CREATING A BUSINESS ENGLISH COURSEBOOK FOR ACADEMIC NEEDS: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
BORKA LEKAJ LUBINA
Department of Business Foreign Languages
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb
Croatia
BOGLARKA KISS KULENOVIĆ
Department of Business Foreign Languages
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb
Croatia
MIRNA LINČIR LUMEZI
Department of Business Foreign Languages
LibertasBusinessSchool, Zagreb
Croatia
Abstract
Business English (BE) is often referred to as the lingua franca of the business community. It has thereforebecome an indispensable element of business school curricula where it plays an important role in developing students' competencies required for academic achievement and professional success in the business community. BE coursebooks therefore play an important role in the education of future economists and business professionals. Yet, most BE publications only partially cover the needs of language learners at higher education institutions (HEIs). This is because BE syllabi at HEIs vary to a large extent and because BE student groups vary in size and ability. The creation of a syllabus-oriented BE coursebook by language teachers working at HEIs is therefore a logical step in targeting business students’ needs.
The aim of this paper is to present the challenges of writing such a coursebook and the solutions thata group of language teachers teaching BE at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zagreb, Croatia found while creating a syllabus-oriented BE coursebook. The paper discusses major challenges: a lack of professional expertise in creating economic content, a lack of financial resources and specific requirements of class organization and target student groups. The paper then offers the authors’ solutions to these challenges. A close cooperation with business and economics professors in the process of writing helped overcome the lack of expert knowledge, while the focus on plentiful language exercises helped in the acquisition of word partnerships typical of language for specific purposes. The organization of units in line with the task-oriented rather than communicative approach helped overcome the problem of teaching to large student groups.
Even though the focus of this paper is on the creation of a BE coursebook, we believe that creating a coursebook for academic audiences in other courses and areas taught at HEIs faces similar problems. Therefore, the challenges and solutions presented in this paper might contribute to broader discussions of what constitutes a good academic coursebook.
Keywords: Academic coursebook, Higher education, ESP, Business English, Teacher-authors, Syllabus
1 Introduction
The problem of finding the right English for Specific Purposes (ESP) coursebook in the plethora of coursebooks available on the market is a well-known one to all teachers of ESP. This is especially true for business English (BE) taught at higher education institutions (HEIs). The choice is difficult in HEIs because there is a very specific content taught, and the syllabi vary largely from one school to another. That is why teachers often embark upon the long and time-consuming journey of compiling materials from various books, often ending up with an impression that these compiled materials do not fully match the needs of their students and they are not consistent, attractive and student-friendly. The dream of having high-quality course materials that entirely meet the needs of their students and teachers thus often remains an elusive one, sometimes causing a lot of frustration, both for teachers and students.
This is why, after years of teaching, teachers in higher education often undertake a task of creating coursebooks of their own. Their experience along with their pedagogical and methodological expertise being their most valuable assets, they usually have a clear picture of their students’ needs, teaching and learning methods and desired learning outcomes. On the other hand, being primarily language teachers, they inevitably face problems related to the lack of competence in core business and economics content. Besides, BE coursebooks are very specific as they should contain authentic texts, audio and video materials, which make their publishing expensive and demanding. The fact that they are usually tailored to a specific syllabus and that they target a relatively small audiencemakes their publishing even more costly. Unfortunately, at the same timeHEIs often do not have large funds for coursebooks at their disposal, especially in small countries like Croatia,despite the fact that all the official EU documents stress the importance of foreign languages in higher education (European Commission, 2008; Council of Europe, 2014).As a result, teaching materials often need to be produced with fairly limited funds and that is why authors are sometimes forced to make compromises.To summarize, the process of creating a BEcoursebook for HEIs often proves to be a long and complex one. However, the result is often very rewarding, both for teachers and students.
This paper describes our experience of writing aBE coursebook for the Professional Degree programme at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The book was created by four teachers of BE who have been teaching at this programme for years. As our work involved not only writing methodologically appropriate materials, but also a lot of research, piloting and technical issues, we think that this paper could help other authors organize their work more efficiently, and get prepared for the challenges they will face on their way.
Our aim is also to raise some issues related to the production of ESP coursebooks for higher education and academic coursebooks in general. After dealing with the difficulties and challenges that we faced during the writing process, we will suggest solutions to these problems and draw conclusions from this hard, but very fulfilling experience.
