The curriculum of this class is comprised of general language skills, core business content (i.e. the understanding of business principles and activities, technical terminology and registers) and communicative competence.

THIS COURSE IS COMMONLY KNOWN AS 'ENGLISH BUSINESS COMMUNICATION3' (EBC3). Bachelor students are required to have passed EBC2 prior to attending EBC3.

LEARNING OUTCOMES (LOs)

After successfully completing this course, students will be able:

• LO1: to demonstrate a level of general English competence equivalent to at least C1 on the Common European Framework;
• LO2: to understand and apply concepts from certain business and economic fields (globalization, international trade, legal matters, international payment, risks, financial reporting) and to recall as required the essential terminology associated with them;
• LO3: to recall at will, and use, the English equivalents of basic German terminology from these fields, as well as other typical features (structures, collocations, prepositional usage, etc) of the associated language, to discuss the above fields in an appropriate manner, to understand the principles of report writing, and to apply these in practice;
• LO4: to combine the various abilities mentioned above in order to understand upper-level written texts about the above business and economic fields, and to write communicatively-effective texts, both descriptive and analytical (specifically reports), relating to them.

In addition, this course fosters the following soft skills:

• Explanation and summary in German (or other native language) of English texts relating to the business fields mentioned
• Improved aural/oral skills
• Improved ability to analyse and understand texts in general
• Effective university-level study

Regular attendance, missing no more than a maximum of 3 sessions.

The EBC3 course is divided into thirteen units, as indicated above, and contains a number of exercises designed to develop the requisite skills and knowledge. EBC3 classes are of a workshop nature and involve a wide range of activities based on the course literature. These will include some or all of the following:

• response to student questions and discussion about tricky content;
• reading and working with texts;
• development of report-writing skills;
• further language development, involving both vocabulary and more advanced structures;
• writing and evaluating of short texts in response to instructions.

Some activities will take the form of pair or small-group work.

As EBC3 is a PI course, you must satisfy various criteria in order to pass.

Class participation (3% of total grade):

You must participate and show active engagement in all class activities (at the very least, this means attempting to answer questions put by your instructor), including appropriate interaction with both your peers and your instructor. In order to be able to do so, you must prepare thoroughly for each class.

Oral performance (20% of total grade): Your oral communication skills will be assessed through structured task assignments. For example, this could take the form of an oral assessment of a meeting/discussion task. This way you should demonstrate proficiency in spoken English at the level of (or very close to) C1 under the European Framework of Reference, which is defined in full as follows:

• Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning.
• Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions.
• Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes.

Written homework (5% of total grade): Your lecturer will inform you about requirements and will set a deadline by which the homework must be submitted. You will receive 5 points, or 5% of the total grade, for timely delivery of an appropriate assignment. 

Written Final Test (72% of total grade): The EBC3 Final Test is composed of a range of tasks designed to test a variety of skills corresponding to LOs 2-4 listed above, including text comprehension and business communication. In particular, you will be asked to compose a longer report-style text dealing with business concepts discussed in class. 

In order to pass the course, you must fulfill the following requirements:

• score at least 60% of the overall points total achievable
• attend regularly, missing no more than a maximum of 3 sessions

NOTE: You can choose freely whether to take the First OR the Second Final Test, but you will not be allowed to retake the exam at the second date if you fail to achieve a total score of at least 60% following the First Final Test. Also, please note that if you choose to sit the Second Final Test and cannot take it then, you will have to repeat the entire PI.

...

Overall grade
Finally, if you satisfy the conditions specified for ALL the individual assessment elements above, you will be given an overall score (OS).

OS under 60%  ->   Grade 5; OS 60-67%     ->   Grade 4; OS 68-75%     ->   Grade 3; OS 76-84%     ->   Grade 2; OS 85-100%    ->   Grade 1

Bachelor students must have passed EBC2 prior to attending EBC3. Please note that registration via LPIS is required for 'EBC3'.

Registration is effected on a first-come, first-served basis. Any unfilled slots will be filled from waiting lists in accordance with study progress and in cooperation with the Vizerektorat für Lehre und Studierende.

Individual EBC3 instructors are NOT involved in registration and will NOT reply to mails on the subject.

In order to take this course you must have passed

• the course EBC1
• the course EBC2 (at the latest, at the Exceptional Test before the start of the semester in which you wish to take EBC3)

You can contact your instructor during his/her office hours, immediately before or after class or by mail.