International Business Communication

This course is ideal for experienced business executives and managers who wish to improve their business language and professional skills in a commercial context in the shortest possible time. Participants will usually have several years professional working experience and already be well established in their chosen career.  

Participants typically work in the following industries and sectors:

The course will benefit any business person who needs to develop effective communication skills for use in their business life.

Course content summary

On this course, you can expect to improve your language and business skills in the following areas:

• Communication skills
• Meetings
• Management – theory and practice
• Negotiations – persuasion, selling techniques, style
• Presentations
• Leadership and team building
• Business vocabulary
• Teleconferencing
• Resolving conflict
• Networking
• Cross-cultural awareness

This highly intensive course is hands-on and task based, with frequent role-plays and simulations designed to develop essential language skills. Some activities involve DVD recordings for analysis with regular feedback to help you focus on specific areas of need.

The course content is relevant and up-to-date. Every week we have a visiting guest speaker who helps to bring external expertise and insight into the programme. You will also take part in a 'business breakfast' every week where you will discuss, with your course colleagues, current issues or politics that affect business in your region, or worldwide. Everything you do will be practical, realistic and useful; the very small groups ensure attention to individual needs.

This course is ideal for experienced executives, managers and professionals who wish to improve their language in a commercial context in the shortest possible time. Typically, participants have been working for some time and are already well established in their chosen careers.

Some people like the idea of a group course environment, but would also like to focus on a particular area of need or interest on a one-to-one basis. In such cases, we recommend our Combination Course which provides the best of both worlds.

Course content

Course participants can expect the following areas to be covered in the course:

• Presentation of one's own work, organisation and products/services
• Simulated negotiations and business meetings
• Aspects of a company's business – eg marketing, finance, production and distribution
• Handling personnel matters – eg industrial relations, communication at work
• Case studies and discussions
• Analysis of a company's strengths and weaknesses, general and financial
• Communication in an international context including intercultural understanding
• Presenting figures and graphs and describing economic and social trends
• Comparing company culture and national economies

We aim to give participants greater confidence in taking part in and chairing business meetings and negotiations. Therefore we cover appropriate communication strategies such as:

• agreeing and disagreeing
• interrupting
• clarifying and confirming
• asking for comments
• summarising
• asking appropriate questions
• challenging/defending an opinion
• persuading and compromising
• making proposals, offers, suggestions
• opening/closing meetings

Professional hospitality, entertaining visitors and handling social situations are important for many business people, as is confidence when using the telephone. Areas covered would therefore include:

• meeting and greeting
• receiving visitors
• socialising
• using the telephone effectively
• practice in communicating more complex ideas and discussing problems

Workshop topics are:

• Business Ethics
• Business Insurance and Risk
• Doing Business in India
• Predicting Behaviour and Performance in the workplace
• Managing Talent
• The Credit Crunch
• 10 Things you should know about Brands
• Innovation
• Managing Trust
• Doing Business in China

Compare International Business Communication and Communicating Effectively in English.

Whichever course you take with us, you can expect to improve your English in the following ways:

• communicate more confidently
• speak more accurately and fluently
• participate more successfully in meetings
• improve your written English including emailing
• expand your professional vocabulary
• improve your understanding of grammar
• socialise and network with greater confidence
• work successfully in a cross-cultural environment

In addition to the benefits outlined above, you can expect to manage meetings and negotiations more effectively, improve your presentation skills, expand your business vocabulary, use the telephone with greater confidence as well as being able to discuss management theory and leadership skills with greater confidence.

2013 Dates & Fees

Course dates

You can start on any Monday from 7 January* - 16 December 2013.
*Please note the school is school is closed on Friday 29th March and Monday 1st April, but is open on all other public holidays.

Course fees

2013

• £1150/week
• £1965/week (Combination 15 hours group + 15 hours individual tuition)

İlke Arseven, Turkey

İlke works for The British Chamber of Commerce of Turkey in Istanbul and came to London to improve her professional English.  She studied on the International Business Communication course and Communicating Effectively in English.  At the Chamber she deals with a lot of visitors from the UK and Ireland who have a range of accents, so it was important for her to be in an environment where she could really develop her listening skills.  She also regularly deals with financial reports and needed a better understanding of some of the sophisticated language used in these documents.

In particular, İlke felt that the trainers did a lot to help her understand different accents, and she enjoyed the weekly speaker on the International Business Communication course, and the group discussion that followed.

After her time with us İlke said ‘You are not only learning English, but also experiencing other industries’ trends and the issues they face.  As a business person it is a big opportunity to see the differences between world cultures.’

Talking about her overall experience İlke said ‘Before arriving in the UK and during my training period, everyone at the school was always so polite and concerned with my personal expectations. They work hard to send everyone home happy.’