Textbook Review of Business Result: Intermediate【Book Reviews】

Textbook Review of Business Result: Intermediate
John Hughes & Jon Naunton, Oxford University Press
2017 (2021), Second Edition. ISBN: 9780194738927.
Pokhrel Surendra
Business Result Intermediate is the fourth installment in the Oxford University Press“Business Result” series. Other levels in the series include Starter (1), Elementary (2), Preintermediate (A -B ) (3), Upper-intermediate (5), and Advanced (6).
The textbook is written by John Hughes and Jon Nauton. Lead author Hughes is anaward-winning English Language textbook author with over 50 titles to his credit. Amongother things, he also runs his own teacher training website, www.johnhugheselt.com. The coauthor, Nauton, is also a teacher and teacher trainer who has published many ELT textbooks.
Oxford University Press’ (n.d.) online catalog succinctly describes the purpose of thisseries as follows: “Business Result Second Edition offers business professionals more communication and language practice than ever before, helping students to develop relevant
communication skills they can use immediately in the workplace.”
The primary purpose of the fourth book in this series is to illustrate realistic businesssituations in diverse settings and develop communication skills pertinent to tackling thosesituations. The book consists of 15 units, each of which can be divided into two lessons. The
actual length of the book is 159 pages, including practical files, communication activities, andaudio scripts. Considering other textbooks, this book is rather long. The textbook is contentintensive and challenging to cover in just two semesters. However, the whole book could becovered if the students were working professionals, as the catalog describes.
All the units begin with a “Starting Point” in which questions related to the unit’s content
are asked. This serves as a warm-up activity and helps students to familiarize themselves orat least think about the topic being taught. First, students can discuss these questions with
their partners, and a few can volunteer to answer by standing up. The whole process can becompleted in seven to ten minutes if the content is familiar. The starting point is followed by“Working With Words,” in which students read article sections, blogs, and so on to answer
the relevant questions of different activities. These activities are designed to bolster students’vocabulary range and understand adjectives, verbs, and nouns. In most cases, this section
includes listening activities related to the content of the reading. From my informal observa-― 35 ―+Pokhrel Surendra様.indd

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Textbook Review of Business Result: Intermediatetion, I have found that most of the students find this part rather easy.
The following section, “Language At Work,” mainly deals with grammar and its practicaluse in real business scenarios. “Language At Work” is followed by “Practically Speaking,”
which deals with everyday communication activities. This segment contains four exercises
and can be completed in under 25 minutes. The next section, “Business Communication,”
usually starts with a question followed by a listening exercise and related activities. “TalkingPoint” provides students broader business ideas and concepts which may be relatively newto Japanese University students, such as stack ranking (Unit 4) and shadow work (Unit 9).
The content of “Talking Point” of Unit 1 (Speed Networking) and Unit 2 (Corridor Conversations) can be effectively used on the first day of the class so the students can get to knoweach other and set up a positive tone for the rest of the semester.
Content wise, the textbook deals with wide ranging business issues, from facilities towork life balance. It also deals with customer service, cyber security and negotiation techniques. Overall, it contains issues pertinent to be a successful businessperson. A detailed
table of contents is shown below.
The book comes with online resources and practice for students, the latter of which isvery effective for analyzing students’ progress and assisting them as needed. For teachers,
the e-book can be accessed online at https://www.oxfordlearnersbookshelf.com and is very
easy to use. Audio files can also be played online through the website mentioned above.
Almost inevitably, some students will forget to bring their textbooks, so projecting the bookon the screen is equally beneficial for teachers and students alike. The teachers’ book provides detailed guidance for almost all of the activities.
The textbook is very resourceful, written thoughtfully, and serves the purpose as stated;
however, this book is designed for working professionals. Most of the students in the reviewer’s class work part-time; however, some don’t and devote themselves full time to theirstudies and the university’s extracurricular activities. In the beginning it was somewhat challenging for students without prior job experience to talk about their work and companies, but
as the units progressed, they got used to talking about Japanese companies. This situation
can be overcome by asking students to design their own imaginary company in the first classin a new notebook designated for the course. Then, in every class, they can add different
activities from the textbook and form a proper imaginary company. For example, they candesign volunteer activities (Unit 3), write crowdfunding proposals (Unit 9), write their company’s environmental policy (Viewpoint 5), and so on. If followed from the very beginning,
this develops students’ business-related vocabulary and can be of great help to any potential
future entrepreneurs in the class.
Listening is one of the most challenging aspects of this book for Japanese students.
Many of them find it difficult to understand some listening activities the first time around.
Thus, some audio has to be played at least twice, which is time-consuming. This may be due
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Textbook Review of Business Result: Intermediate

