1. ITDi Breaking into Business
English
Final assignment
Theodora Papapanagiotou

2. Student description
The student is a Greek teacher working at the
American college, teaching Greek as a foreign
language to students of other languages.

3. The student has to deal with:
• Parent communication in oral and written
form (mostly e-mails, telephone calls and face
to face)
• Communication with Teacher stuff and
director (meetings, memos, e-mails)
• Presentations (of class projects and
celebrations )

4. Sources
American college site (student evaluation and
class projects):
• http://www.pinewood.gr/index.php/school-
services/school-communication/written-
communication
• http://www.pinewood.gr/index.php/school-
services/school-communication/personal-
communication

5. Sources
• Advice on parent-teacher relationships:
http://www.readingrockets.org/article/19308
• Advice on teacher meetings
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/10708
8/chapters/Planning-and-Preparing-for-Faculty-
Meetings.aspx

6. Sources
• Presentation skills:
http://vimeo.com/44267609
http://www.slideshare.net/kumar_vic/presentat
ion-skills-18978161

7. Teaching approaches
• Project Based learning
• Lexical approach
• Corpora Approach
• Genre Approach

8. Project based learning
• Discuss with student what she needs in order
to make a presentation.
• Let the student make a draft of a presentation
and have her perform
• Try to note vocabulary (synonyms) and terms
she might change
• Work on voice, posture etc
• Homework: Improved version of presentation

9. Lexical approach:
• Give student texts on teacher-parent and
teacher-teacher communicationi.g.
http://teaching.about.com/od/pd/a/Communi
cation-Policy.htm
• Student has to answer questions on the texts (
Reading comprehension activities) or put
paragraphs into correct order or write an e-
mail to a parent about a possible problem

10. Corpora Techniques
• Student has to find meaning of words and try
to use them in a sentence
i.g. coherent
performance
fluency
There are numerous online dictionaries the
student can use

11. Genre Approach
It is crucial that the student can understand
what kind of language she should use in the
different forms of communication like for
example : e-mails to parents or how to talk face
to face
Here are some samples:
http://www.weac.org/professional_resources/n
ew_teacher_resources/beg_handbook/letters.as
px

12. Genre approach
• Role play is also a great way to make your
student feel nervous in various situations:
http://childparenting.about.com/od/schoollearn
ing/a/parent_teacher_communication_dos_don
ts.htm
http://www.humanviewpoint.com/images/Exerc
ise_-
_Role_play_scripts_for_parent_meetings.pdf

13. More to consider
• A wonderful source of articles on teaching and
dealing with possible problems is this:
http://www.pinewood.gr/index.php/school-
services/media-a-technology-center
The student can read on her own or the teacher
could find more material to bring in the lesson –
create activities (gap fills or crosswords or
questions for discussion)

14. Final notes
I didn’t get into detail on the specific vocabulary
and exercises my student will use, but on a more
general way, how I would approach my student
and her needs.
Using a foreign language for work is not that
different from general English, just a little more
emphasis on communication skills.