Business Slides
Business classes are focused on the workplace, international business culture, business jargon and using English in a professional setting. It's aimed at people who want to use English as part of their profession, to encourage them to feel confident with using English in the workplace.
Business language is a little more challenging than Daily, so we only have two levels: Advanced & Super (see our Level Guide). The slides are in the following order:
- Front Page
- Picture Description
- Skit (Advanced Only)
- Business Spotlight (Super Only)
- Role Play
- Agree Or Disagree (Advanced Only)
- One-Minute Talk (Super Only)
- Discussion
- Next Week
1. Front Page
Just like Daily, the front page contains the title, an image and a warm up question.
The questions might be worded slightly differently at the two levels. Just like with Daily, allow the students to answer the questions, but make sure each student gets roughly even speaking time - quiet students might need a follow-up question, chatty students might need to be interrupted.
Use this slide to get the students into the topic. This is especially useful in business, as many students won't feel confident with the subject matter and might want to be reassured that they don't need expertise to share their opinion. It's also a good place to share any vocabulary that the teacher thinks is relevant to the topic.
You may change or alter the question or ask follow up questions if the situation demands.
2. Picture Description
This slide to get them to describe what they see and give details about difficult situations. This type of activity is often used in TOIEC tests - a professional English test that many Japanese people take.
You can either choose which picture a student describes or you can allow the students to choose for themselves. Asking a student to compare the two images is especially useful to challenge high-level students
As a teacher, feel free to highlight objects, people, facial expressions, haircuts or whatever else in the image and ask the student to name or explain.
3. Skit (Advanced Only)
The skit is practice conversation with key phrases. It's a good chance for students to see an example conversation, which helps when they are doing more challenging slides like Role Play or One-Minute Talk.
The skit is great to help less confident students start talking and a good opportunity to teach new vocabulary. Don't be afraid to correct student's pronunciation and drill it with them.
Try to ensure each student gets a chance to read each role. If you have a 6-person class it can be challenging, so in that case make sure each student gets a go speaking.
Feel free to teach students any expressions, slang or words that you use. Suggest alternative phrases. Give them pronunciation tips.
4. Business Spotlight (Super Only)
This is a discussion slide with related vocabulary, similar to the "Think About It" slide in Daily. Here we present a situation, quote or story related to the business topic and then encourage students to discuss and share their opinions.
This is a good chance to get the students to share their opinions in detail and justify their points of view, a good place to practice phrases of agreement and disagreement. After they are done, feel free to correct the student to help them express themselves better.
Some teachers go through the vocabulary first and ask the students to give definitions or to use the word in a sentence. Many teachers ask the students to use as many words as possible in their answer to the discussion question. Students often want to know the definition of the words and how to use them in a sentence.
This slide is a great chance to maximise student talking time. You as a student can even ask follow up questions, especially useful when students need encouragement to give detail.
5. Role Play
Similar to the scenarios slide in Daily, the Role Play slides get the students talking to each other in pairs.
When doing a scenario, split the students into pairs and get them to act out the situation. If you have an odd number of students, make sure they all get a fair chance at doing the role play. Some students like to talk a lot in these role plays, so please be confident in stopping the students if they go on to long. It's often useful at the start of each role play to tell them something like "please keep the role play to around X minutes".
You can choose which scenario you'd like the students to do, or you can ask them if they have a preference.
Allow the students to speak uninterrupted (unless they go on for too long). While they talk, take notes or write corrections in the chatbox. At the end, you can talk them through your corrections, suggestions or practice pronunciation with them.
6. Agree Or Disagree (Advanced Only)
This is a simple debate and discussion slide for advanced students.
Read out the statement to the students, then ask each student to tell you whether they agree or disagree. Please ensure they explain their reasons, encourage them to give examples and don't let them give a simple "yes" or "no".
7. One-Minute Talk (Super Only)
This slide is a list of topics which the students can choose from to talk about. It is intended to challenge the higher-level students.
You can either allow the students to choose their own topics or you can choose them for the students. Ask them to give a speech that lasts about 1 minute. Some teachers time it precisely, others don't, but do make sure the students don't talk for too long as it can affect other student's talking time.
It's valuable to encourage the students who are listening to prepare questions as they listen to the speaker. At the end, you can act as a moderator to encourage the students to ask their questions (though many students will ask questions without you prompting). Like other slides it's a great time to type corrections into the chatbox.
8. Discussion (Advanced)
These slides are a list of questions related to the topic.
You can go through the questions in whatever order you like, cherry pick the ones you think will be interesting, or even add in some of your own questions.
This slide is useful to end a lesson if you have a few minutes left, but feel free to use it creatively.
9. Next Week
This is a simple slide showing next week's topic and giving the warm up topic question for next week.
Most classes don't get time to use this slide, but feel free to show them it at the end or suggest they start prepping for the topic next week,