Propuesta de Tareas Laborales y Competencias Lingüísticas para Cursos de Inglés en Comercio Exterior e Internacional

Abstract

Determining professional tasks and language skills for Business English (BE) courses is a challenge for course designers and teachers. This account describes the process of identifying and prioritizing the typical work situations of the Foreign & International Trade (F&IT) sector and their associated language skills, carried out during the design of an online extracurricular course in English for Foreign & International Trade (F&ITE) in Córdoba, Argentina. This process was part of a Needs Analysis (NA) that integrated information from questionnaires to students and workers in the sector and open interviews to managers of institutions, which was analysed through qualitative coding, statistical analysis and triangulation. The list of work tasks and their associated skills provides a starting point for a programme aligned with the real demands of the CEeI context, also contributing to improve the planning of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses.