A genre-based Project to teach university students how to write business reports

Actas del 10th Latin American ESP Colloquium ESP Research in Latin America (CD)

Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto

Lugar: Río Cuarto; Año: 2007; p. 1 - 8

Globalization has brought about an increase in international business communication. Atthe same time, the use of personal computers and e-mail has almost replaced secretarial support and, consequently, more and more business people have to write their own texts. Apart form that, most teachers have been trained to teach General English, so, when teaching English for business purposes, they are forced to rely more on their intuitions or their first-hand experience than on research-led methods. Therefore, both the students? need to develop English writing skills in work-related contexts and the teachers? need for research-led methods have been the basis for the present study which aims at: Investigating the application of genre-based instruction to the teaching of Business English (BE) writing to university students Gaining insights into the possibility Genre Theory offers to the teaching of BE writing to university students. The present study was carried out with five intact classes attending the subject Business English IV, which belongs to the fourth semester of all study programs of the Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21