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Welcome to the BESIG World Blog. Each month we’ve got a different guest author lined up who will be sharing thoughts and experiences on teaching business English from countries around the globe.

Twelve thousand participants, two trainers: A taste of business English in Beijing

15 August 2012 BESIG
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Chris Bowie spent several years working as a freelance business English trainer in Berlin, before arriving at the conclusion that the life of a freelancer was no longer one he wanted to lead. He moved on to take up a full-time position with the British Council in Nepal and then became an embedded trainer with PriceWaterhouseCooper in Beijing, a position he had held for the last four years. Together with one other colleague based in Beijing and another in Shanghai, Chris is responsible for the English skills development of 12,000 members of staff in mainland China and Hong Kong.

Here Chris shares some fascinating insights into what it´s like to be a business English trainer in this kind of teaching context. He also compares and contrasts the lives of a freelance and an embedded trainer and tells us which one he prefers.

Chris Bowie
 Chris Bowie has been ELT since 1995 and has taught business English in Germany, Nepal and China. He was one of the first to do the BC/IH Distance DELTA from Beijing. He currently works at PricewaterhouseCoopers PwC as an internal English trainer. He's current interests are in discourse analysis and how the recent changes in business writing style are impacting BE and ESP learners.

I believe in teaching as an ongoing learning process, both for the benefit of the students and the teacher. For that reason I love attending workshops and conferences. I feel very motivated and inspired by them.

You can contact Chris at: chris.bowie@cn.pwc.com

Listen to Chris' interview with Claire here:

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Comments (4)

  • Evan Frendo - 16 August 2012

    Nice interview :-)

    Chris gave an excellent talk about life as an in-house trainer at the recent IATEFL conference in Glasgow. A recording is available at http://iatefl.britishcouncil.org/2012/sessions/2012-03-23/life-house-corporate-trainer-moving-beyond-classroom

  • Eduardo Santos - 20 August 2012

    Great interview full of interesting thoughts on being an English trainer in a emerging economy. I watched Bowie's session online during the IATEFL this year on 'life as an in-house trainer in China'. I've posted the key points of his talk onto my blog: http://eltbakery.edublogs.org/2012/03/30/life-as-an-in-house-corporate-trainer-chris-bowie-iatefl/  Some of the points raised by Bowie are very similar to the ones I've learnt myself teaching corporate clients in Brazil. I'm working on a session to be presented at the IATEFL in Liverpool on issues and challenges faced by Business English trainers in Brazil and other BRIC countries.

  • Eduardo Santos - 20 August 2012

    Great interview full of interesting thoughts on being an English trainer in a emerging economy. I watched Bowie's session online during the IATEFL this year on 'life as an in-house trainer in China'. I've posted the key points of his talk onto my blog: http://eltbakery.edublogs.org/2012/03/30/life-as-an-in-house-corporate-trainer-chris-bowie-iatefl/  Some of the points raised by Bowie are very similar to the ones I've learnt myself teaching corporate clients in Brazil. I'm working on a session to be presented at the IATEFL in Liverpool on issues and challenges faced by Business English trainers in Brazil and other BRIC countries.

  • Charles Rei - 29 August 2012

    Thanks so much to Chris and Claire for a great interview.  I'd like to echo the others and recommend his talk in Glasgow.  He is able to show some many of the 'other sides' of BE training.



    His discussions on life as a in-house traininer, training objectives, language as a tool, training in China, learner motivation, and conflicting needs are extremely insightful.



    I certainly hope he will be able to attend either Stuttgart or Liverpool and speak again.  I will definitely be in the audience if he can make it.

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