Key Features

There are other Cert IBET courses on offer. The following features make our course stand out we feel:

• The course leader, Mark Powell is a dynamic presenter, experienced teacher trainer and expert in business English teaching. He is the author of several business English course books and resource books. He has been instrumental in setting up and defining the Cert IBET course in a range of locations in Europe.

• The course location, Barcelona, an attractive, lively city with an important ELT market, provides the ideal backdrop to the course. .

• The Oxford TEFL team will give you a warm welcome and support and help throughout the course. We are experienced in running a range of teacher training courses , including Trinity Cert TESOL and Diploma in TESOL, teacher development workshops and Business English courses to company clients. Our careers service is available to course participants.

• The school boasts light, spacious and elegant premises in the heart of Barcelona. The school is air-conditioned and internet and library facilities are provided at no extra cost

• A social programme including welcome drinks, end of course party and excursions is included.

Testimonials

A pleasure to attend. Very useful indeed, both in terms of material and tips and techniques for teaching. Very entertaining speaker.... Generous and approachable at all times. Great pace - there seemed to be no limit to the amount of ideas / experiences he was prepared to share.
Sarah West

Coffee Break	CertTEB October 2005

I have never been so enthusiastic as I am now after your course... It would be good for me to repeat this course every three years to refresh myself.
Beata Czinke

Definitely the best course I have ever attended.
Annhild Widhalm

Very relevant to my work situation. One-to-one session extremely useful - never had input on this subject before. Interesting to have up-to-date information on the Lexical Approach... Very compact course. Bravo!
Kay Hughes

The course exceeded my expectations by about 200%. What I personally liked was the 'alternativeness' of the course and the room for personal involvement…he was prepared to share.
Donal Reid

I loved the materials, teaching approach and, even more, the explanations and principles behind the materials.
Tatjana Vlasic

Prices and Dates

The course lasts 8 days from Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday inclusive.
There is a maximum 16 participants.

Dates for 2009
June 28th to July 5th. filling

Course Fee
1000 Euros
Includes all tuition and materials, Course File careers development service, e mail coaching for the English UK / Trinity assignment, Oxford TEFL Certificate, welcome drinks and social programme.

The fee is divided into 300 Euros deposit to reserve a place on the course plus 700 Euros remaining fee due four weeks before the course start date.

English UK / Trinity College London exam fees: 165 euros
This is optional for those participants wishing to complete the post course assignment for the award of the English UK/Trinity College London Cert IBET. This can be paid separately at the start of the course or included when you pay the course fees.

Payment can be made by credit card or bank transfer (or cash if you are in Barcelona)

Accommodation

You can choose one of the following options:

1. You can book a hotel or hostal. We can supply you with a list of possibilities with prices ranging from 30 to 70 euros a night for a room with breakfast.

2. You can apply to stay in a room in a shared flat, where you have your own room and shared use of communal facilities. We have a large database of people who live and work in Barcelona and have a room to rent in their apartment. These include English and Spanish hosts. The cost is around 20-25 euros per night (or about 400 € if you plan to stay for a whole month) . If you would like this option, we will ask you to complete a simple request form. There is no charge for the service. You pay your host directly on arrival.

Course description

1. Course Aims
2. Training Methodology
3. Assessment Procedures
4. Course Syllabus

1. Course Aims

The proposed Cert IBET programme at Oxford House College, Barcelona aims:

• to inform, stimulate and motivate teachers moving into or moving on in a career in Business English teaching
• to introduce participants to current theories in professional language learning, human resource development and Business English language and communication analysis
• to familiarise participants experientially with Business English teaching techniques and procedures together with a wide range of published and unpublished materials in text, cassette/CD, video/DVD, CD-ROM or online format
• to foster the skills of conducting needs analyses and language audits, planning and evaluating courses and designing and/or adapting Business English materials
• to equip participants to teach in a number of typical training situations: in the in-work and tertiary sectors, extensively in-company and in class, intensively on residential courses, in large and small classes and one to one, through tele-lessons, e-lessons and blended learning
• to deepen and extend participants' ability to tackle key professional skills areas: meetings and videoconferencing, presenting and web presentations, e-mail, correspondence and report writing, telephoning and teleconferencing, networking and socialising
• to introduce participants to so-called 'hard' Business English specialist areas: HR, finance, marketing, production and operations, IT and technical support
• to give participants a basic background in the world of international commerce, business practice and current management 'hot topics'
• to promote intercultural awareness in a business context

