 How Taking a Business English Course Improved My Teaching Preparation I have had the privilege of teaching English for five years in an Asian University setting, and I am now preparing to move to another country to seek employment. It is quite possible that I will teach English in a business setting in my new country, which is why I took the certificate in Teaching Business English Course. My Previous Struggles with Planning and Development Teaching English has been an absolute joy as I have met many interesting people and learned so much through living in another country. However, the part of English teaching that I struggle with most is course development and lesson planning. When I am in the classroom I love it and I am in my element, but I find the preparation for teaching both laborious and time consuming. In 2004, I was pleasantly surprised and greatly helped by the content of the CTB course. So how did the course inform my future teaching endeavors and how will the things I have learned enhance my students' language learning experience? New Ideas for Course Development Unit 3 of the Online Business Course walks through a logical and chronological process for course development. While I have previously found level testing to be commonly discussed in language teaching, needs analysis seems to be discussed much less. From this part of the course, I have come to understand how both needs analysis and needs negotiation will be very important and extremely useful as I prepare to teach business English in a variety of situations and contexts. As I reflected on this, it occurred to me that it might actually be that the needs and or goals of three different parties might affect how a course is developed. Naturally, the students' needs must always be considered, but it may also be advantageous, necessary to take into account the goals of the company they work for. Thirdly, if my employer has particular goals in mind, this may also have some impact on course development. For example, if my employer has certain teaching materials that they have developed or are marketing this could affect course development. Although this makes needs analysis sound quite complex, overall I find it helpful to have thought this through beforehand. Overall, I am encouraged by how both needs analysis and needs negotiation can be useful in helping to refine my course development efforts. The importance of syllabus design and the use of authentic materials. There are two other topics from the course that will be useful for increasing the effectiveness of my course preparation, and they are syllabus design and using authentic materials. Of course, I have designed a syllabus before, but I can definitely improve in this area by being more intentional and structured at the beginning of the course, and being sure to put together a complete course syllabus including unit names, skills covered, grammar, vocabulary involved, tasks or functions of this language and resources to be used. I can see how improving my skills in syllabus design and taking the time to do this well will inform and make lesson planning a much more enjoyable process. Lastly, I found the discussion on using authentic and non-authentic materials to be a timely reminder for me as it showed me how authentic materials in particular can be very useful in a business English setting, especially as company documents can help lesson content be more relevant and applicable for my students and their needs. Looking to the future. This course has given me a multiplicity of tools for improving my teaching preparation, a few of which have been addressed above. Because of what I've learned in the straining course, I am now even more excited for my next teaching assignment as this course has addressed some of the least enjoyable aspects of teaching English for me and given me hope and tools for improvement. I look forward to using needs analysis or negotiation, syllabus design and authentic or non-authentic materials in order to enhance both my teaching skills and my students language learning experience. Are you ready to teach business English abroad? Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad. Send us an email or call us toll free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today.