepresented in coursebooks. Another issue was the challenge of teaching socialisation skills. Additionally, it was mentioned the usefulness of approaching what damages rapport in a business context, for example, by adopting a behaviour that might be seen as normal in a given culture and unprofessional in another.

Intercultural competence. The effectiveness of stereotypes in business interactions is a matter of deeper discussion. It’s fundamental to try to understand our own unconscious bias that makes us expect certain behaviours from our interlocutors. A much-stressed point was the mental representation made by people, which could lead to communication breakdowns. For example, in a culture, a chicken dish may be a chicken fillet, whereas another culture considers the whole bird being served on a tray. Trust and respect are fundamental to overcome the barriers caused by miscommunication and guarantee BELF users’ goals are achieved.

Materials for teaching business-specific vocabulary. Participants complained about the difficulty of finding materials catering to their students’ necessities. They emphasised the need for personalisation – including, for instance, “non-native” speakers’ audios. Another complaint was regarding materials being too abstract or advanced for some courses. One attendee mentioned using corpora as a valuable source of input for technical vocabulary. Students also learn much on the job. 

“Native” speakers role. The very definition of “native” was debated by one group as a vague concept. Another participant said, “native” English can be very high context to “non-natives.” He referred to high-context cultures, where communication is nuanced, and low-context cultures, where the message is as clear as possible. As BELF isn’t anyone’s mother tongue, even “native” speakers must learn the language and become able to accommodate their speech by simplifying their language, avoiding idioms, using others’ L1s, and slowing down – which they don’t normally do.