In a series of short articles, Cathy Bright offers some useful tips to teachers of Business English

Context:
a business class with erratic attendance

Level:
pre-intermediate upwards

Observation:
this works best with a small group (6)

Time:
15 - 25 minutes depending on group size and facilities available

Aims:

1. to fill some students in on what they've missed in the previous lesson(s)
   
2. to encourage all students to let the group know more about their professional life and to promote a positive classroom atmosphere
   
3. to give the students practice at writing in a communicative context - emphasis on fluency followed by error correction

Equipment

An OHP and OHP and OHT pen for each student, or, (ideally!), a multimedia centre and computer for each student … or, at worst, a blank piece of paper and pen for each student. The assumption below is that overhead transparencies (OHT's) and an overhead projector (OHP) are available.

Procedure

• give each student an OHT and OHP pen as you welcome them to class
• make sure all students can remember who was present last class and who wasn't
• ask the students who were not present during the last class(es) to write an "e-mail" to someone who was there, asking them what was covered in class. Establish who is writing to whom. You could sit them next to each other if you like;
• ask those who were there to write an "e-mail" to the partner previously established asking them about what they've been doing at work since the last time they were in class
• give students a short time limit to write both e-mails reflective of their daily lives and to encourage fluency rather than a focus on accuracy. You could explain this as some more accuracy-conscious students may resent it. Make sure they swap their requests as quickly as possible, and that each request and response is on the same OHT
• act as a facilitator rather than corrector, by, for example, providing missing vocabulary; again, explain your reasons - they're going to correct each other's next
• put each OHT on the OHP. You could ask students for their comments and you correct the OHT in a different coloured pen, or give them time to think first in pairs. Lower level students might prefer this
• it's practical to correct everything with up to about 6 students depending on the group - if you didn't impose a strict time limit students may have written more which could make the correction process tedious. If this is the case, or if you have a bigger group, you could focus on correcting one aspect such as use of link words or the past tense. Or if you have no OHT available at all, take the work in, copy it and do a correction exercise in the following lesson

Class fit and follow-up

• after working on a language point such as requests, prepositions or the past
  after or as an introduction to a focus on register
• if a lot of students missed the previous lesson, follow this with a remedial activity
• you could set up a group e-mail support system - suggest they send each other at least one e-mail a week with similar functions to those practised in class; this will make the whole exercise seem more realistic which is motivating
  

Cathy Bright