2.Training Methodology

General Character of the Course: Input and Reflection

The Cert IBET is a relatively short intensive extension course for practising English language teachers, at least some of whom will have little or no previous experience of teaching Business English. Within the constraints of this very comprehensive 50-hour programme, therefore, it is intended that many of the sessions will be somewhat input-driven and take the form of:

• interactive lecture
• open discussion
• pyramid discussion
• demonstration
• materials try-out and feedback

However, as can be seen from the list above, even within an input-driven syllabus, there is ample ongoing opportunity for reflection and exchange of ideas between participants. The objective throughout the course is that participants should feel:

• that they are being encouraged, but not pressured, into participating as fully as they wish at almost any stage of the programme
• that they can learn from the wide range of experience and cultural background in the group
• that the programme, though already mapped out in detail, is to a certain extent flexible to their interests and needs insofar as these can be negotiated within the group
• that they are getting value for money in terms of input including a substantial take-home file and CD of materials they can use in their own classes

3.Assessment Procedures

Attendance and Participation

English UK / Trinity College London do not stipulate that participants on the Cert IBET should be evaluated during the course itself. Indeed, on a course of such short duration (50hrs) it would be difficult to form a very accurate opinion of the participants' teaching abilities. For the same reason, there is no teaching practice (TP) component to the course.

However, in order to be eligible for the award of Cert IBET, participants must:

• attend 100% of the sessions (barring exceptional circumstances - illness, accidents etc.)
• participate satisfactorily (in the opinion of the trainer) in tasks and group activities set as an experiential part of the course - materials evaluation and adaptation, simulated communication activities (meetings, phone calls, negotiations, presentations etc.)

Participants who do not fulfil the above requirements may be permitted to complete the course but not take the certificate.

In addition to the above, all participants wishing to take the Cert IBET must within 6 weeks of the end of the course complete a 3000-word written assignment on an appropriate subject agreed with the trainer.

The Written Assignment

There is a degree of flexibility in the choice of topic for the Cert IBET assignment. In general, a subject which is of direct relevance to the participant is likely to be more useful to their professional development and result in a superior piece of work than one which is imposed upon them by the trainer. As choice of subject is critical, time is allocated during the course (in addition to the 50 contact hours of training) to small group tutorials between participants and the trainer to discuss this important matter.

4. Course Syllabus

Module 1: Introduction to Business English

• Making the transition from General to Business English
• Business English as part of Human Resources Development
• The Business English learner: drives and working styles
• The motivation of business students v working executives
• The time/money factor: delivering on claims
• Workplace research (Mintzberg, Adair, Louhiala-Salminen)
• New class activities: personal disclosure and course content negotiation
• Accuracy v effectiveness (Wilberg, Lewis)
• International English / English as a Lingua Franca (Johnson, Seidlhofer, jenkins)
• History of Business English (West)
• Business English Myths (O'Neill)

Module 2: A Lexical Approach to Business English

• The mental lexicon (Aitchison, Nation, Pawley, Syder, Nattinger, De Carrico
• Concepts and principles of the Lexical Approach (Willis, Lewis, Thornbury)
• Chunking: words, polywords, collocations, (semi-fixed) expressions, frameworks/schemata
• Examples of corpus data from concordancers (Sinclair)
• Lexical v structural processing (Skehan)
• 'Grammaring' (Thornbury)
• Lexical exercise and activity types for Business English
• Cards, multi-modality games, interactive drills
• Lexical recording formats: wordmaps, 5-5-1 boxes, speech-though bubbles, flowcharts etc.

Module 3: Meetings and Interviews

• Types of meeting: planning, problem-solving, decision-making, brainstorming etc.
• Formulaic functional exponents in the context of meetings: gambits
• Expressions based on keywords: point, question, fact, problem, option, position, answer etc.
• Metaphorical expressions: discussion is a journey, argument is war
• Minimal native-speaker interaction: OK; so; well; yeah, but; look; now, er… etc.
• Explicit v implicit language of meetings
• Discovery task (simulated meeting) and language analysis
• Chairing language
• Key skills in meetings: interrupting, clarifying, querying, summarising, assisting, paraphrasing
• Workouts or skills drills to practise these key skills
• Corridor meetings (Peters: Management by Wandering Around, MBWA)
• Video and audio input