2 The Role of Coursebooks
Coursebooks are often the cornerstones of language teaching. As they are frequently written by course developers themselves, they strongly reflect the learning objectives and syllabus, and the need to meet learners' expectations. However, in other situations, a coursebook can sometimes even define the framework for a course, provide its syllabus and give the main content and language input. In some cases the coursebook can determine what kinds of activities will be done in a class and influence the teaching style of the instructor (Zohrabi, 2011, p. 214).
Coursebooks also provide a structure for teaching and learning: they ensure that units follow each other in a logical fashion both in terms of content and level of difficulty. They recycle and reinforce material from previous units to enhance deeper learning. The material is presented in a consistent format, which makes learning easier. They also make teaching material easily accessible for teachers. Less experienced or under-prepared teachers find reliable material in published coursebooks, which can help them save time, make certain pedagogical decisions and boost their confidence (Li, 2014, p. 69). In this way, coursebooks make it possible for teachers to “focus on other tasks such as monitoring the progress of their students, developing revision materials and activities” (Nunan, 1998, quoted in Tekir and Arkan, 2007, p. 3).
If we look at coursebooks from the learners’ point of view, with a coursebook at hand, learners have a source of reference about the course and the language; they can use it to revise, or for self-directed learning. Coursebooks foster a sense of progress in learners: by being able to follow how they advance from unit to unit in the book they can track how their knowledge of the foreign language is growing (Harmer quoted in Zohrabi, 2011, p. 214). This can be very motivational.
Several researchers, however, warn against relying too much on coursebooks. According to Cunningsworth (1995, p. 7) “coursebooks are best seen as a resource in achieving aims and objectives that have already been set in terms of learner needs. They should not determine the aims themselves or become the aims. We are primarily concerned with teaching the language and not the textbook.” Tomlinson (2008, p. 4) found that “teachers responded to [his] worldwide enquiry about why a particular global coursebook was so popular by saying they used it because it meant they didn't have to spend time preparing their lessons but that they felt sorry for their students because it was so boring.” In Tomlinson’s (2010) opinion, teachers should “make use of [coursebooks] as a resource and not […] follow them as a script.” He also criticizes some published work because “it seems that most classroom materials are written for teachers and students to follow. It also seems that many of them are not driven or even informed by principles of language acquisition and development.” This makes them less effective and less useful in helping students learn the language.
2.1 The role of coursebooks in ESP classes
ESP courses are typically developed to serve the needs of learners who need something more or different from what a general English course can offer. The subject content of coursebooks used in ESP courses is specialized and technical in order to satisfy the needs of the target learner. Teachers rely heavily on these coursebooks because their main field of expertise is in teaching a foreign language and not in another highly specialized field.
BE is a field where there is no lack of published material. It is, in fact, one of the three areas best catered for in Britain, along with English for science and technology (EST) and English for academic purposes (EAP) (Cunningsworth, 1995, 132). It would seem that teachers of BE should be able to find books that fit their objectives. Yet, what we see in the field of ESP today is that the needs of learners become more and more narrowly defined and courses are becoming increasingly fine-tuned to meet those very specific needs. In this environment the BE coursebooks available on the market are sometimes not suitable enough. Cunningsworth (1995) and Gatehouse (2001) suggest that teachers can solve this problem by relying on a coursebook and supplementing it with appropriate materials: “curricular materials will unavoidably be pieced together, some borrowed and others designed specially. Resources will include authentic materials, ESL materials, ESP materials, and teacher-generated materials” (Gatehouse, 2001). Both authors, however, point out that this is very time-consuming and difficult for teachers.
The problem that BE coursebooks are not satisfactory is even more pronounced at HEIs. Most BE publications only partially cover the needs of language learners at HEIs. This is because BE syllabi at HEIs vary to a large extent and also because BE student groups differ in size and ability. The creation of a syllabus-oriented BE coursebook by language teachers working at HEIs is therefore a logical step in targeting business students’ needs.
3 Teachers as coursebook developers
At HEIs, perhaps even more so than in other learning environments, the production or choice of relevant literature often constitutes the structure of the course syllabus. This is one of the major reasons why teachers working at HEIs develop their own course materials.As Robinson argues, coursebooks provide “a framework for a course, forming in essence a syllabus” (1991, p. 57). Clearly, the inextricable connection which exists between academic course materials and teachers at HEIs is emblematic of the environment where academics are expected to publish works in the fields of their expertise. In other words, academic coursebooks are the results of extensive research and the teaching practice of their authors. They often represent highly estimated authors’ contribution to their research areas and careers. Simply put, it makes sense that academic coursebooks are developed by those who are the most competent in their respective academic fields.
