Business English Activities, Games & Dialogues | Business Lesson Ideas

If you teach business English, then you’re certainly in the right place! We’re going to give you the rundown on our top business English games and activities as well as recommendations for worksheets, lesson plans and more.

Business English Games and Activities

Are you ready to see some of the best ESL activities and games for teaching business English? Then let’s get to everything you need to know!

#1: Role Plays

I love to incorporate role plays into my business English classes. The situations are endless! For example, an important telephone conversation with a client. Or, present your passport to the immigration officer at the airport. Or, meeting a potential client for the first time.

You can use role-plays to help your students practice these important situations which will increase their confidence in a huge way. Find out more about using them in your classes here: ESL Role Plays.

#2: Current Events Presentations for ESL Business English

Business English students are generally pretty up-to-date on what’s happening in the world. Plus, they’re often expected to do presentations at work so this is a nice activity to use in your classes. Find out more about how I set it up here:

ESL Current Events Presentation.

#3: Help with Expressing Opinions

In business, you’ll often be called upon to express an opinion about something. For example, which marketing idea is the best, or who to partner up with for a project. However, ESL students are often quite weak at this because they don’t have the necessary vocabulary and they may also lack practice.

Here’s some solid advice that you can give your students about how to do this well: Expressing Opinions in English.

#4: Task Based Activities for Business ESL Lessons

We love to use task-based activities with our students. There are just so many things you can do! In groups, students could do any of the following:

• Come up with a new product
• Create an innovative advertising campaign for a current product
• Do a company profile
• Audit a website
• Etc.

The possibilities are endless so get creative and think of some interesting things for your students to do. You can find more ideas here: ESL Task Based Teaching.

#5: Cocktail Party

It’s quite common for business people to meet important clients at a party or meet and greet event. However, for English learners, this can be a challenging situation because they may not feel that confident at small talk. Try out this ESL activity that replicates these very situations:

ESL Cocktail Party Activity.

#6: English Central or YouTube Videos Related to Business

We LOVE to use videos in our English classes. You can find one for just about any topic, grammar point or vocabulary set under the sun. Except there’s more to it than just pressing play and sitting back and relaxing. The best teachers design activities that help get the most out of them.

Here are some of our best ideas: English Central and YouTube Videos for ESL Students.

#7: Business English Reading Lesson

It’s very easy to plan your own ESL reading lesson about literally any topic. I love to make my own lessons for Business English because you can include the most recent topics in the news. Find out how to do that here:

#8: Conversation Starters

Small talk and basic conversational English is vital for business English students. It often doesn’t work that well if you tell students to just talk to each other. Instead, give them some conversation starters to get the ball rolling and you’ll usually find that the results are much better.

Here are some of my best ideas: ESL Conversation Starters.

#9: Practice Opening Conversations

It’s sometimes not that easy to start a conversation with someone that you don’t know. However, there are certainly some tried and true topics that work very well for this situation. Find out more details right here: How to Open a Conversation in English.

#10: Dialogue Substitution for Business English ESL

If you’re teaching beginners, it can be a little bit tricky to design activities for them. One of the best ones to consider is dialogue substitution. You can use it for a variety of situations that business people might encounter from situations at the airport, telephone conversations or talking about a problem related to their company.

The way it works is that you give students the beginning of a conversation with blanks in it. Students have to work together to finish the conversation and then present it to the class. Find out more details about it here: ESL Dialogue Substitution.

#11: The Expert Speaking Activity

If you want to give your students some practice with small talk, try out this fun, interactive activity. The way it works is that students think of three things that they know a lot about, or are an expert in. Then, students go into pairs and can talk about these topics with each other. You can switch partners every few minutes.

Find out more details here: The Expert Speaking Activity.

#12: Plans for the Future

Business often involves making plans for the future. For example, planning for that next marketing campaign or deciding on a vision for the company. Students will need to be proficient in using future grammatical constructions for this. Find out some of our top recommendations here: Future Forms ESL Activities.

Or, you may want to check out some of these ideas here: Making Predictions Games.

#13: ESL Surveys

We LOVE to use surveys in our classes. They’re interactive and get students up and out of their seats talking to everyone in the class. Plus, you design them for any topic and in this case, you’d want to lean towards current events or business-type things.

Do you want to try them out in your classes? Find out more details about how to design them and use them in your classes here: ESL Surveys.

#14: Filling out an Application Form

If students are in our business English classes, it’s quite likely that they may apply for jobs abroad. In this case, they’ll have to fill out applications in English. We can give them some practice with this in class before they have to do it for real.

You can easily find applications on Google. Print them off and have your students work on them in class or for homework.

