TEACHING BUSINESS ENGLISH: DO ENGLISH TEACHERS NEED TRAINING?
By:
NOR AINI BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN, ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MALAYSIA
&
FATIMAH BINTI ALI, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE of ENGINEERING and TECHNOLOGY MALAYSIA
English language teachers have to upgrade themselves constantly in order to keep up with the latest development in teaching the language. For English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers, the demand is even more pressing. Bearing that in mind, this paper investigates how Business English teachers equip themselves to teach Business English since Malaysian graduates with Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) degree are not specifically trained to teach Business English. To see how Business English instructors prepare themselves to teach the course, a set of questionnaire was distributed to forty-five course instructors from five public higher learning institutions in Malaysia. Results showed that the respondents employed various ways to teach the course.
INTRODUCTION
The ultimate goal of teacher training is to provide qualified personnel for a nation. Society places high demands upon educators so as to ensure professional and social competence of both individuals and society. Continued education and training in new trends can help meet a great variety of educational needs and promote excellence in education.
Since teaching requires specific skills and an understanding of not only psychology but also human development, teacher training must be encouraged as it is an essential, continuous process. In line with that, Perraton (1993) and states that good education demands good teacher. This is because
over the course of the twentieth century, as the te ...