Ethics and Academic honesty

- All students are expected to act with civility and personal integrity, respect other students’ dignity, rights and property; and help create and maintain an environment in which all can succeed through the fruits of their own efforts. An environment of academic integrity is requisite to respect for self and others and a civil community.

- Academic integrity includes a commitment to not engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation or deception. Such acts of dishonesty include cheating or copying, plagiarizing, submitting another person’s work as one’s own, using Internet sources without citation, taking or having another student take your exam, tampering with the work of another student, facilitating other students’ acts of academic dishonesty, etc.

Sanctions for breaches in academic honesty may range, depending on the severity of the offense from an “F” grade on an assignment/test to an “F” in the course. Severe cases and/or repeat offenses of academic dishonesty may also result in more severe disciplinary sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion.

Teaching and learning philosophy and methodology

Although the main aim of the Business English 1 (Pre-Intermediate) course is to develop language and communicative competence, teachers also foster interpersonal and academic skills required for university study. The process of learning occurs best in an environment that both values diverse experiences, backgrounds, learning styles and interests, and encourages open communication of ideas and self-reflection. A cooperative learning method can help to create supportive and friendly atmosphere, encourage learners to exchange their knowledge and embolden them to learn from each other. Moreover, students retain more of the course material when they are active learners and participants of a learning process. Therefore, teachers should create a learner-centered environment that will help students to turn into autonomous, responsible, self-directed and self-regulating learners who make decisions regarding the activities they fulfill and the topics they work on. A process-oriented approach is another approach that is used within the courses to teach students to write. This approach considers writing as a developmental process through which meaning and self-discovery are created. As a result, in the process-oriented approach, a writer is seen as an independent text producer having innate creative potential rather than a writer limited in rights on discovery and self-expression. In addition, to reach students teachers must engage them, establish rapport, hold their attention, and create an open learning atmosphere. As a result of these beliefs about teaching and learning, the cooperative learning method, the learner-centered approach and the process-oriented approach are recommended for the Business English courses.

Course learning activities

Students are required to undertake 45 hours of learning activities. The instructors provide 45 hours of class contact. It means that 45 hours must be explicitly allocated across a range of independent learning activities. Teachers focus a lot of attention on the development of students’ critical thinking and autonomous learning. The course learning activities include working individually and in small groups, writing business documents, speaking on various business topics, making up and delivering small group presentations, reading authentic business texts, listening to various audio materials on business topics, working on grammar and business vocabulary.

Class schedule

Instructional resources

1. Allison, J., & Emmerson, P. (2007). The business. London, UK: Longman.

2. Jones, L., & Alexander, R. (2007). New international business English. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

3. Mascull, B. (2010). Business vocabulary in use. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

4. Strutt, P. (2010). Market leader: Grammar and usage book. London, UK: Longman.

5. Tullis, G., & Trappe, T. (2004). New insights into business. London, UK: Longman.