The business communication course, required in most colleges and schools of business, may be the best place for language educators to begin to help globalize the curriculum. In these courses, students are taught communication theory, business writing, oral business communication, leadership, meeting participation, and various functions used in…

Futurists have predicted that in a globalized information economy, America's principal products will be education, publishing, the media, communications, management and administration, research and development, finance and insurance, and much of the work of the government. If this is so, academe will need to incorporate the realities of this…

Instructions and ideas for classroom use of "Jeu de Banque" (The Bank Game), an instructional game about the French banking system developed by the French Association of Banks, are presented. The structure and content of the game are discussed in terms of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/Educational Testing…

New awareness of the need for foreign language proficiency and cultural understanding in international business means that closer links between language departments and business schools must be forged. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has established a foreign business internship program co-sponsored by the language department, business school,…

Two Finnish courses in business English were designed to teach students language that will enable them to negotiate effectively in English. The instructional approach is based on an analysis of recorded negotiations carried out in British subsidiaries of Finnish companies. The analysis identified a group of linguistic variables through which, it…

A unit in college-level business French is designed to call on students' imagination and desire to become entrepreneurs, while providing information on the structure and environment of a company. The core of the unit is the creation of a fictitious company whose operation lends itself to a variety of exercises tailored to the needs of students at…

This article provides an overview of the subject of Business German. Aspects covered include the rising general significance of business languages and concomitant increase in demand for Business German from employers, commerce-students and humanities students, the historical development of academic courses, integration of language skills with…

Presents practical teaching strategies used in an Australian undergraduate business-communication class that have succeeded in encouraging student classroom interaction to the mutual benefit of both local and international students. Data on the techniques' effectiveness were collected using an open-ended student questionnaire, observation,…

Discusses use of case studies and role play throughout the curriculum at the Ecole de Hautes Etudes Commerciales du Nord, a French graduate school associated with the Catholic University of Lille. Provides a case study that was developed to reconcile conflicting needs in the business English classroom at the graduate level. Students require…

Examines current writing and communication standards in 52 top-ranked undergraduate business schools, including kinds of requirements in effect, number of courses involved, the institutional home of these courses (business school or liberal arts department), and major skills stressed. (SR)

Since 1999, the blog has become a pervasive communication and information-sharing Internet-based tool in certain segments of the society. Within education, it is becoming much more widely used and will continue to expand rapidly as instructors learn about its adaptability for the classroom. Not only will an ever-increasing number of individuals…

After more than a decade of intensive experimentation and development, the field of interdisciplinary language and business studies is firmly established in U.S. higher education. Academia has responded to national needs, as evidenced by such programs as the Language and International Trade program at Eastern Michigan University. Various…

This paper addresses the many uses of the writing portfolio in general education at the college level, particularly in classrooms teaching business communication. It describes what elements could be contained within a portfolio, the role the portfolio can play in the assessment process, and the pedagogical implications of a class that is organized…

A study examined the use of three linguistic features imitating speech found in two groups of direct-mail marketing texts, in order to show differences in the ways U.S.-based and transnational efforts exploit readers' expectations regarding "literate" versus "oral" modes of expression. Two groups of sales letters, 25 U.S.-based…

In the area of business-related language training, the United States lags behind Europe, where graduate business schools require at least one foreign language with business proficiency for graduation. In most United States institutions, the long-standing policy of departmentalization and a perceived dichotomy between the humanities and traditional…