ESL Basics

This is a guest post from Andrea's brother Josh who is the author of our Business English Blog for Teacher Week.

Adding in a Business English lesson to your normal ESL class may not be commonplace in your classroom, but it can be a fun way to break down some language barriers with a simple lesson on business principles. One idea for a Business English activity can include the concept of supply and demand. Supply and demand can be very complex depending on who you ask, but at it's foundation, it's simple math combined with necessity. 

One exercise you can do is to give everyone in your classroom monopoly money, or fake money of some kind. Then host an auction! Bring in several items (food, drinks, coupons for extra credit, games, etc.) with varying degrees of value and have the students bid on the products. Also, tell the students that they can share money to "go-in" or "pool" their money together to purchase some of the larger gifts.

Without needing to "explain" anything in English, you have just demonstrated several business principles, including supply and demand, transactions, an auction, market value, and more. Now that your students have acquired an understanding of the business concepts through firsthand experience, easily reinforce the new vocabulary and concepts they used to define their experience. Most teachers today know that experience influences language comprehension and usage more than rote memorization ever can. So do your students a favor -- cut the boring talks and give them an experience they can hold on to.