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In Company Pre-intermediate (2nd Ed)

Simon Clarke (Macmillan 2009)
ISBNs (SB) 978-0-230-71717-6; 9SB+CD-ROM)978-0-230-71718-3; (TB) 978-0-230-71720-6; (Class Audio CDs) 978-0-230-71721-3; (Case Studies) 978-0-230-71706-0

The student’s book consists of 20 units and five case studies which focus on useful business issues. Five of the 20 units focus particularly on speaking skills and contain the case studies. The material is nicely presented with clear headings and plenty of interesting illustrations. There is a useful At a glance section at the front of the book which summarises the content of the book and the accompanying CD-ROM. Each unit focuses strongly on useful business communication skills – eg. making presentations, asking about work routines, telephone skills, product orders, on-the-spot decisions, making and responding to requests, dealing with work-related problems, staff appraisals, report writing, discussing industrial action, discussing time management.

All units apart from the five which focus particularly on speaking skills have a Language Links section at the end which summarises the unit’s vocabulary and grammar and gives practice exercises. A particularly useful part of each Language Links section is the Phrase Bank which gives a list of useful phrases and expressions connected with the topics or themes covered by that unit.

By and large, the topics, businesses and issues featured in the book are popular and well-known which should inspire the students to engage with the material and give them the confidence to make a positive contribution to the exercises and activities – eg. Facebook, Nintendo, bottled water, Nokia.

There are one or two niggles; in the Contents, it’s not immediately clear that Units 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 are the ones which focus on speaking skills and contain case studies. It could be made clearer by adding the heading Focus on Speaking and highlighting the words Case Study. And I found a woolly definition on page 6. It was of the term “payroll” (defined as “paying people”; a better definition would be “people who are paid by a company” or “the system used by a company for paying people”).

All in all, though, this book should prove to be an effective resource for teaching business English at pre-intermediate level; it’s attractive, communicative and up-to-date with plenty of interesting material to engage and motivate students.

Phil McNicol
CELT, University of Stirling