This issue’s column highlights several colourful idioms used by a Teaching Assistant (TA) at a private university. Lee Ka Ho is an international graduate student from Hong Kong, who is conversant in four languages: Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, and English. Charismatic, his classmates call him “Ricky.” In this essay he describes his preferred method for learning, as well as teaching business English idioms based on his experiences in the classroom.
In this essay, I explain how I prefer to learn foreign languages and how that experience has influenced the way I tutor university students in business English classes.
My Preferred Way of Learning Foreign Languages
My mother told me that I constantly mimicked her when I was a toddler and quickly picked up Cantonese as my first language. When I started to learn Mandarin as a second language, I believe that access to interesting materials was the most important criteria for my success. I took standard Mandarin lessons in primary school, but I was much more motivated by watching videos at home after class. I spent long hours watching cartoons in Mandarin. I believe that I learned Mandarin as a child primarily by listening to videos on YouTube. When I began learning English as my third language, I also tended to learn through videos. I would watch a video clip and then lip-synch the pronunciation, trying to speak like a native speaker. Understanding pronunciation is crucial for communicating in English; if words are pronounced incorrectly, native speakers will likely not understand them. In my opinion, video is an effective method for foreign language learning.
At high school in Hong Kong, I set my sights on going to Japan. It was a long journey for me to learn the Japanese language. To enter a graduate school necessitated achieving a N1 level on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). I began studying Japanese at school in 2018 and completed the N4 and N5 courses by 2020. The teachers were very patient, and I gradually became able to use some simple daily vocabulary and grammar. I studied on my own to master levels N3 to N1. I returned to my preferred learning method and watched animation movies to quickly obtain N3 certification. For N2 and N1, I watched televised news programs every day and memorized vocabulary. I listened and watched the news every day because I felt immersion was important in developing my long-term memory. My learning style involved reviewing old knowledge and remembering new information. Armed with an NI diploma, I decided to pursue graduate studies at a private university in Japan. Ideally, I would have liked to take a two-year Master of Business Administration (MBA) program that would have included the study of business case studies, learning how to negotiate and how to debate, as well as exposed to accounting and finance terminology and skills. Gaining access to these intensive two-year programs, however, requires a high score on the Graduate Management Admissions Test as well as two years’ work experience. Those hurdles were too high, so instead I applied to an intercultural studies program majoring in English education at a private university. This two-year Master of Arts (MA) program allowed me to focus my research thesis on developing effective pedagogical strategies to teach business English. Acceptance in the education program opened the door for me to receive training to teach business English to graduate students at the university as a salaried teaching assistant (TA). The training included opportunities to team-teach classes of business English to undergraduate students at Chuo University and Soka University, as well as tutoring graduate students at my main university.
Preparing to Teach Business English
Initially, I studied vocabulary and phrases by watching Yamanaka, et al.’s (2024) videos of CNN News in English. There was a wide variety of topics on the news, so I narrowed my focus onto issues, such as political conventions, global warming, and travel. Business English terminology involves a higher level of complexity than everyday English; I surmised that a good command of business English vocabulary, idioms, and expressions would be required to teach students and to create beneficial teaching materials. I also turned to newspapers and online news videos for relevant teaching materials. According to a study by the New York Times (Corum, 2024), among the 220,000 words spoken at the Democratic and Republican conventions, excluding common and routine words, the most frequently spoken words were: democracy, freedom, economy, economics, business, jobs, taxes, and cost of groceries. This confirmed my belief that learning words related to business would be useful for my students. The video recordings of American presidential and vice-presidential candidates also exposed me to a colourful variety of idioms. I heard them use idioms, such as “that’s a big deal” (i.e., it’s important). Idioms are hard to catch in conversation, but they are essential to understanding the speaker. Fortunately, idioms related to business transactions are often listed in business-related textbooks. In particular, I discovered that textbooks, such as Nakatani and Smithers’ (2023) Global Business Case Studies, and Tsuji, et al.’s (2011) Business English: Basic Communication Skills for International Business Situations, provided short readings and narratives by business people with an accompanying word bank and interpretation of the idioms in common English. I came to believe that integrating videos as well as well-written marketing cases into my lessons could be a more effective way of teaching business English than simply focusing on memorizing copious amounts of vocabulary and definitions.