Module 4: Roleplays, Simulations and Case Studies

• Terms and definitions: simulation, case study, roleplay, realplay, reverse roleplay
• Simulation design: content and process reality; topic and skills focus; input and task control
• Setting up simulations: information load and task complexity
• Comparison and analysis of a selection of published and unpublished simulations
• Criteria of good Business English simulation: risk, time pressure, quantifiable outcome etc.
• Learning by doing: the case for experiential learning

Module 5: Telephoning

• Telephone English v English on the phone
• The telephone as a problem-solving tool
• Formulaic telephone language and drill practice
• Telephone English games and activities
• Doing business on the phone
• Telephone simulations
• The interruptive nature of telephoning
• Teleconferencing

Module 6: E-Mail, Faxes, Letters, Reports

• A process writing approach to Business correspondence
• 'netiquette' and e-mail writing
• tone and register
• writing activities: deletion, correction, reformulation, personalisation
• co-operative writing technique
• formality games
• crossover and in-tray simulations
• letter/e-mail/voicemail 'genre switch' activities
• a project approach to report writing: information gathering, presentation, visuals, sequencing
• report 'templates'

Module 7: Exploiting Authentic Materials

• the arguments for and against authenticity
• sources of authentic material
• text evaluation and modification
• visual stimuli: photos, cartoons, graphics
• verbal stimuli: jokes, quotes, slogans
• audio inout: news, interviews, documentary
• video input: commercials, movies
• activity types 1: exploiting for content
• activity types 2: exploiting for language
• integrating authentic material into multi-skill activities
• authentic materials design task

Module 8: Intercultural Awareness

• attitudes to time, space, gender, status, individuality (Hall, Hofstede, Trmpenaars)
• a visual approach to intercultural awareness (R. Lewis)
• cross-cultural dialogues for analysis and comment (Storti)
• The Cross-Culture Game®, board game (R. Lewis)

Module 9: Presentations

• Reflection on qualities of a good presentation
• Body language and non-verbal communication
• Statistics on attention-span, voice tone, visual impact etc.
• Voice work: SoundScripting® using movie screenplays
• Structuring and signposting using Memory Maps® (Rose)
• Rhetorical techniques: repetition, emphasis, contrast, tripling, figurative language
• Stylistic analysis of famous speeches: King, Kennedy, Churchill etc.
• Reformulating 'lame' expressions into powerful ones
• Video input
• Presentation websites
• Mini-presentation simulations.

Module 10: Q&A Sessions

• Question types: good, difficult, unnecessary, irrelevant, multi
• Fielding questions from the audience
• Question generation games
• Framing follow-up questions: context-focus-enquiry
• Simulated Q&A session

Module 11: Negotiations

• Defining the negotiation process
• Terms: win-win, principled negotiation, zero-sum, BATNA etc.
• Discovery task: roleplay a difficult encounter
• Positional v interest-based negotiation (Harvard model)
• Qualities of a good negotiator
• Negotiation tactics and how to counter them
• Conflict styles and how to deal with them (MIT model)
• Haggling v negotiation v mediation
• Video input
• Fixed expression for negotiating
• The language of diplomacy: reformulating for directness
• Extended simulation of a contract negotiation
• Quantifiable feedback: opening position, target position, walk-away position
• Negotiation websites

Module 12: Teaching Business English One to One

• Comparison of group and one-to-one teaching
• Dynamics: pace and style
• 'Response-ability' (Wilberg)
• opportunities, constraints and threats
• classroom management
• methodology: models from Silent Way, Community Language Learning etc.
• materials and techniques
• teaching aids: laptops, flip-pads, walkman, mobiles, cards, Cuisenaire rods
• peer-teaching session

Module 13: Learning Styles

• Neurolinguistic programming: modalities (VAK), congruence (Bandler, Grinder)
• Learning cycles 1: activist, reflector, theorist, pragmatist (Honey, Mumford)
• Learning cycles 2: converger, diverger, assimilator, accommodator (Kolb)
• 4MAT System: innovative, analytic, common sense, dynamic learners (McCarthy)

Module 14: Business Background

• Current trends in business: change, leadership, emotional intelligence, permission marketing
• Behind the buzzwords
• How businesses work: functional and divisional hierarchies
• Group game: the 60-min MBA

Module 15: Business English Exams

• Comparison of Business English exam formats: LCCI, BEC, C&G Pitman
• Experience share
• Breathing life into exam materials

