Student: Atzin Alcaraz

Id number: A01566057

Subject: Business Communication

Teacher: Gloria Melgar

Reflection

English is the predominant language in the business world, it means that nowadays
is one of the most used languages, it is spoken in 57 countries around the world,
and this is one of the reason of why it is so important that we learn it correctly.

I have been learning English for 5 years, since I was on high school. But I have
always thought that learning this language is difficult, but also necessary for this I
work hard for improved my level of English.

Acquiring language skills is primordial to a good business practice. Throughout this

course of Business Communications, I developed the Speaking, Listening, Reading
and Writing skills necessary for business-related communication and discussion
(e.g. vocabulary, management topics, readings on business networks).

Speaking skills were exercised through several practices: continual participation in

class, discussion of case studies, and chart descriptions. We had to read out loud
some sentences or texts, answer different questions and made up stories of different
subjects. At the beginning of the semester I did not have the confidence to speak in
English because I thought that my pronunciation was not really good, and sometimes
I used to stutter. During this course, I improved my level in speaking, this because
we did some exercises that helped me with this problem. Thanks to these exercises
I lost the fear to speak out loud and I improved my pronunciation because it was
more clearly and fluent. The speaking skills will be useful in tomorrows business
world where communication is largely face-to-face (i.e. exercised in business
meetings and councils).

Listening, as a complementary skill to speaking, was exercised at the same time:

when trying to understand my classmates points of view, listening to the triweekly
lectures; it was exercised independently, too: when practicing for the BULATS test.
This skill is really important because effective communication depends on the
understanding of the concepts being used by the people you are talking to.

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Reading skills were exercised through critique of the different case studies, the
acquisition of new vocabulary, and the analysis of long stories. These skills are really
useful because it is the best way to increase the vocabulary and develop
comprehension skills. (e.g. deduction, apprehension of rhetorical figures, using
context clues, and deconstruction of arguments).

The Writing section of the course was one of the most complete and important, and
the during the semester we learned to write correctly formal and informal e-mails,
letters, and reports. The ability to create these written is crucial to get any job, not
only business-related, and for this in my opinion it was one of the most important
sections of the course.

This course was conformed for different unites form the book market leader upper
intermediate, these are: communication, international marketing, relationships,
success, risk, management styles, and team building, in each of these units we
learned different thigs and we did a lot of excesses for develop the skills previously
mentioned. In addition, each unit had a particular case study these are: The price
of success, Henri-Claude Cosmetics, Al-Munir Hotel and Spa, Kensington United,
and Winton Carter Mining.

For example, in the unit of communication we learned some vocabulary about good
communicators and idioms very common. For the unit of international marketing we
did a reading and listening exercise about an interview with a professor of
international marketing and the CEO of a training organization. In the unit of building
relationships, we talk about the importance of a good business -relation and we read
about how is the meeting West. And finally, the unit of risk was about the risks that
a company could take, we read about the internationalization like risk or opportunity?

In the different case studies, we have to write e-mails, letters, ad reports in relation
with the subject, and also in each case we have to discuss about it and record
ourselves, this last one was very useful for develop speaking skills.

During this course, we had to create an e-portfolio in the page of weebly, in this
portfolio we upload the activities that we did in the week, in this way the teacher can
review and the evidence of our work. Although at first, I thought that a e-portfolio was
a lot of work, this was really helpful of develop writing, speaking, reading and
listening skills. Also during the semester, we had a course- online that helped us to
practice to our final evaluation that was the bulats.

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The bulats exam is an evaluation that measures our level of English, and it helps us
develop the skills previously mentioned. Also, this exam gives us an official
certification of Cambridge that show our abilities for this language, and this will be
very useful in the future to get any job.

In this course, I improved my level of English, because I develop my ability to speak

out loud, I increase my vocabulary and learn new techniques for the writing section,
and I am very happy for my progress.