Advanced Language Usage For Business

Center:

Madrid

Program(s):

Madrid - Language & Area Studies [1]

Discipline(s):

Spanish

Course code:

SP 380

Terms offered:

Fall

Spring

Credits:

Language of instruction:

Spanish

Instructor:

Eva Sardón

Description:

This subject is focused on:
• Learning the vocabulary and resources necessary to get on in the world of business.
• Participation in practical and specific cases for each topic, where the aim is to use and consolidate the resources and vocabulary acquired in each unit.
• Understanding economic resources as well as the keys to cultural differences and protocol in order to do business in Latin America and Spain.

Prerequisites:

Knowledge and understanding of Spanish above level 377

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the course, the student is to be able to:
• Understand all the keys to doing business in Latin American and European countries.
• Understand all the lexical content of the world of business, both written and spoken.
• Have overall knowledge of the current state of the economy and resources pool in Latin American and European countries.
• Have discursive resources and strategies to communicate over the telephone in formal situations, participate in business meetings, conduct a business interview or maintain business relations with people from other countries.
• Be able to write business letters: requests for information, acknowledgements, claims and complaints, invoices or receipts, as well as his/her own CV in Spanish.

Method of presentation:

The methodology includes a structured set of topics focused on: linguistic, socio-linguistic and pragmatic areas of study. This will include a selection of book exercises, reading of texts taken from newspapers and searching for information on the Internet.

The four sections into which each unit is classified: linguistic skill, socio-linguistic skill, pragmatism and inter-cultural affairs will help the student achieve a deeper understanding of the world of business.

Required work and form of assessment:

1. Attendance is compulsory. After two unjustified absences, the final mark for the subject will be docked accordingly. Register will be taken each day.
2. Punctuality:
3. Students who are more than five minutes late on two occasions will have one day’s absence marked down.
4. Spanish: Spanish is compulsory and no other language may be spoken in class, either to a classmate or to the instructor.
5. Participation: students are expected to participate in all the class activities as well as in the preparation of the tasks.
6. Assessment criteria: all students are to commit to the tasks and project work. Assessment criteria is as follows:
Tasks:                     35%
Class participation:   15%
Presentation:           15%
Exam:           35%

Oral participation in class and the presentation of the task set each week will be assessed in the following manner:

0   –    absent
25 –   did not participate and did not do the project work.
50 –   did not participate and did the project/ did participate but did not do the project
          work.
100 – did participate and did the project work.

content:

Sessions 1, 2, 3 and 4
Unit 1. Types of companies.
 Business letters
 Lexicon of the business world
 Language of the professionals
 Types of companies
 Culture shocks in business
 USA: economic resources and business culture

Sessions 3, 4 and 5
Unit 2. Creation of companies.
 Interpretation of graphs and kinds of graph
 Organigrams
 Departments in and functions of a company
 Steps required in setting up a company
 Protocol for doing business in Spain
 Spain: economic resources and business culture

Sessions 6, 7 and 8
Unit 3. Work contracts.
 Letters of recommendation
 Lexicon of the world of work: the payroll
 Advertising of jobs and candidate profile
 Types of contract
 Listening: trade unions
 Work situations and queries
 Mexico: economic resources and protocol for doing business

Sessions 9, 10 and 11
Unit 4. The world of work.
 Currículum vitae and letters applying for a job
 Lexicon of the world of work: positions and jobs
 Expressions related to the world of work
 Listening: A job interview
 Inter-cultural assessment
 Venezuela: economic resources and protocol for doing business

Sessions 12, 13 and 14
Unit 5. Trade.
 Business letters I
 International business terms
 Lexicon of trade and its components
 International trade fairs in Spain
 Listening: participating in a trade fair
 Culture shocks and non verbal language
 Brazil: economic resources and protocol for doing business
Sessions 15 and 16
Unit 6. Advertising and sales.
 Business letters II
 Lexicon: franchises
 Analysis of sales and costs
 Marketing and its components
 Listening: a radio spot
 Areas and situations
 Colombia: economic resources and protocol for doing business.

Sessions 17 and 18
Unit 7. Banking
 Bank documents
 Lexicon related to banking
 The mortgage
 Savings banks
 Listening: on television
 How to make a complaint and know the world of banking in Spain and Europe
 Argentina: economic resources and protocol for doing business.

