Pete Sharma examines a new platform for producing top-notch web-driven business English programmes.
Many business English providers believe that ‘blended learning’, combining face-to-face teaching with online support, is best. But creating such a course is far from easy. What happens after the needs analysis tells you that your students need to prepare a presentation on exhaust-pipes for the Minneapolis trade-fair? Do you issue a course book, with a CD-ROM at the back? Unlikely. Do you create the course from the students’ own materials, with scissors, glue and a photocopier? It’s time-consuming, re-inventing wheels. In the digital age, should we go on-line, search for, download and customise authentic material from the web, and blithely ignore the copyright issues?
[To read Pete’s complete review of English360, please see the latest EL Gazette article May 2011]