Useful links for Business English teaching

One of my colleagues, Katy Simpson-Davies, is moving to Dubai, where she will be teaching business English. She asked me for some links to give her some ideas about how to improve her teaching for business, and we decided it would make a good blog post too.

The list is by no means exhaustive, just what I could find in my bookmarks and on Twitter when I was emailing Katy. She added more links once she’d had time to investigate, so this post is a joint effort. It is not intended to be a list of materials (although some of the sites include them), but rather ways to find out how to teach business English. Feel free to add other ideas in the comments!

Last updated: 25th March 2024 by Phil Longwell. Note that the page was originally written in 2011, so many of the links might not have been updated since around that time! If you have suggestions for other sources, please do add them to the comments.

Methodology and Resources

• ELTchat summary: how to teach business English with minimal experience of being in the business world
• The IATEFL BESIG (Business English special interest group) have a very active website. They also have a series of webinars, many of which are recorded (but which can only be watched by BESIG members via the IATEFL members’ page), as well as a blog. There is also a #BESIG profile and hashtag on ‘X’ (Twitter), which is often added to posts about business English.
• International House provide an online Business English Training course. I did this face-to-face during my first year of teaching and found it really useful. I have done other IH courses online, and they are just as useful!
• Paul Emmerson has a very comprehensive website, including a professional development section. You can also watch a webinar he did for Macmillan called ‘Ten Top Tips for Business English‘
• Karenne Sylvester has a wide-ranging blog, with quite a large business section. She often posts things about using TED talks, which I think would be great for higher level business students.
• Tony Myers’ blog is business English specific and you can raid the blog roll (on the right) to find some more useful links.
• Evan Frendo has a blog called English for the Workplace with reflections and advice for business English teachers
• Mike Riley has a management blog for teachers, but some of the tools he shares could be useful for you. For example, I downloaded this app designed to help you improve your management skills.
• Dale Coulter is a dogme teacher who I met at the TESOL France conference. His blog is full of useful ‘lesson skeletons’ which can be adapted to all kinds of teaching.
• John Hughes has business English lessons and training tips buried in his teacher training blog. Here are three examples: one, two, three.
• Although it has no specific Business English tag or category, the Pete Sharma Associates blog has a number of posts which could be useful to business English teachers interested in technology.
• Oxford University Press have a section of their blog entitled ‘Business and English for Specific Purposes‘ with many useful posts
• The English for Specific Purposes section of One Stop English includes posts relevant to business English
• Professional English Online is a Cambridge University Press resource full of free lesson plans and tips, which features regular new content. Thanks to Marjorie Rosenberg, one of the contributors, for pointing it out to me.

For learners

• Christine Burgmer’s blog for business learners is a great resource, full of short and sweet posts to keep students interested.
• Business Spotlight is a German-based magazine which also has an online arm. The website includes a number of blogs for business learners.

All of these links are on my diigo (social bookmarking) tag for business English, to which I constantly add new links.

I found out about all of these links through Twitter, where there is a huge community of teachers from all over the world. They are supportive and always happy to help other teachers out. To find out how to join this community, click here.

So now, grab a drink and something to eat, and get surfing!

Photo taken from eltpics by @aClilToClimb

P.S. Good luck Katy!