CORRECTING MISTAKES:
Grammatical concepts will be dealt with by the correction of written and oral fluency mistakes.
Written tasks will be corrected using the following notes and symbols; each student is to correct his/her own work, depending on the kind of mistake made. Once the corrections have been made, the whole task is to be typed out on a computer and corrected on a date set before the partial and final exams:
1. C.G.: Gender agreement.
2. C.N: Number agreement.
3. T.V.: Verb correspondence; the verb has not been correctly conjugated or the tense does not correspond to the sentence construction.
4. O.T.: Wrong preposition.
5. B.D.: Look it up in the dictionary. Wrong word, wrong usage or incorrectly spelt.
6. Mistake with accents.

Required readings:

Compulsory tasks include the reading of articles from the financial press and searching for websites and web consultations. The compulsory text book will be “Empresa siglo XXI” published by Edinumen, 2009 plus the supplementary material given to the student.

Recommended readings:

AGUIRRE BELTRÁN, B. ET AL. Trato hecho: español de los negocios. Madrid. SGEL. 2001.
ARRABAL, P. Negociación de contratos internacionales. Bilbao. Deusto. 1992.
BORREGO, J. EL AL. El subjuntivo: valores y usos. Madrid. SGEL. 1985.
BRENES GARCÍA, A. M. Exposición de negocios en español. Madrid. Arco/Libros. 2002.
BRENES GARCÍA, A. M. La comunicación informal en los negocios. Madrid. Arco/Libros. 2002.
CENTELLAS, A. Proyecto en español comercial. Madrid. Edinumen. 2000.
DE PRADA, M. y M. BOVET. Hablando de negocios. Madrid. Edelsa. 2002.
DE PRADA, M. ET AL. 36 Actividades para mejorar el español de los negocios. Pamplona. Eunsa. 1999.
DE PRADA, M. ET AL. La empresa. Pamplona. Eunsa. 2000.
DE PRADA, M. ET AL. En equipos. Madrid. Edinumen, 2002.
F DE PRADA, M y MARCÉ, P. Comunicación eficaz para los negocios. Madrid. Edelsa. 2010.
AJARDO, M y RUIZ, C. Español para comercio internacional. Madrid. Edinumen. 1995.
FERNÁNDEZ, J. FENTE, R. SILES, J. Curso intensivo de español. Gramática y ejercicios prácticos. Niveles elemental, intermedio y superior. Madrid. SGEL. 1990.
GÓMEZ ENTERRÍA, J. Correspondencia comercial en español. Madrid. SGEL. 1990.
GÓMEZ TORREGO, L. Manual de español correcto. Madrid. Arco/Libros. 1992.
HELLER, R. Comunicar con claridad. Barcelona. Grijalbo Mondadori. 1998.
HERVÁS. N ET AL. Acuerdos, Barcelona, Difusión, 2002.
LARRAÑAGA, A. y ARROYO, M. Practica tu español. Madrid. SGEL. 2005.
MARTÍNEZ, L. ET AL. Socios 1 y 2, Madrid, Difusión. 2000.
MATTE BON, F. Gramática comunicativa del español. Madrid. Edelsa.1992
REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA. Esbozo de una nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid. Espasa Calpe. 1995.
SABATER, M. L., MARTÍN PERIS, E. Y BOSCH, M. Hablemos de negocios, Madrid, Alambra-Longman. 1992.
SILES ARTÉS, J., MARTÍN IRIZ, A. y MARTÍN URIZ, I. El español de los negocios. Madrid. SGEL. 1989.
MARSÁ, Francisco. Diccionario normativo y guía práctica de la lengua española. Barcelona. Ariel Lingüística. 1986.
ORTEGA, G., ROCHEL, G. Dificultades del español. Barcelona. Ariel. 1995.
SARMIENTO, R. Manual de corrección gramatical y de estilo. Español normativo, nivel superior. Madrid. SGEL. 1997.
SECO, Manuel. Diccionario de dudas y dificultades de la lengua española. Madrid. Espasa Calpe. 1986.
VV.AA. Español de los negocios. Ed. En vídeo y cd-rom. Barcelona. Difusión. 1997.

Brief Biography of Instructor:

Eva Sardon has been working for IES for 15 years. She has taught Spanish at different SP levels as well as Bilingual courses for 8 years. Preparation of students for DELE and Chamber of Commerce Higher Business Certificate exams. Eight years teaching business skills. Also teaches Spanish at the Universidad Europea de Madrid and at the Universidad Menéndez Pelayo.