Advanced Language Usage for Business
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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.
Attendance is mandatory for all IES Abroad classes, including course-related excursions. Any exams, tests, presentations, or other work missed due to student absences can only be rescheduled in cases of documented medical or family emergencies. If a student misses more than two classes in any course half a letter grade will be deducted from the final grade for every additional absence. Seven absences in any course will result in a failing grade.
PUNCTUALITY:
Students who are more than five minutes late on two occasions will have one day’s absence marked down.
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.
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.
- 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%
- Spanish: Spanish is compulsory and no other language may be spoken in class, either to a classmate or to the instructor.
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.
Week |
Content |
Sessions 1, 2, 3 & 4 |
Unit 1: Types of companies.
|
Sessions 3, 4 & 5 |
Unit 2: Creation of companies.
|
Sessions 6, 7 & 8 |
Unit 3: Work contracts.
|
Sessions 9, 10 & 11 |
Unit 4: The world of work.
|
Sessions 12, 13 & 14 |
Unit 5: Trade.
|
Sessions 15 & 16 |
Unit 6. Advertising and sales.
|
Sessions 17 & 18 |
Unit 7: Banking
|
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.
- 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.
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- 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.
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- LARRAÑAGA, A. y ARROYO, M. Practica tu español. Madrid. SGEL. 2005.
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- 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.
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