Bilingual Instruction of Commercial Subjects in the Context of Teaching Business English

Abstract

The book compares bilingual and non-bilingual students of international management and marketing at the business school HAK 1 Salzburg. The business students whose performance was assessed were all bilingual as they had studied English as a foreign language for 7 years prior to this research. The term ‘bilingual’ in this book refers solely to the students who attended the bilingual track or studied business subjects in English, their first foreign language. On the other hand, non-bilingual students studied the business subjects in German, their native language. The purpose of this research was to find out in what ways bilingual students were better than non-bilingual students. In other words, the results would reveal the biggest differences and similarities between the two groups of business students. For this purpose, the communicative tests were designed to assess the students’ general language proficiency, and their speaking and writing skills. In addition, the students’ social background was assessed by using the questionnaires designed for this study. The findings proved that bilingual students excelled non-bilingual students in all tests. The biggest differences between the two groups of students were found in the use of grammar and vocabulary. The slightest difference between them was revealed in the ‘fluency’ criterion of the speaking test.