Business Spotlight-Should there be billionaires – Business English

2020

Lecturers

Business & Communication

Classroom Context

English

English

B2

Activity/task
Guiding resources (online course/book)

Vocabulary
Prosody

Speaking
Writing
Reading

This set of resources (composed of two worksheets and one lesson plan, published by Macmillan Education) are found at the website onestopenglish.com and are aimed at B2 level students in the area of Business English, or professional English. The resources (used together) are meant primarily for the teacher who is given a lesson plan on aims and procedures. If focus on reading skills, with the aim of practising and expanding vocabulary on the topic of ‘should there be billionaires’. Writing and speaking skills are also targeted as from the text two more activities (on writing and speaking) are also devised. The texts and tasks selected follow a communicative approach and are easily adjustable to the learners. According to what one can read in the lesson plan: “This lesson plan is for both pre-experience and in-work business students based on an original article first published in Business Spotlight issue 3/2020.”

This resource is beneficial and interesting to B2 students as they can practise both comprehension and production skills. It is an excellent topic to set the oral discussion and improve more elaborate written texts. The language is accessible and it is an excellent opportunity to review the usage of numerals and quantifiers. This activity also benefits from the possibility of being applied in pairs in which students can share ideas and discuss the topic. This type of collaborative activity is very communicative-oriented as students are more likely to be active among their peers.
I used this resource last semester in one of my classes and the students were very responsive to the theme. As an additional task, they created a small collaborative video, pretending they were billionaires. It worked quite well despite some technical problems.

According to the lesson plan suggested by onestopenglish.com, these three resources should be used together in a lesson. They make part of the aims and strategy set for the lesson: students read two different texts on both sides of the argument (Is extreme wealth a sign of a prospering economy or of great inequality?). Even though a more detailed version can be found in the worksheets, we explain here very briefly the steps:
Warmer: students are given several numbers in words and numbers in and digits which they need to match. Then, they have to say them aloud.
Step 1: pre-reading activity. Working in pairs, students are given two different texts on the same topic (one gets worksheet A (argument in favour) and the other (arguments against). Sts do a vocabulary matching the words with their definitions as a way to practise vocabulary from the texts (read the words in context).
Step 3: Sts read the text
Step 4: Information sharing. Students present the arguments from both sides and decide on who’s got the strongest arguments.
Step 5: Discussion (speaking practice)- sts attempt to answer the questions suggested in the worksheets (e.g. In times of crisis, are billionaires morally required to help others, in your opinion?)
Follow-up activity: research and presentation (“Find out more about one of the world’s wealthiest businesspeople, and prepare to give a presentation about them. Be prepared to answer questions with relevant information.”)