Materials for BELF-oriented teaching

“Communication strategies CSs were grouped into the following four macro-areas:

1. appeal for help (direct/indirect);
2. (a) meaning negotiation: requests for repetition, clarification, direct questions/minimal queries); (b) meaning negotiation: confirmation checks, direct/indirect question, repetition in rising intonation, interpretative summary (e.g. you mean…?), content /summary;
3. responses: repetition, rephrasing, expansion, reduction/simplification, confirmation, rejection, repair; lexical anticipation / suggestion / correction; use of fillers and time-gaining devices;
4. achievement strategies: circumlocution/paraphrase, approximation/all-purpose words/word-replacement, restructuring, word-coinage, code-switching – or literal translation from L1 (mother tongue)/Ln (any language part of the interactants’ repertoire), foreignizing, code-switching into L1/L3/Ln) ”

           Vettorel (2017, 80-81)

This led to a discussion about redundancy, and how successful BELF speakers use strategies such as regular repetition, clarification etc even when these might be considered redundant in native-speaker interactions. As Kaur (2015, 251) says, “What appears obvious … is that in ELF communication, different norms of language use apply. Practices perhaps considered undesirable in native speaker communication are the very same ones that contribute to greater clarity and communicative effectiveness in ELF talk.” Many published materials do not focus on this issue at all.

• Small talk. Small talk is a key rapport-building skill, and is much more than talking about non-work topics like family, sports or the news. In a business context small talk often serves as a chance to gather useful information which might be relevant to the business situation. For example, understanding attitudes to politics, a taboo topic in many ELT materials, might be key to clinching a deal.
• Culture. Learners need to learn how to explain features of their own culture (e.g. team cultures, business communication styles, local architecture, local food) to business partners from other countries. Published materials tend to focus on providing input on other cultures without providing activities for learners to learn how to describe their own. Note that this is much more than just being aware of one’s own culture – learners need to be able to explain it to outsiders, which means focusing on the relevant lexis.
• Quality. Quality of materials currently available for young learners often exceeds that available for adults learning business English, resulting in possible disappointment when the learners enter adult training in a business context. Trainers may be seen as dinosaurs using “old-fashioned” materials. One possible reason for this is that the market for young learner materials is much larger, and less context specific, than that for adult learners.
• Varieties of English. Native speaker varieties of English can be very relevant to learners. This has to do not only with expectations, but also with the need to work with business partners from specific language varieties. For example, a Ukrainian working with a group of Americans would find it useful to understand American idioms and communication styles.
• Accommodation. In meetings with native speakers there is a clear gap between how native speakers use English, and how learners use English. Native speakers may struggle to accommodate as necessary, and learners need to prepare strategies which will help them cope with such situations.
• Access. Access to confidential / company specific texts can be difficult. This means that materials may not target the specific language and contexts that the learners need.
• Expectations. Some learner groups request published materials because they provide a framework for learning, even though they may not be specifically relevant to a specific business context.
• Awareness – Teachers, especially those new to business English teaching, need to become more aware of BELF research and the implications for the business English classroom. Such awareness can be spread via published business English materials as well as teacher training courses. http://enrichproject.eu/lessons/164-2-1-elf-aware-teaching
• Local use of language – communities of practice tend to develop their own ways of pronouncing words (e.g. biannually, report) which may not be the same as the more common “native-speaker” pronunciations. Materials need to include activities which help learners become aware of such context-specific variations