Business communication courses online for emails, meetings and negotiations

Business communication is the language you use to get tasks done at work. A business communication course practises seven situations that come up in almost every office job.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is the European scale for language levels with six steps from A1 to C2. Since 2020 it also describes mediation. Mediation means preparing content for other people, for example when you summarise a client call held in Spanish for your team in English. At work this is one of the most frequent tasks, and good business courses practise it deliberately.

Register matters too. Register is the level of formality you choose. An email to a client's managing director sounds different from a chat message to a colleague.

Emails are the most frequent contact with the foreign language for many working people. A course practises the structure of a business email and above all its tone. Each language has its own conventions for greetings, forms of address and closings.

A business email in most languages consists of a subject line, a greeting, your request, a next step and a closing. Put the request in the first sentence, because many readers only read the beginning.

Directness is the most common problem. Learners whose first language is fairly direct, such as German or Dutch, often sound demanding in English. 'Send me the report' works better as 'Could you send me the report by Friday?'. English speakers writing in German, on the other hand, sometimes wrap a simple request in so much politeness that the request itself gets lost.

Speed matters in meetings. You have to listen, understand and say something at the right moment, often with people from several countries. A course practises useful phrases for this. Teachers call them chunks. Chunks are fixed expressions that you recall as a whole without building the sentence from scratch.

6 groups of phrases for meetings

1. Giving and justifying an opinion
2. Interrupting politely and taking the floor
3. Asking for clarification when you have not understood
4. Agreeing, partly agreeing and disagreeing
5. Summarising results and recording next steps
6. Opening, chairing and closing a meeting

Phone calls are the hardest situation for many learners, because facial expressions and gestures are missing. A course therefore practises spelling names, giving numbers and asking someone to repeat. Video calls also make speaking harder. Audio delay makes two people start at once, and body language largely disappears. Since 2020 the Council of Europe has described this kind of communication as online interaction in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), the European scale for language levels. An online course practises it along the way, because the lesson itself is a video call.

1 Structure with signposting

Signposting sentences announce what comes next, for example 'First I'll talk about the results, then about next steps'. They help listeners who are not listening in their first language.

2 Describing figures and charts

Numbers, percentages, trends and comparisons need their own phrases. Watch the notation: English uses a comma for thousands and a point for decimals, while German, Spanish and French do it the other way round.

3 Pronouncing key terms

Practise the ten most important terms in your presentation out loud until the stress is right. A key word stressed wrongly distracts listeners more than a grammar mistake.

4 Handling questions

The question round is the hardest part, because you have to react spontaneously. A course practises phrases that buy time, put a question on hold or admit that you will follow up with an answer.

Negotiating in a foreign language usually requires level B2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), the European scale from A1 to C2. At these levels you can justify positions, respond to objections and express nuance.

In negotiations in English, hedging plays a big part. Hedging means softening a statement so that it does not come across as an attack. If you phrase things too directly, you easily lose goodwill. If you phrase them too vaguely, people do not take you seriously.

A course practises negotiations as role plays, ideally with cases from your own work. The teacher takes the other side and raises the difficulty with each round.

Language and culture cannot be separated in business communication. Cultures differ in how directly they voice criticism, how much small talk comes before business and how strongly hierarchy shapes the conversation. Within one country the differences between industries and individuals are often large. The four examples therefore describe tendencies, not rules.

• English-speaking business: criticism is often embedded in praise and softened. A sentence such as 'That's an interesting idea' can signal doubt.
• German-speaking business: criticism is often more direct and matter-of-fact. People from other cultures sometimes find this impolite.
• Spanish-speaking business: personal relationships and a conversation before the actual topic often carry more weight.
• Japanese business: a direct no is rare, and refusal tends to show in hesitation or evasion.

A good business course explains such differences with examples and practises reading the signals correctly. When in doubt, ask rather than guess.

A business communication course starts with a needs analysis. A needs analysis is a conversation or questionnaire in which the teacher records your tasks, contacts and difficulties. From it comes a course plan with goals, for example the goal of chairing a client meeting in English within three months.

A typical sequence over several weeks

1. Placement test and needs analysis in the first lesson
2. Agreed goal with a level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and a date
3. Teaching blocks on one situation each, such as email, meeting or presentation
4. Simulations with your own documents
5. Final test and a conversation about the next goals

Many business courses work with material from your company. Check beforehand whether you may show internal documents in class. Some providers sign a confidentiality agreement for this, meaning a contract that binds the teacher to secrecy.

Employers and learners want to see what a business course has achieved. Two methods complement each other.

Standardised tests before and after the course

For English, Linguaskill Business from Cambridge English works well. It is an online test without a fixed exam date that reports your level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for each skill. TOEIC from the US test provider ETS measures listening and reading on a scale of 10 to 990 points. The telc English B1-B2 Business exam certifies level B1 or B2.

Role plays and recordings

A test measures language ability, but not whether you can handle a specific meeting. A recorded simulation at the start and end of the course shows your progress in exactly the situations you face at work.

The Cambridge Business Certificates, formerly BEC, are no longer available outside China. Certificates already gained remain valid.

1. Does the course start with a needs analysis, meaning a survey of your work tasks, and a placement test?
2. Has the teacher worked in companies or gained experience in business communication?
3. Does the course cover all the situations in your job, from emails to negotiations?
4. Can you bring your own texts and presentations, and is confidentiality agreed?
5. Are there role plays and simulations instead of gap-fill exercises only?
6. Does the teacher explain cultural differences in tone, for example around criticism and refusal?
7. Is your progress measured with a test or a recorded simulation?

If a provider has no clear answer to the first two questions, the course is probably a general course with a business label.

1 Trusting false friends

False friends are words that look alike in two languages but mean different things. In Spanish, embarazada means pregnant, not embarrassed. In German, Gift means poison. Learners of English from Europe often use actually to mean currently and eventually to mean possibly.

2 Carrying over your own level of directness

Every language has its own politeness norms. A request that sounds neutral in your first language can sound demanding or overly timid in another.

3 Writing numbers and dates wrongly

English writes 1,500.50 where German, Spanish and French write 1.500,50 or 1 500,50. American dates also follow the order month, day, year.

4 Building sentences that are too long

Long, nested sentences make a text hard to follow in any language, especially for readers who are not native speakers. Short sentences with one statement each come across more clearly.

5 Getting forms of address wrong

German, Spanish and French distinguish between a formal and an informal you (Sie and du, usted and tú, vous and tu). In business, start formally and switch only when the other person offers it.