Table: Table of contents of Business Result Intermediate
Unit

Title

Working withwords

Language atwork

Practicallyspeaking

Working life Describing
work

Present simple How to show
and presentinterest
continuous

2Work lifebalance

Work-life
balanceTo + infinitiveand -ing form

3Projects

Projects

Present perfect How to giveand past simple short answers

Services &Systems

Services andsystems

Comparative
forms andmodifiers

Customers

Customer
service

Present tense
for futurereference

Guests &visitors

Business travel Articles

1

Business
communication
Networking

How to say yes Exchanging
contact details

Talking point
Speed
networking
Corridorconservations

Updating anddelegating tasks

Scenarioplanning

How to beapproximate

Explaining
features andbenefits

Stack ranking

How to saysorry

Making andchanging
arrangements

Upside down
management

Viewpoint 1: Sharing a workspace456

How to address Welcoming
peoplevisitors

Culturalexpectations

Viewpoint 2: cultural communication
789

Working
onlineOnline security Obligation,
How toprohibition and sequence anpermission
explanation

Teleconferencing Online, but are
you working?

FinanceFinance andmoney

Talking about
the futureWill

Presenting visual Investment
information
opportunities

Logistics

Logistics andsupply chains

Direct andindirectquestions

How to use say Placing andand tellhandling orders

Shadow work

Viewpoint 3: cybercrime
101112

Facilities

Describing aplace of work

Quantifiers

How to use too Making
The Hawthorneand enoughsuggestions and effectrecommendations

Decisions

Decisionmaking

First andsecond
conditionals

How to use if

Negotiating

The decision
game

Innovation

Innovation

Superlativeforms

How to praise
and thankpeople

Presenting newideas

Music to youronline ears

Viewpoint 4: The Falkirk Wheel
1314
15

Breakdowns Breakdowns
and faults

Relative
pronouns

How to checksomeoneunderstands

Processes

Passive forms

How to explain Dealing withprocessquestions

Processes

Performance Personalquantifiers

Discussing andA breakdown insolving problems public relations
Lean coffee

Past continuous How toApprising
Extroverts,
and past perfect generalize or be performances and introverts andspecificsetting objectives ambiverts
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Textbook Review of Business Result: Intermediate

to the fact that this textbook is based on British English while Japanese students are mostly
used to American English. However, audio scripts are transcribed and can be found at theback of the textbook, which is helpful but should not be used from the very beginning of listening activities. In terms of content, some units of the textbook appear rather late, forexample, Unit 10 (Facilities). As mentioned above, students can start building up their imaginary company, starting with their company’s facilities. Unit 10, therefore, can be swapped for
Unit 1 or Unit 2. The teachers’ manual indicates that each unit can be taught independently,
thus not affecting the general flow of the content in terms of difficulty level.
One of this book’s hidden but resourceful aspects are the “Key Expressions” in the“Business Communication” section. For example, when students are asked challenging questions, either they freeze or resor t to the Japanese language; however, using “KeyExpressions” [Unit 4] such as That s a good question …. would sound very professional.
These expressions could be used from the very beginning of each unit. The colorful design
and pictures of people from diverse backgrounds depict an actual international workforce
and keep students motivated. It would have been beneficial to students if the textbook featured a translation of key terms in Japanese. Some teachers might want to provide this totheir students.
In conclusion, Business Result Intermediate is a well-designed textbook not only for English learners but also for students of business and business management. This bookundoubtedly helps students think outside the box by introducing international business scenarios and ideas especially from a Western perspective. The authors have put much effort
into ensuring the contents are clear and not repeated. The textbook can be used as a standalone textbook for intermediate-level students with some small modifications.

Acknowledgement
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Luke Lawrence, assistant professor at College of Commerce, Nihon University, for his insightful comments and suggestions during the writing phase.

Reference
Oxford University Press (n.d), Oxford University Press, English Language Teaching, accessed 08 December
2023, https://elt.oup.com/catalogue/items/global/business_esp/business_result_second_edition/bus
iness_result_second_edition_intermediate1/?cc=jp&selLanguage=ja

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