#15: Running Dictation

If you want to introduce some grammar, vocabulary or topic via a conversation, here’s a fun way to do it that gets beyond just reading it from the textbook. Print off the dialogue and then cut it up into strips which you’ll tape on the wall around the classroom.

Put students into pairs and one person is the runner/reader/speaker while the other person is sitting down with pen and paper and is the writer. Students have to work together to get the entire conversation down on paper and then put it into the correct order.

It’s challenging, fun and students always really enjoy it! Try out this 4-skills ESL activity today: ESL Running Dictation.

#16: Mock Interviews

English interviews are very common these days, even in non-English speaking countries. They’re an excellent way for companies to weed out the people who can actually converse in English from those who can’t.

Help your students out with them by doing some mock interviews in your classes. But, remember this key tip. DO NOT let your students memorize answers. Interviewers can smell this out from a mile away. Instead, encourage taking a few notes about answers to common questions but then just speaking.

#17: Proof-Reading and Editing

It’s quite common for our students to have to write business emails in English. We can help them out with this in a big way by teaching them about proofreading and editing. After all, it’s not that common to have a colleague or boss checking emails before they go out to clients, so it’s an important skill for our students to know.

Check this article out to find out how I teach this skill to my students: Proof-Reading and Editing for English Learners.

#18: Resume and Cover Letter Writing

When I teach business English, one of the primary homework assignments is that students have to prepare a resume as well as a cover letter for a sample job that I think of. Of course, give students lots of help with how to do this, along with some samples that they can follow.

My goal is that students have something they can take with them and use when applying for positions with just a little bit of editing.

#19: TED Talks

I love to use TED Talks with my business English learners. There are just so many good presentations on a huge variety of topics, especially important business ideas.

#20: Self-Introductions

A self-introduction in English is a great skill for your students to have. They’ll often have to do one in a job interview, at a conference or at a meeting where the people aren’t familiar with each other. Check out this video for the simple steps to follow:

#21: Breaking News English

With my students, I’ll often print off some lessons from Breaking News English. They take current events and grade them to make them easier for beginner to intermediate students (more advanced students should just use the regular article). There are also some excellent discussion questions and vocabulary activities that you might want to consider using.

#22: Business English Pod

If students are motivated to study business English on their own, one of my favourite resources that I like to direct them to is BE Pod. They are podcasts, phone conversations and a whole ton of other good stuff related to business. There is a paid version, but the free one is useful enough.

#23: Business English Vocabulary and Dialogues 

One of the more valuable things for our students can be to help them expand their business English vocabulary. One way to do this is with real-life dialogues, filled with idioms, expressions, and phrases. Check out these Business English dialogues here:

#24: Business English ESL, Using Movie and TV Clips

There are a ton of great movies and TV shows that cover various aspects of the business world. You can easily find them on YouTube, or you may already have a few favourites.

I love to include these in my ESL business English conversation classes. They make a nice lead-in activity for just about any grammar, vocabulary or skill you might want to focus on. Find out some of my top options here:

Teaching with Movies and TV.

#25: Business English Listening Lesson Plan

It’s super easy to create your own listening lesson about almost any topic. Just follow these simple steps:

#26: Have a Debate

I love to talk about interesting things and I’m sure that your students are the same! Why not have a little debate about something related to the business world? Here are some ideas:

Debate Questions

For something a bit more casual, check these ones out:

Debating Topics for Friends

#27: Business English Game: Describe the Word

A simple business English game is to put students into pairs or small groups. Then, one student has to pick a word from a list and describe it to the other people who have to guess what it is. It’s a nice time-filler game at the end of class because it’s a nice review activity.

#28: Business English Charades

Another fun game to try out in class is charades. Come up with a bunch of words or phrases related to what you’ve been teaching the students. Then, put students into teams and they have to take turns acting out that word or phrases and their teammates have to guess what it is. Check it out:

Charades for ESL.

#29: Make a Sentence using Business English Vocabulary

Try out this challenging sentence-making activity. If you’re using a textbook, open it up to a page at random and quickly choose a word. Students have 30 seconds to make an interesting sentence about it. If you have a big class, they can share with a partner. If a small class, share with everyone.

#30: Make a Crossword Puzzle

It’s quite easy to make your own puzzle using Discovery’s puzzle maker (do a Google search for it). Input the clues and the answers and the website does the rest! It can serve as a nice review activity or homework assignment before a midterm or final exam.

What about Business English for Beginners?

Business English for beginners can be a little bit tricky. How can you negotiate a complicated deal, or talk about a contract if you struggle with making a basic sentence and don’t know a lot of even general vocabulary?