Teachers as coursebook developers are also quite common among ESP courses taught at HEIs. As Dudley-Evans and St. John suggest (1998), course design and materials development is one of the key roles of ESP practitioners. The main reason for this lies in the nature of ESP teaching which is designed to target very narrowly defined and highly specific needs of learners. As ESP courses are not readily taught according to any pre-ordained methodology, as Strevens points out (1998, p. 12), ESP teachers can hardly find a single catch-all course material on the market which would target the varied and very specific academic, professional/occupational and other needs of their learners. In addition, tertiary education foreign language learners represent a very heterogeneous group so it is hard to find a finely-tuned coursebook which would address an audience whose language competences range from A2 to C1 (CEFR) in a single course. Similarly, the existing BE coursebooks are not suited for contact hours available in academic courses as the timetable often follows the practical logic of semestral organization rather than the logic of language acquisition as a long-lasting process. Taking all that into account, it is clear that a number of ESP teachers - and especially ESP teachers at HEIs - find it hard to work with the existing coursebooks available on the market as these coursebooks do not address all the specific needs of ESP students.
Teachers at HEIs who develop coursebooks enjoy the benefits of that endeavor. Firstly, as they develop the material, they are able to systematize, organize and present knowledge in a methodologically suitable way. The process of writing also allows authors to sharpen their focus on the learning outcomes and deepen their awareness of students’ needs and abilities. It is clear that material development has a huge potential of bringing teachers a step closer to students as throughout material development authors use didactic and pedagogical principles which steer the learning process. Furthermore, coursebook development allows authors to learn about themselves as educators, writers and collaborators. As Zohrabi puts it, they can discover their own potential, limits and abilities in imparting knowledge (2010, p. 214). It should be added that the process of learning about one’s own limitations is even more pronounced as a significant number of academic coursebooks are a result of team work. By joining their writing efforts, co-authors learn from other each other, distribute the workload and therefore save time. Talking about the benefits of team-writing,Masuhara (2006, p. 43) says that several authors give more “depth“to writing, provide each other with support, feedback and motivation.
Even though it is quite customary for course developers to create their own materials in the academic environment, it should be said that there are several disadvantages accompanying teachers’ efforts to develop their own materials. Firstly, scientific research skills and teaching skills do not necessarily guarantee that a researcher is necessarily a good coursebook writer. Coursebook development requires a different set of skills, especially those related to didactic and pedagogical principles of learning. Secondly, team work can become a problem. Jordan (1997, p. 261) mentions several of the most common problems: deadline ignorance by some writers, differences of opinion, and personality clashes. Another problem which is specific for academic coursebooks is publishing. These coursebooks are often written for relatively small markets and some of the major publishers with the most resources are reluctant to publish them as they are not cost-effective. That leaves authors with the possibility to collaborate with small, niche publishers with fewer resources. Needless to say, this can affect the quality of coursebooks.
3.1 The authors’ motivation to create the English for Business coursebook
The four authors were motivated to embark upon the journey of coursebook development driven by a mixture of necessity and eagerness to work with high-quality materials. The first idea for the book came at the onset of the reform of the professional degree study program and its syllabi at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zagreb in 2011/12. Even though similar courses had been taught within the “old” professional program, the new organization of the professional study program made it impossible to teach the book used previously. The second factor which motivated the authors to develop their own coursebook was the fact that no published material available on the market suited the needs of our students, class organization, and learning outcomes. Thirdly, the authors wanted to write a coursebook whose content would reflect the Croatian business reality. It is very rare for BE coursebooks available on the market to address, or even mention, the specific features of doing business in small countries such as Croatia. The inclusion of Croatian specificities in the coursebook makes this material really stand out from similar publications. Finally, it should be mentioned that the authors’ efforts to write academic coursebooks are rewarded in the reappointment procedure, which proved to be a significant external motivator for the authors as well.
Apart from being motivated, it is important to note that the authors werewell-prepared to embark upon the process of writing a coursebook as they are all experienced teachers. Two of them even had prior experience in coursebook development in other areas of EFL teaching. All the authors have taught BE courses to professional degree students for a number of years. This means that they were familiar with the content material in the new syllabi as well as with the typical student learning profile at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zagreb. Most importantly, the authors knew from their experience how the learning objectives in the syllabus translated into practice. This is especially important for BE courses at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Zagreb, because they are often taught in conditions not conducive to high-quality foreign language acquisition.