Business English in the world of IT — the closest family or a long-lost acquaintance?
I have three stories for you. Hopefully, each of them is going to change your understanding of what Business English actually is. Those three somehow funny and peculiar events assured me, an English teacher with more than five years of experience in teaching software developers, that Business English is at the same time our closest family and a long-lost acquaintance. Adding the software development industry aspect to it makes them even more unique and humorous. Let’s go. The names of the main characters have been changed.
Before I start with the first story, I will just take any Business English workbook I can find in my collection and open it at the list of topics it includes. The workbook I picked is a vocabulary workbook. Here are three units chosen randomly — ‘accounting’, ‘assembly line’, ‘stock exchange’. Now, think of a person you know, who would need to know all of the three groups of words. Have I already got you thinking what I’m thinking? Great!
At least once a month, one of my students decides to utter a sentence similar to: ‘Why do we have to learn that? I’ll never use that word’. I absolutely adore my students, so whenever I hear it, I say: ‘Wow, you know your future inside out, like, you already know all the words of the conversations you are going to have until the moment you say goodbye to mother Earth. I’m quite impressed!’ and just go on with whatever the lesson is about. The first story is about a very important meeting with a foreign client. My student, Kate, who was supposed to give a presentation to the members of the board, worked hard on every bit of her speech and revised the PowerPoint presentation endlessly. She asked me about all the phrases and vocabulary needed to give a magnificent presentation and when the day came Kate felt stressed, but ready to rock and roll. The meeting was supposed to take place in-between seasons, so it was either late autumn or early spring, I don’t quite remember. She chose a fabulous outfit and high heels were, of course, included. The moment she landed, hundreds of kilometers away from Poland, she saw mountains of snow and realized that high heels might not have been the best fashion choice. Throughout her travels to and from the client’s office, Kate managed to avoid any snow-inflicted injuries while proudly wearing high heels. When she told me this story, a tale full of horror and uncertainty, where crossing the street is a life-threatening challenge, she laughed like a drain but then asked me: ‘What’s the opposite of high heels?’. The word she needed right there, on her business trip, was: ‘flats’ — simply to break the ice, have some small talk or just to have a good story to tell. Her knowledge of Business English was crucial for the success of the meeting. High heels were just a minor blunder, which fortunately didn’t have any influence on the outcome of her trip. What I’m trying to say here is that knowing Business English is more than important, but whenever I hear my students saying: ‘We only want to learn Business English, we don’t need anything else’, I start a speech they should remember forever — you can’t just learn a part of any language and say: ’Ok, that’s fine, I don’t need more.’
Before I tell you the second story, let’s go back a couple of decades. If you watch any old film about bankers or businessmen, you will see very elegant people wearing suits and ties and all the symbols of ‘I have a high profile job’ attitude. Ok, now I want you to recall the last time you saw a software developer wearing anything else than a geek T-shirt, hipster hoodie, or a casual sweater. Times have changed, haven’t they? Our everyday clothing is just a part of this revolution in our mentality and understanding what ‘business context’ should in fact mean. The main character of the second story is my trusted colleague, whom I like to call ‘quite a personality’. He communicates in a very direct way and at the same time has this incredible ability to keep very close business relationships with the clients of Jit Team. Tom was my student for a long time. He developed his skills greatly and started to use them to contact international clients. At one of our classes, just after he came back from an important meeting in Norway, he asked me a question which shocked me to my bones. He wanted to know this one word, which perfectly describes a person whose political views were far-left. My immediate answer was basically telling him off for even trying to talk about any kind of political views with THE CLIENT, but then I thought: ‘It’s Tom, everything is allowed in his case’. After the class had finished, he left the room knowing the word he needed: a moonbat. I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact, that someone would ever want to use that word in business context. Well, they say Business English is all about politeness and making the language soft, but is it really? Is every business situation a bunch of people wearing formal outfits and making the biggest deals in history? No! Sometimes business is just keeping an honest relationship with a client or their representatives. This means, not every conversation requires the most sophisticated phrases and idioms, sometimes everyday and informal English is more than enough.
Story number three is about food, a topic beloved by absolutely everyone. Talking about food is like talking about the weather — dull and predictable, but absolutely necessary. Important business meetings are in most cases followed by going to a restaurant and having a meal together. Food is one of the most essential parts of our lives, so eating together with our business partners is considered to be a good way of making the relationship closer and stronger. No surprises here, the third story is about restaurants. This time, the main character is Paul, a cheeky young guy, who just finished his internship and is now starting to work for a client in a commercial project. At his first official business trip to Norway, the representatives of the client invited the entire group of jiters, our main character included, to a nice restaurant. After coming back to Poland, Paul told me about his Norwegian adventures. I was curious about the restaurant, so I asked him: ‘What did you have in the restaurant?’. Without much thinking, he replied: ‘I had some cow meat’. Being completely honest with you, I can confess, that at that moment, for a split second, I questioned my teaching skills, because for heaven’s sake, my upper-intermediate student just said ‘cow meat’ instead of ‘beef’. Within something like three seconds, I pulled myself together and patiently explained how important it is to know the language used to describe food and order meals at a restaurant. I think knowing the ‘restaurant vocabulary’ is basically one of the essential social skills. By most of the Business English handbooks, the topic of food and restaurants is not recognized as a ‘business’ topic — I will never understand why.
Have I messed up with your understanding of Business English at least just a little bit? Well, that was my goal. By giving you these three real-life examples, I wanted you to realize, that Business English has many definitions and branches. People who develop software are fans of mathematical equations and puzzles they can solve, so here it is:
Business English = everyday English (being able to talk about the weather and your hobbies) + technical English (vocabulary and phrases used in the given field of business) — informal English (stuff like: ‘wanna’, ‘oh jeez…’ or ‘bro’) + softening techniques (…)
I do hope, everybody arrived at the same conclusion — for every person using English at work, Business English is something completely different. That’s why, handbooks and trainings on Business English are not always compatible with the needs of students. Am I saying you don’t need to learn Business English? No! You need to adapt the English you know, to the business needs you encounter on everyday basis. Next time your English teachers tries to teach you everyday words like ‘flats’ or ‘beef’, remind yourself of the stories you just read. You never know what kind of language you will need; life can bring surprises, many of which haven’t even crossed your minds. You can never be sure what exact words and phrases you will need once in a business situation. Being open to all types of language will make your knowledge of English diverse and your mind conscious. Languages are constantly developing, so deciding on learning only a part of it, does not seem to be a good idea. To all of you, who are trying their best to improve their everyday and Business English, stay curious and always reach for more.
