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British Council

English for the Workplace

British Council via FutureLearn

This course may be unavailable.

Overview

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Develop your workplace English skills

This course is for people who are learning English and are interested in developing English language skills for employability and workplace contexts. It will help job seekers and young professionals with the English they need.

Each week, we’ll focus on key aspects of English for the workplace. You’ll watch videos and listen to audio recordings of people in various situations. This includes those searching and applying for jobs, preparing for and taking interviews, and those starting their new jobs and working with new colleagues.

Our experienced tutor will examine some of the language used and draw your attention to useful points to improve your English in workplace contexts.

Learn some key business English vocabulary

The course does not follow a language syllabus but takes workplace English as its starting point. It offers functional language phrases and real, authentic workplace scenarios. Short quizzes and discussions will help you measure your understanding and practise your English.

As you progress through the various topics, you’ll learn plenty of business English vocabulary and workplace English expressions that you can use at work and when applying for jobs.

Improve your skills in English at work

As well as practising workplace English and learning some workplace English expressions, you’ll examine what makes a successful job application and interview.

Throughout the course, you’ll be asked to share your opinions, ideas and questions with other learners. The best way to get the most out of the course is to be prepared to join in and share your experiences.

This course is aimed at non-native English speakers who have studied English to at least pre-intermediate level (approximately A2 on the CEFR). Those interested in improving their business English for the workplace will find new vocabulary and phrases to use at work.

Syllabus

  • Finding a job
    • Welcome!
    • What do you want from a job?
    • Talking about your job
    • Finding a job
    • Applying for a job
    • Review
  • Interviews
    • Welcome
    • Preparing for a job interview
    • Talking about yourself
    • Beginning the interview
    • Skills and experience
    • Finishing the interview
    • Review
  • Starting a job
    • Welcome
    • Getting a job offer
    • Learning the ropes
    • Who does Greg report to?
    • Company rules and regulations
    • Review of the Week.
  • Working with people
    • Welcome
    • Meeting new colleagues
    • Checking understanding
    • Working together
    • Dealing with problems
    • Praise and thanks
    • Review of the Week

Taught by

Chris Cavey

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 1,509 Class Central reviews

4.8 rating at FutureLearn based on 779 ratings

Start your review of English for the Workplace

  • I enjoyed this course so far. I’m an advanced English speaker and I found the grammar sections in this course too easy for me. But it’s always nice to have a recap with the job hunting issues and see if I can do even better next time. The comments made by the course educators are a great motivation for the learners and it is lovely idea of interacting with other learners and exchange knowledge and view. I’ve been taking courses on futurelearn since 2017 and have recommended the website to many of my friends.
  • Anonymous
    The course workplace split to four part. The first and second part focus on looking for a job, prepare the CV , covering letter and interview. I learn some useful expressions and key point in this situation. Such as application, we have to know wh…
  • Anonymous
    As a private face-to-face teacher of English as a foreign language, I am taking this course as part of my CPD because I intend to add adults to the list of my learners. Adults have different needs when they want to learn English, sometimes they are…
  • Pretty basic till this point [they asked for a review at the halfway point], does a good job thoroughly engaging the learners, with interactive comments and quizzes . Nice
  • Anonymous
    In my view, first, I joined this course to develope my knowledge and skills of English teaching skills as I have been teaching in high schools from 2007 to date in Somalia and I took my primary, secondary and P1 teaching education in kenya w…
  • Anonymous
    I've been teaching Business English for one month an it was my first experience in a company. I was looking for a course that help me to increase my knowledge and prepare me to be a very good teacher. I needed materials to share, and the right meth…
  • This course is very helpful for people who want to approach the British job market and are looking for their first occupation in the United Kingdom.

    The vocabulary and the sentences' structures are suitable for beginners/intermediate students but are too simple for an advanced English class.

  • Thank you, the course was useful and interesting and the content was greatly benefited

    Especially in the personal interview section and the important matters that should be paid attention to, as well as my interest in learning the language in dealing with it.
  • Thank you so much. I have learned a lot from this course. It taught me how to communicate wisely in the workplace. But sadly, I cannot take the certificate now because I do not have any dollar.
  • nice course

    in this end of the course review, I would like too appreciate the work put in by the team.
  • Anonymous
    I'd like to say Thank you for all who create this course. I've got from the course a lot of information about how to write my CV and about the interview day in English. Honestly, I didn't know that the resume is called CV. It was a surprise for me.
    Tutors speak very clearly, so I can understand almost each word in the video. It helps me to improve my perceiving skills a lot.
    The material is very useful and the system of teaching it is very convinient and simple.

    Best regards to creators and tutors of the course.
  • Anonymous
    I have found this course so enlightening.. It has stirred within me things which I had put to sleep due to some disappointments during my working career where I saw people get promotions I thought I deserved. This course has restored faith in me making me realise that I must always be happy no matter what. Only I can change my attitude and thought of thinking and strive towards what is best for me. This course is a great mind- opener! Thank you, FutureLearn for having given me this opportunity to rise again!
  • Anonymous
    Very informative and work-based is English for the Workplace. Starting with the language and application models used for applying for jobs and preparing for interviews (Weeks 1-2), the course focuses on communicating and sharing learners’ thoughts,…
  • Anonymous
    Quiero agradecerles por tomarce el tiempo de enseñarnos y qué lo hagan de la mejor manera, aprendí mucho, muchas gracias
  • Anonymous
    It was an exciting course. Especially how to deal with workmates, planning team building activity and organising staff meeting.
  • Anonymous
    Thank you very much for this most wonderful, smooth and understandable content, and I only hope that it will be translated into Arabic also for more understanding. I mean, a translation icon is placed to help us more, but nevertheless, it is a beautiful course and I enjoyed it and learned a lot from it for its smoothness and ease of context and sentences.
  • The course make me know about some important issues in teaching process that is connected with children, class work and etc.
  • Anonymous
    I think this course of 'Learn English for the workplace' is wonderful course. I have already known the "British Council.org study course", and have learnt some lessons before. But, this course is very compactly compiled and very useful for the…
  • Anonymous
    this is a very simple course but focused. but you need more than 3 o 4 hours a week. and need at least aditional 3 o 4 hours for read de suplementary material at the end of each week.
  • Anonymous
    I really enjoy this course, because I´m learning about how to prepare for a news opportunities and I have a review of gramatical rules.

    I can practice my listening too

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