Here are my top 5 tips for teaching beginners Business English:

1. Start with basic conversational English skills first. It’s quite difficult to teach exclusively Business English unless students are at least a very high beginner level of basic skills.
2. For topics and contexts, choose something with a business focus. Perhaps a simple reading or listening passage talking about a company or a problem that someone may face in the business world.
3. A lot of business involves small talk! Focus on this skill by giving students lots of practice.
4. Don’t ignore basic writing skills. Things like capital letters and punctuation, along with basic openings and closings can go a long way in writing a business email, for example.
5. Focus on industry-specific jargon. Each industry has a specific vocabulary related to it. Target this to your students. A needs analysis is key to this.

What are some Common Business English Topics?

There are a few business English topics that must be covered in a class. Here are some of the most popular topics and skills for a Business English class to cover:

1. Negotiations. A large part of business involves negotiation so this topic should certainly be covered!
2. Interviews. Help students out with their English interview skills.
3. Managing a crisis. Businesses have problems. Help students work through these problems, in English. It’s certainly an important topic to consider teaching.
4. Presentations. Many people in the business world have to make a presentation at one point, or another. Help students out with this!
5. Meetings. All meetings have certain conventions including opening and closing, turn-taking, etc. Conducting a meeting as a class is a nice topic.
6. Hiring and firing. All businesses need employees! This makes hiring and firing them an important topic to include.
7. Performance reviews. Similar to the one above, there is a certain set of language used to evaluate work.
8. Resumes and cover letters. A nice topic is to help students prepare their resumes and cover letters in English.
9. Risk management. An interesting Business English topic is how a company can manage risk and prevent bad things from happening.
10. Small talk. A lot of business happens informally, at lunch or around the office. Help students learn how to initiate, conduct and close these types of conversations.

Business English Resources 

If you’re looking for some resources for teaching Business English, here are a few of my go-to websites and course books:

• Business English Pod
• Market Leader textbook
• Breaking News English
• CBC (Canada), BBC (UK), CNN (USA), etc. websites for higher-level students and authentic materials.
• How I Built Thing podcast
• Learn English (British Council) has a nice section for business English
• How to Teach Business English Book (Evan Frendo)

Business English Worksheets

If you want to find some business English worksheets that you can just print and use with your students, here are some of the best resources:

BE Online

ISL Collective

Busy Teacher

Business English Lesson Plans

If you’re looking for some ready-made ESL lesson plans for business students, then you’re in the right place. Here are some of our top recommendations for ESL business English lesson plans:

ESL Brains

Lingua House

One Stop English

Business English ESL FAQs

There are a number of common questions that people have about teaching ESL business English. Here are the answers to some of the most popular ones.

What is ESL Business English?

ESL Business English is a specific ESL niche tailored to business terminology, topics and corporate culture. It is useful for businessmen, businesswomen, and business students.

How do I teach Business English for ESL?

Here are a few quick tips for teaching Business English ESL:

1. Do a detailed needs analysis to find out what students want to achieve and also to uncover strengths and weaknesses.
2. Find out which contexts students use business English (negotiation, writing emails, interviews, etc.)
3. Dress and act professionally.
4. Choose materials well to keep students motivated and interested.
5. Have a high degree of flexibility.

Is Business English formal?

Business English is more formal than just regular chit-chat with friends. It may also have some industry-specific jargon which you’ll need to learn. However, simple communication is often best so aim for this instead of overly complicated grammatical structures.

What makes a Good Business English Instructor?

A good business English instructor is one who dresses and acts professionally, the same as their students. This means that they are punctual, competent and well-prepared for each lesson. It can also be useful for the instructor to have a background in business themselves.

What is one of the challenges of teaching Business English?

One of the main challenges in teaching business English is that companies and students often expect some serious results. This may mean increased pressure on the teacher to deliver them. However, many teachers are handsomely rewarded for this stress if they are elite teachers.

What are some fun Business English games?

Some fun business English games are charades, Pictionary, describing a word, role-plays, crossword puzzles with business English vocabulary, and running dictation.

Business English Dialogues

If you’re looking for some business English dialogues for your students, look no further than these books! They are filled with dialogues, vocabulary, and practice exercises to cover a huge range of business topics.

They’re ideal for use in a course, or for self-study at home. Consider using them for 1-1 tutoring as well. Whatever the case, get ready for some great results with these dialogues for Business English.

ESL Business Activities: Join the Conversation

What are your thoughts about these business English activities? Have you tried out one of them from this list or do you have another recommendation? Leave a comment below and let us know. We’d love to hear from you?

Also be sure to give this article a share on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter. It’ll help other busy English teachers, like yourself find this useful resource.

Last update on 2024-08-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API