Module 16: Networking and Socialising in a Business Context

• Putting the art of conversation to work
• Classroom research: analysis of recorded transcripts of Business English roleplays
• The language of Small Talk: openers, closes, active listening, contractions, ellipsis
• Cultural factors: low- and high context cultures (Trompenaars)
• Features of conversation: turn-taking, story-telling, idiom, intonation
• Schemata theory
• Teaching techniques: narrative principle, reformulation, frameworks
• Setting up situational roleplays: visuals for context, realia, motivation gap, hidden agendas
• Video input
• Common scenarios: travel, entertainment, conference-going, downtime

Module 17: Needs Analysis, Course Planning and Evaluation

• Needs, wants, lacks
• Competence and performance
• Learning Goals: S.M.A.R.T.E.R.
• Krashen's input hypothesis x 10
• Working styles according to professional sector
• Approaches to needs analysis: questionnaire, interview, metaplan®, lotus blossom®, menu etc.
• Video case study of a needs analysis interview
• Target situation analysis (TSA)
• Learning preferences
• Instructional design: stolen syllabus, prioritised checklist, cyclic, targeted build
• Training cycles

Course Leader: Mark Powell

Mark is one of the world's leading Business English teachers, teacher trainers and materials writers.

As a teacher he has worked with international companies as diverse as Siemens, Pioneer, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Iveco, The Swiss Bank Corporation, Nomura, Akzo Nobel, Alcatel, CEPSA and Arthur Andersen (pre-meltdown!). He was for two years Director of Studies for executive courses at a flagship school of the global International House organisation.

As a teacher trainer Mark has worked with teachers from over thirty different countries. He has run the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry Certificate in Teaching English for Business (LCCI CertTEB) in Barcelona, Budapest, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro and Vienna as well as the UK, lending his own unique style of high-energy training to Europe's premier Business English teachers' qualification.

As a materials writer Mark is the author of Thomson-Heinle's highly successful Business Matters (1996), Presenting in English (1996) and New Business Matters (2004). He is also the author of Macmillan's bestselling In Company Intermediate (2002) and In Company Upper Intermediate (2004).

A popular presenter at many international conferences, Mark has spoken, often as a keynote speaker, all over Europe and the Americas to teachers and trainers as well as sales and marketing personnel.

Mark graduated in English from Oxford University and has occasionally been persuaded to perform Shakespeare's 'Greatest Hits' for participants on his teacher development courseattendance is optional! He lives in Barcelona with his wife Begoña

Enrolment procedure

Applicant Selection Criteria

To be accepted onto the course native speaker applicants should normally have as a minimum:

• a first degree from a recognised institute of higher education (bachelor's level)
• a preliminary qualification in teaching English as a foreign language (eg. Cambridge ESOL's CELTA, Trinity College London's CertTESOL or a university PGCE in EFL)
• at least 2 years' experience teaching English (not necessarily Business English)

Non-native speaker teachers should normally have as a minimum:

• a first degree from a recognised institute of higher education in English and / or
• fluency in both spoken and written English to Cambridge Proficiency level
• at least 2 years' experience teaching English (not necessarily Business English)

In exceptional circumstances a graduate native speaker teacher with extensive teaching experience but no formal teaching qualification may be accepted onto the course. Likewise, a teacher with no degree, but with good teaching qualifications and considerable experience may be accepted. Occasionally, applicants with extensive business experience but little teaching experience may be accepted, but in this case they would still be required to have previously taken a preliminary TEFL qualification.

To Apply

1. Complete the on-line application form.
2. We will then call you for a 10 minute discussion of your application and to allow you an opportunity to ask questions about the course. We will confirm you have been offered a place (or explain why you haven't) and e mail you to confirm this. The e-mail contains information about how and when to pay and attachments containing information about travel, accommodation and welfare.
3. Your place on the course is reserved when you pay your deposit. The remaining fees must be paid four weeks before the course start date at the latest, or you may lose your place. Accommodation, for those who require it, is paid for separately on arrival. See Accommodation for details

Provision for participants with special needs
The Course Director will discuss with the candidate the nature of any special needs, including mobility difficulties such as the need for wheelchair access. The lift is adapted for use by wheelchairs. Candidates who are disabled (in particular those registered blind, partially sighted, deaf or hearing-impaired, or those with other physical disabilities) will need to demonstrate that they can handle a range of activities and tasks included in the course. If a candidate suffers from dyslexia or has difficulties with reading or writing skills, they must supply a report from an educational psychologist. Reports from psychologists of other disciplines (e.g. clinical) or non-psychologists are not acceptable. Oxford TEFL recognises that many dyslexic candidates will have developed or will be able to develop strategies to cope with their dyslexia, and it need not be a barrier to full participation in a course.