Business English vs General English Teachers, which is better?

Whether you are thinking about taking up business English lessons as a student, or you’re an English teacher thinking about offering business English lessons, you may be wondering about the differences between being a business English vs general English teacher. While both types of English teacher can teach English vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and skills, business English is a niche within general English teaching. Therefore, to be a Business English teacher, one must possess three key attributes that will separate him or her from most other general English teachers such as having an educational background in a business subject, having worked in the business world, and taking a different approach to business English students and their expectations for lessons.

Business English vs General English: the similarities and differences

A Business English teacher can much more easily master the language teaching aspect of general English than a general English teacher can master the nuance of business English register and discussion. The Business English teacher already possesses the vocabulary and has the capacity to learn how to teach and explain English Grammar, pronunciation, and writing. The general English teacher, on the other hand, might not have the knowledge or experience in business settings to teach the specialized vocabulary that business English requires.

What makes Business English register different from general English?

Have you ever watched an interview with business leaders on CNBC or the BBC? These unscripted talks are full of business expressions and clichés. Expressions and clichés are contextual and often come from a grounding in business, financial, or marketing concepts. A general English teacher who has never worked in business nor studied a business subject might not have the contextual background to explain expressions that business leaders use as a business English teacher would. Furthermore, that same general English teacher certainly would not be able to teach or provide examples from experience and personal stories.

As an example case, the term Black Friday has become popularized worldwide as people around the world became enamored with viral videos depicting Americans charging headfirst into retail stores like the running of the bulls.

As an American living and teaching abroad, my students often ask me why we have Black Friday and why it’s called “Black.” The term black before a day like “Black Tuesday”, is often thought of as marking something tragic such as the start of the Great Depression although Black Friday is different. So, how would both types of teacher explain this phenomenon?

Example: How a General English teacher might explain Black Friday

The general English teacher might explain Black Friday from its connection to Thanksgiving in that it is the day after the holiday and most Americans turn their attention to Christmas shopping. As for why Black Friday uses the term “Black,” a general English teacher might struggle with that answer unless they have read any articles or seen any programs about it that would explain the reason, nor would they be able to go deeper into conversation about the economics behind the Black Friday phenomenon.

Example: How a Business English teacher might explain Black Friday

As a business English teacher, I would explain it from the financial view in that the term “black” in finance refers to a business operating with a positive profit margin. If a business is in the red, it is making a loss whereas a business in the black is operating with a profit. The explanation continues discussing how most retail businesses run in the red for most of the year but finally turn from red to black during the Christmas Shopping season.

I might further go into why, in Poland for example, you don’t see the same enthusiasm for Black Friday amongst shoppers as you do with American shoppers. For starters, it’s not customary for Poles, and they don’t know the story of Black Friday. More importantly, though, the retailers here in Poland aren’t following the American Black Friday model of using scarcity to generate the enthusiasm from shoppers. Scarcity is a term that economists often use to explain customer behavior as relates to their perceived demand for goods.

Now, I don’t want to go so far off track with this case example, but if you’re interested in a deeper explanation on Black Friday, you can find my article on it titled: Why Black Friday doesn’t work in Poland.

This is just one example of how a business English vs general English teacher might approach explanations differently. The business English teacher in the example situation can go much deeper into an intellectual conversation about the economic theory and strategy that retailers use whereas the general English teacher would be limited to just explaining the history (provided he or she knows it).

Business English vs. General English: Knowledge, Training, and Experience

Both business English and general English teachers start their English learning journey the same in that we all learn the basic use of English, vocabulary, and grammar early on in our school careers. If you think about it, one popular nickname for Elementary or Primary School is “Grammar School.”

However, the two teacher types’ journeys diverge after high school (secondary school) as the general English teacher might go on to major in English, Literature, or Linguistics while the business English teacher goes on to study Economics, Business Management, Finance and Accounting, or Marketing. In fact, I will go so far as to say that the business English teacher has no idea they will end up being a teaching later in their career as they are preparing for a life in the business world.

How I became a business English teacher

The business English teacher typically graduates from college then goes on to work in the business world. In my case, I had begun my career as a financial advisor for two years before I decided to teach English abroad as a means to get out and see the world. It wasn’t until my second year teaching in Poland that I even knew there was a distinction between a business English vs general English teacher as I encountered a situation with a stranger who asked me to be his business English teacher.

We were getting to know each other over a beer when he asked me what I studied and how I became an English teacher. After I told him I’d studied Economics at UCLA and subsequently worked as a financial advisor, he suggested that I could be a good business English teacher for him, and that is where my own journey as a business English teacher began with him as my first student.

4 Important Qualities of a Business English Teacher

My first business English student saw the potential in me to be a business English teacher before anyone else did. As he was taking in my story over that beer, he recognized that I possessed four traits in me that he couldn’t find from other teachers he’d worked with before then.

I had the educational background in a business topic - economics.
I had worked and had "real" experience in the business world.
I could teach him the business English vocabulary and expressions from experience.
We could have high level conversation about business topics.

These four characteristics all point to the fact that I could deliver an authentic business English learning experience to my student. The key word there is “authentic” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as:

Worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact
Not false or imitation: Real, Actual
True to one’s own personality, spirit, or character

What Business English Teachers use as teaching materials

A business English teacher does not need to rely on books or traditional English teaching materials to find resources for their lessons. In my own case, I have compiled a vast library of articles, videos, interview excerpts, questionnaires, business books (not only business English books) and more that allow me to teach and have business English discussion topics from authentic sources that give a different look and feel to my business English lessons which can’t be matched by a general English teacher.

As I mentioned earlier, business English is a niche within general English, and therefore, a business English teacher must be a specialist in that niche if he is to deliver on their target student’s expectations, which leads me to my third and final point on this subject matter.

Business English Students Expect More from their teacher

In my vast experience in teaching business English, I can honestly say that my business English students expect more from (me) their teacher than what the general English teacher may be able to offer. Here are some observations I have made over the years concerning my own experiences with business English students:

They prefer their teacher to have an educational background in a business subject.
They appreciated the fact that their teacher had worked in the business world prior to becoming a teacher.
They valued the fact that I ran my own English teaching business and could relate and discuss in terms of the difficulties of actually running a business.
They weren’t always eager to dive deep into the rules and grammar unless I could show them the relevance in how they could use the grammatical aspects in their own likely business situations.
They appreciate that we can go “off script” or deviate from the normal lesson plan and engage in conversation on whatever topic was relevant for that day and situation.
They often didn’t want to be taught from the book.
Even if we did use a book, they appreciated that most of the “teaching” derived from stories based on personal experience.
They valued that I could teach them business skills that I’d learned working in an American business setting and transmit those skills and the contextual use of those skills.

These are just some of my own observations having worked with so many business English students in Poland over the course of my 15-year English teaching journey.

I'd love to hear your thoughts

Whether you’re a teacher yourself or an English learner, what do you think about the points I’ve raised and the differences between the two forms of English teaching? What are your own experiences and observations? Please leave me a comment and let’s keep the conversation going.

Business English vs General English Teacher, which is Better?