All in a day's journey

Most of us have done a variation on this exercise in class before: “Imagine you’re sitting on a train on the way to a trade fair. Strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you.” We hand out three topics to each student that they should casually bring up during the short conversation. Recently, I got to observe one of those conversations, but this time it wasn’t in the classroom. It was on a train.

The two fortyish male “students” didn’t notice they were being eavesdropped on by the innocent-looking fellow passenger one row behind them. It was fascinating! The topics that came up were: favourite European cities, Dublin, the economy, beachfront/vacation property, beer, and their girlfriends. Wonderful topics for the next time I try this activity in class. You can guess which one I found most interesting. I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t the economy.

Seeing this as a taste of real business English between two non-native speakers, I took copious notes while pretending to read a book. One of the travellers was German, but had spent enough time in South East Asia that his English had a lovely Asian melody to it, perhaps thanks to his Burmese girlfriend. When he used an expression I teach my students, my teacher's heart jumped for joy. He said to his colleague, “Are you joining me for dinner? I’ve reserved a table for 7 o’clock.”

His fellow traveller was harder to hear and had an accent that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. His language was neither as idiomatic nor as fluent as his partner’s, but the two chatted with ease during the entire trip. At one point, the train got a bit crowded and the less-fluent traveller ended up in the empty seat next to mine. It was my turn to strike up a conversation. Now I could find out where this guy was from, I thought to myself.

My first pick was Spain, perhaps Italy. I was way off. He was Syrian. It turns out that he did a lot of business in Italy and you could hear it in his English. Being the unprofessional spy that I am, I did blow my cover and tell him I was an English teacher on my way to a conference.

Without exchanging business cards, I took the bits of information that I gained on the train ride to the Internet. “Syria Italy Automobile”. Click. It’s truly amazing how transparent the world has become with Google. While I had no way of knowing if the Altoun Group was actually my fellow traveller’s family-run company, it seemed like a good fit.

All sorts of classroom activities came to mind just looking at the website: What do you think of the company slogan “Our boundaries, your imagination” ? The only person pictured under “our employees” is the CEO. What does this tell you about the company? What’s your overall impression of this highly diversified company after visiting the website? Most of don’t have the security clearance to listen in on in-company business conversations. We don’t need it. If we keep our eyes and ears open for everyday business English exchanges, we can find real language everywhere — even if it involves a bit of innocent eavesdropping.

“English on the Move” in the 6/2008 issue of Business Spotlight deals with a common and unpleasant experience on trains: getting pickpocketed. There’s a corresponding group activity in Business Spotlight in the classroom.