English for business purposes (EBP)

Abstract

English for Business Purposes (EBP) has developed differently than EAP, and this chapter identifies research trends and important findings about the field. This chapter first reports the results of a large-scale survey of businesspeople in Japanese companies, which focuses on the English knowledge and skills required in business settings in this global era. The chapter also introduces a subsequent small-scale survey that identified various genre categories and the business processes related to them, as well as the levels and types of difficulties commonly encountered. In particular, the genres of business meetings and the difficulties associated with different meeting types are introduced. Lastly, this chapter describes a case study: the teaching and learning of English for trade fairs, based on an ESP approach. Students majoring in business management acted as interpreters for small- to medium-sized local companies that participated in international trade fairs. The students learned the importance of acquiring business knowledge and the great benefit of recognizing genres for active participation in real-world business situations.