An Alternative Approach to Teaching Materials Design for Promoting Authentic Communication in Undergarduate Business English Courses at Seeu

Business English coursebooks undoubtedly offer structure and provide the necessary frame for students to rely upon, however, a pitfall to be avoided is blind, uncritical and unselective overreliance on them. The idea behind this paper is not to entirely banish ESP for Business coursebooks but to supplement them substantially with authentic written, audio and video materials tailored to students’ immediate and future needs. This paper advocates incorporating new approaches and practises in materials design and selection. When intended to be used with inexperienced students, business English teaching materials play a major role in introducing students to the real world of business, in addition to equipping students with the necessary business related vocabulary and the most frequently used grammar structures. This paper also summarizes the findings of a student survey on the extent to which the business English teaching materials used at SEEU incorporate the essential features of real-world business communication.