Designing Business English courses for Dual Business Students in Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia.

Problems we found 3 years ago

Three years ago, the director of the program asked us the possibility to implement an English program where the students could learn ESP and get the B2 level of English to apply to their future careers and certificate this level by taking the BUSINESS ENGLISH CERTIFICATE (BEC)
Out of date text book.
Textbook with a lower level than the required one.
There wasn’t a correlation between teaching and evaluation.
Students were focusing on grammar most of the time.
Different levels in the same classroom.
Isolated teaching process.
Methodology and tools
Holistic approach for example PBL , CLT, ESP, AEL (Academic English Leaders project) Moodle platform, maleta de métodos suggested by dual the dual program, grammar fair, tutorials, vocabulary records.As a part of our different strategies designed for our principal purpose, we have performed activities like PBL with the teachers from the same nucleo integrador


After that, we decided on a Cambridge serie of books specialized on Business, because we thought that we could have all the material, tools and necessary strategies to teach students in a chronological way ( from beginning levels until advanced levels )the ESP PROGRAM and we could apply the correct evaluation for it: BEC PRELIMINARY EXAM in 5th semester ( EXAMEN INTERMEDIO ) and BEC VANTAGE exam in the last semester of the Dual program degree (EXAMEN DE FINAL DE CARRERA).
The first time students took their BEC exam the results were not satisfactory. We found that the most of the students failed reading and listening skills.
All students now get their own book which they use 2 semesters.
They use the cambridge online resources for students.
At the beginning of 5th semester students have to take a placement test to evaluate their level. Tutorials are offered to students who get a lower level than the rest of their classmates.
Conversation clubs and team teaching are given by native speakers.
All the evaluations of the semester are done using the different strategies and parameters of the BEC exams
Students use the Moodle platform where they can practice activities during classroom phase as well as company phase to practice English constantly.
If a student doesn’t have the right level for the semester they must repeat the whole semester.
The speaking exam has been administered with 2 evaluators as the protocol of the BEC exams. Sometimes it has been recorded to use as feedback.

Students from 4th semester visit companies in Bogota or Medellin each semester, and they have to find out and present some basic financial information from these companies. Students should write a company profile ( start up, grow, history, customers, competitors, description of the products, and so forth)
Texto work duo guide
First you give students 2 different readings to students A and B that are related for example a reading about work environment from 2 different companies facebook and google. Then a pairs of students A and B get together and share the main ideas from the readings. After that 2 couples get together to make poster presentation about the most important ideas from both readings. Finally they present to the rest of the class.
For example in 5th semester there is human resources activity planned with the teacher of Human Resources who is in charge of teaching human resources content in her class. Students practice reading the post for a specific job and the information about the company that is offering it, students can practice writing ,writing their own CV, and finally they present a job interview so in that way they can practice speaking and tips to have a better interview. Finally the Business English teacher and the human resource teacher selects the best candidate for the post. Here is a video to show you an example.

Another PBL activity used in 6th semester students give 1-3 minute pitch in English. It is a speech to persuade customers to buy their new product during their final project presentation. During class students focus con content related to Marketing. For example: Launching a product, a stand at a trade fair, being persuasive, presenting your business idea.
Finally students in 7th semester, Students read the Business Game TOP SIM Manual. Once a week they have a meeting to analyze their results and they read their next scenario for the following year ( weekly)They analyze topics such as : Starting a business, Financing a start up, Expanding into Europe, business and the environment and so forth.

Assessment
Business Certificates, also known as Business English Certificates (BEC), are a suite of three English language qualifications for international business.
Cambridge English: Business Preliminary (BEC Preliminary) – CEFR Level B1
Cambridge English: Business Vantage (BEC Vantage) – CEFR Level B2
They help students to achieve their ambitions to:
work abroad
work with international organisations in their own country
study business-related subjects taught in English.
They show that students can use English confidently in international business environments.

The reading section consists between 5 and 7 business text using different reading strategies. The reading section test the ability to understand the meaning and purpose of short texts, test the knowledge of vocabulary, test scanning skills, understand descriptions descriptions of graphs and statistics, , test the ability to read and pick out specific information in a text, read for gist especially opinions, read for specific information.
The listening section consists between 3 or 4 parts where students must identify what information is needed, listen for it and note it down accurately, infer, understand the general idea of what the speaker is saying, recognise functions such as complaining, greeting, apologising, understanding the main points
ADD reading outcomes (book)

The BEC Vantage Examination includes
• Reading (1 hour) 5-7 sections
• Writing ( 30-45 minutes) 2 sections
• Listening (40 minutes) 3-4 sections
• Speaking (14 minutes) 3 sections

Analysis of motivation and results, graphs
Taking into account the results in EXAMENES INTERMEDIOS since 2015, we found that during the first semester 50% of the students failed the exam, in the second semester this percentage slightly decreased to 42 %. A similar trend happened in 2.016 because in the first semester 50 % of the students failed the exam but in the second semester there was a sharp decrease, because only 11 % of the students failed the exam. Finally, for the first semester of 2.017 only 7 % of the students failed the exam. Our findings show that reading and listenings are lowest and most difficult skills for students to improve. This shows that all changes have been a great support for the students’ motivation to get a better level of English as an advantage for their work life and with the time students are getting the needed level .
This graph shows the results of the BEC Vantage exam in the last three years. 67% of students failed the BEC Exam in 2015. The number of students who failed decreased to 50% last year. Only 23% of students have failed in the first semester of this year. As a result we can see students are improving due to the changes that have been implemented.
Future projects
We would like to continue assessing PBL as part of the Academic English Leaders Project at the university where content and language should be integrated in the learning process.
Conclusions
During this three years of redesign and implement changes in our program of English ESP we found that ;
It is really important to take into account the students´ motivation and to show them the real use of ESP to get better results in their learning process.
We should continue checking and monitoring the program and its changes frequently to improve our planning and teaching processes.
It is necessary and remarkable to incorporate evaluation process and teaching process to make good decisions and to have excellent results in the learning process.
Even though reading and listening skills have improved. We must continue emphasizing on these skills to get better results.
Vocabulary Acquisition is vital in ESP because students can communicative better in their work environment.
Students are able to work and to study abroad (currently we have 3 exchange students from Germany and 3 students from Colombia are there, students have been working in USA )3 students from the program are doing a semester in Germany thanks to their English level, and at this moment and also 5 presented their application for the same program.