English is the current international language of choice around the world, so it’s no surprise that most of my ESL students are learning it for business purposes (among others). But the thing is, everyone’s business is different. Long ago, before starting to teach English, if you had said “business”, I’d have thought of managing a big company. But what level of management? What kind of company? How large a company? Even in the same company, there’s a huge difference between production, marketing, finance, human resources, etc. 

And when you think about it, isn’t everyone involved in business of some type? I mean, unless you’re independently wealthy — but even then, it must get boring sitting around all day eating caviar and sipping champagne. In reality, isn’t business just life? There’s the farmer looking for ways to supply food to foreign markets, the internet marketer, the large company that everyone’s heard about, the small startup that no one's heard about, the consulting firm (what kind of consulting?) high tech, low tech, banking and finance, mom ’n’ pop stores, the list could go on forever. And if every size, shape, and kind of business has its own peculiarities, why do English teachers love to talk about “business” English so much? Is there really one “business” English, and is business really separate from non-business activities — in terms of language?