ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relevance of research on spoken business genres more generally for the teaching of spoken Business English. It looks at the work of three researchers namely Dows, Almut Koester and Michael Handfords who have used an English for Specific Purposes approach to analyze spoken business genres. The aims of the three studies were pedagogical, and formed the basis for specific recommendations for teaching and training. The chapter presents a discussion of the genre-based work of Koester. Koesters central aim was to identify spoken genres that occur across a wide variety of workplace environments, and to examine specific features of those genres and the features that occur across various genres. The key differences between the genres Koester identifies show convincingly that genre is indeed an important factor that influences linguistic choices, and shapes workplace discourse.
