Hi, I’m Robert Barton from Oxford Business English
I’m a native English speaker and I’ve spent many years doing business in Europe, Asia and Africa.
But as an English speaker I never realised how difficult it is to do business in a foreign language until I invested in a project in Africa, where I had to hold meetings, produce reports and do all communications in my 2nd language. The idioms, the accent, the slang, the fast speech…..
I quickly realised how hard it must be for others to do business in English. After that I decided to become an English teacher. I have degrees and masters degrees in business and economics, so I decided specialise in Business English. When I was training I noticed that none of the English teachers I worked with knew anything about business, and it was then that I realised why it is so hard for non-native speakers to use English in a business setting. English teachers can’t teach business English because they don’t use it in business.
Language is how we communicate, without communication there is no trust… and trust is the basis for all business deals.
English courses teach you grammar etc, but if you don’t learn in a business context you might as well not bother… unless you just want to learn English to watch movies, listen to music and chat in bars, in which case general English is just fine. But if learning English for work is what you need then you need to be smart about how you learn…
Technology is also making everything change faster. Did you know that more new English verbs have been created in the last 10 years than in the previous 100 years COMBINED! So how should we learn?
Human brains are survival machines. You remember (and learn) at your best when your brain thinks information is important. That’s why learning English when you were at school was so hard, as a child it isn’t important for your life so you forget. As an adult you need a career, and English is essential for it. So you go and learn English, then you learn about business. But if you combine the two your brain sees this as doubly important and you will learn faster. We’re programmed that way.
What if we could take the latest business research from the top companies and universities in the world and re-write them into English classes? How useful would it be if you could improve your English comprehension, speaking skills and grammar, whilst also learning about things like Fintech, digital marketing or artificial intelligence at the same time?
That is what we do!
Let’s say we are studying marketing. We study the grammar of how the language is used, we do reading and writing work to expand vocabulary, we will also do listening exercises at different speeds and with different accents, then we do speaking workshops to make your pronunciation clearer, and we do all this with materials that teach you about modern marketing at the same time. We do the same with other subjects such as economics, technology or personal development. Our courses are aimed at everyone from elementary to advanced level and are updated regularly with the latest materials and learning techniques. (and you don’t have to be a business specialist either, we’re here to teach you that too).
Our students are fast tracking their careers. But don’t take my word for it, take a look at the testimonials from our students on our website, and all our courses come with a 100% money back guarantee!
The global economy is worth almost $90 trillion per year, and the majority of international trade is in English. How you speak English is critical to your success. Whether you want career promotion, business investment, higher sales or a new job, the bottom line is that we will help you get there quicker than anyone else.
So why not take a look at our courses on the ‘learn with us’ page at OxfordBusinessEnglish.com and see what we can do for you…..