Improving The students’ Business English Communication and Intercultural Competence through Role Playing and Simulation

Abstract

Living in a global village needs an ability not only to communicate or to exchange information by using global languages such as English, but also to know other cultures as we get used to getting into contact with other people from culture other than our own. Intercultural understanding simply refers to the basic ability of people to correctly recognize, interpret, and react to other people, incidences or situations that are open to misunderstanding due to different cultural background meaning that they have different life, vision, religion, ethics, norms, laws, education system etc. Dealing with English language teaching especially for the learners of business communication, it has been widely recognized that they need not just knowledge and skill in the grammar of the target language but also the ability to use the target language in socially and culturally appropriate ways. Classroom speaking activities that can be effectively used to get the goals mentioned are simulation and role-playing as the students ‘stimulate’ a reallife encounter such as a business meeting as if they were doing so in the real world, either as themselves or taking on the role of a character culturally different themselves (Harmer, 2001: 274) and when applied in the classroom, they are proven effective. This paper, therefore, tries to elaborate how to master both English as a means of global communication in different settings and intercultural communication understanding to avoid misunderstanding in the global world for the students of Business Communication by means of role playing and simulation in the classroom.