Linguistic and cultural aspects of teaching business writing to Croatian students - a reality check

The aim of the paper is to compare and contrast academic standards in Business English writing with the current business practice in HR management. The research was designed according to the principles of exploratory practice where the usual classroom procedures are used to provide teachers with insight into a specific interest area. In this case, we wanted to find out to what extent our teaching of business correspondence, more specifically job applications, might contribute to our students’ success in the recruitment process. The research was carried out at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb and included 150 students who have all had a minimum of eight years of language instruction in general English prior to entering university. Following a training period in business writing skills students were asked to respond to a job ad. Student writing was marked and commented on according to the criteria widely recommended by ELT experts. The researchers focused on the layout, content, use of set phrases and language accuracy (grammar, spelling). The same letters/emails were subsequently submitted to experienced HR experts who were asked to comment on them and streamline students on how to get short-listed. Consequently, this paper presents a comparative analysis of issues and topics as emphasized by the HR experts on the one hand and the language instructors on the other. Furthermore, it addresses the impact of corporate culture as presented in the job ad on the students’ writing style and letter/email content. The implications of our research are that, given the competent teaching/training, the students can relatively effortlessly acquire the business correspondence skills in the areas of the layout, phrases, and quality of English message structure. The areas in need of improvement seem to be within the realm of the content: understanding each individual job ad as a text reflecting the numerous aspects of the job itself and the company /professional culture on the whole. The valuable educational implications of this research could be summarised as follows: • Letter writing/Business correspondence is learnable to a great extent given that applicants are competent readers, able to infer relevant information on the focus of the ad and the company culture shining through, • Job applications must reflect the applicants’ motivation and enthusiasm for the specific job and further professional development, and • Applicants should use common sense when estimating and presenting their qualifications and personal traits as suited to the job. The authors firmly believe that cross-fertilization between academic teaching practice in business schools and current business practices can significantly enhance the achievements of students as future professionals competing in the labour market.