Teaching Business English Idioms
As a TA, I was given the opportunity to warm up 25 second-year Business English students during the first 20 minutes of a 90-minute class. I planned to begin by teaching several idioms. When teaching English, especially in a business context, I came to realize that it is crucial to prioritize quality over quantity.
For one of my classes, I developed a business case I called “Pilgrimage to Sacred Places in Gifu Prefecture” (see Figure 1). Initially, I played an excerpt from the animation film Your Name directed by Makoto Shinkai (2016). I explained to students how this animation movie relates to promoting business in Gifu. For instance, movie fans have become curious about the setting of this popular film. Viewers are visiting Gifu to explore what makes this place so special. My teaching goal was to show a few minutes of the video in my class, focus their attention onto a few idioms using PowerPoint, give them a pop quiz, and then encourage them to go to the library or other convenient places to watch the entire video after the class.
I also used video while teaching the idioms from a business case related to Irish culture that I called “Working at a Bar in Ireland” (see Figure 2). I plan to go to Ireland next year to further research Irish culture and enhance my English proficiency, grammar, sentence structure, and speaking nuances. Immersing myself in a Western culture should enhance my qualifications as an English teacher, even though I am not a native English speaker.
In regards to vacations or taking a business trip, have you ever noticed how people’s eyes tend to glaze over when you talk on and on about all the great sightseeing and delicious food you enjoyed? Through experience, I have learned that those same listeners will come to life and even start asking questions about the vacation when I tell them about all the terrible things that occurred: the rain, the food poisoning, the theft, and the lost bags. That is why I am going to tell you about the troubles I had with my lesson.
Things That did not Work well in My Lessons
Initially, preparing for the Business English courses was challenging. I wondered whether my preparations were sufficient. I worried that I might have missed something important andwas going to cause problems during the lesson. I love video, but I deliberated whether I should use a video during classroom time. I even struggled with knowing how to begin and what to say as a greeting.
Quite frankly, raw-dogging (i.e., doing something without assistance) the lesson planning stage resulted in my poor performance in the classroom. I should have asked my classmates or supervisor to check on my lesson plans the day before I stepped into the classroom. Idiomatically, you could say that Ricky learned his lesson the hard way (i.e., I failed at my first attempt).
During my first few lessons, I failed to make sufficient eye contact with my students because I relied too much on reading from a script. Of course, this made it more difficult to gauge their understanding of what I was saying. To become more “on the ball” (focused) in my classes, I started to bring realia, such as a baseball, into the classroom. For example, during a marketing class at Soka University in Hachioji, I introduced business idioms, such as “let’s get the ball rolling” (i.e., let’s begin), and I actually rolled a baseball on a desktop. I also failed to ask students enough questions to assess their learning at the end of my warm-up period. I should have added a pop quiz component, requiring students to write and recite an original sentence on the whiteboard using an idiom. To “sidestep” (i.e., avoid) the possibility that students might “balk at” (i.e., refuse) having to write ten perfect sentences on the board, I could have said, “Don’t swing at every pitch (i.e., you do not have to answer all the questions), just write one.” After critically reflecting on my lessons, I realized that it is important for teachers to check students’ comprehension during a lesson. Watching many students react positively to the gestures when I used a baseball, I remembered to finish up my lessons by explaining the relation between a closing pitcher and “the person brought in to close a deal” (i.e., to get things done).
Things That Worked Well in my Lessons
One remarkable success was that students attempted to participate actively in the classroom. I was able to engage them from the start by explaining that I am from a country of 1.4 billion people, but there are 1.5 billion people in the world who converse in English every day (Talbot, 2023).
My students were from China, Hong Kong, and Japan, but I avoided translating business English idioms into those three languages. I also avoided reciting comparable idioms from the three cultures. Admittedly, I was tempted to show off my skills, but lectures and translating would have led to a teacher-centred lesson. On handout materials and on PowerPoint, I presented idioms in italics and added interpretation in parentheses, telling the students the goal was to communicate only with the idioms. While reciting, Japanese students were particularly adept at omitting the added meaning because during their formative junior high school years, they are instructed not to read between the parentheses.
Towards the end of my teaching session, I gave them a pop quiz and encouraged them to write sentences using business English expressions on the blackboard. Although some students remained shy, others bravely joined in and attempted to write sentences in English. A participant responded, “The test on idioms was difficult, but I learned a lot in the Business English class.” I was impressed by their efforts, especially considering the challenges they faced. Despite the difficulties being greater than expected, they did not give up. This determination exemplifies the learning attitude I strive to foster. Failure is a crucial part of learning anything in life. Therefore, in my classes, I encourage students to try several times, even if they make mistakes, rather than not trying at all. According to Hara (2024) who observed a few of my classes, a successful aspect was how I incorporated business English expressions into my PowerPoint presentations (see Figure 2). For example, when discussing business cases involving animated movies, I highlighted how films would not only benefit theatres but also boost the economy in Gifu. At that moment, I said the business English idiom “win-win situation” (i.e., everyone wins) and gave a two-thumbs up (excellent) gesture. Explaining specific situations to teach business English idioms makes it much easier to remember them. The English language changes all the time, and plenty of terms are regularly updated. Use of words, such as literally, have undergone semantic alterations over time. I tend to use the word as an intensifier in the same way as YouTubers do.
My Future
During my time at graduate school, I noticed that although many Japanese interlocutors told me that they were proficient in reading and writing in English, the students in my classes actually struggled most with their output skills: speaking and writing. As a TA, I want to help them improve all four of their English skills. I feel that video will help their listening abilities in the same way it has mine.
I hope to pursue a career as an English teacher after graduate school. However, I recognize that my English skills are not yet where I want them to be. I am good at listening, but I came to realize that my English reading skills were not sufficient when I tried to access information at the library. To address this shortcoming, I plan to work abroad in Ireland and Canada to continue my research on business English. By gaining a deeper understanding of English in daily life in culturally diverse countries, I hope to be able to create effective business English materials for students.
To explore the world fully, I need to improve my speaking and writing abilities in global Englishes, the different varieties of English spoken around the world. Culture and language are deeply interconnected. Teaching business English requires not only an understanding of its grammatical structure but also knowledge of the associated cultures in which the businesses are based. I hypothesize that the business idioms I encounter abroad will vary according to the culture where they are used. By incorporating cultural elements into my teaching, I believe I can increase students’ interest and engagement in learning business English.
References
Corum, J. (2024, August 23). Words used at the democratic and republican national conventions. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/23/us/politics/rnc-dnc-words...
Hara, Y. (2024, July 26). Bijinesu eigo, zenki saishuukai: daigakuinsei TA no katsudoo yori [Activities of graduate student Tas: Business English final lesson of the first term]. IUK Kokusai Bunka Gakka. https://intercultural.iuk-plus.net/?p=2239
Nakatani Y., & Smithers, R. (2023). Global business case studies. Seibido.
Shinkai, M. (2016). Your name [Film]. CoMix Wave Films.
Talbot, D. (2023, December 9). How many people speak English. Wordsrated. https://wordsrated.com/how-many-people-speak-english/
Tsuji, K., Tsuji S., & Lieb, M. (2011). Business English: Basic communication skills for international business situations. Asahi Press.
Yamanaka, T., Roman, R., & Toyoshima C. (2024). CNN News English: Engaging college students as active learners. Asahi Press.
