Financial English Newsletter

From Financial English/ACCA Global:
Cambridge Financial English at Siemens

As a blended learning course, the Cambridge Financial English programme offers students a mix of online study and face to face tuition with a teacher, tutor or mentor. Ideal for those balancing study with other commitments, blended learning is also an excellent way for employers to offer their staff expert, accredited, targeted tuition - as is currently the case in Germany where engineering giant Siemens is trialling the Cambridge Financial English programme for key staff.
Siemens is one of the world's largest companies, with over 120,000 employees in Germany alone. The international nature of Siemens' business means that excellent English skills are an important advantage, especially for the finance team, as James Schofield - Siemens training manager and tutor on the Cambridge Financial English programme – explains: 'All course participants are involved, directly or indirectly, with the management of Siemens' revenues. Some are IT specialists responsible for software which handles quarterly and year end closing, or which oversees Siemens' investments. Other students have accounting or control responsibilities, but all are likely to come across financial English terminology in some form or another.'
In order to fit the programme around work commitments, the course comprises 25 hours classroom based teaching, in groups of up to 20 students, and 75 hours online study. Having only launched in November 2010, James is finding that students are still getting used to the different approach that blended learning demands. 'Students prefer face to face tuition, but this is not possible – or cost-effective – as currently 10 of our 30 learners are located in the north of Germany,' he explains. 'As a result, we are offering Net Meetings every two months as an opportunity for feedback and discussion, and looking at other ways in which we can improve communication between groups and support online study.’
'From the employer's perspective, however, blended learning offers many advantages as it allows us to deliver a consistently high quality course to all employees wherever they are located, as they can study whenever they have access to an online computer.'
The course, designed for those who already speak reasonable English, develops the skills required to use English confidently in an accounting or finance environment: 'All those in our current group of 30 learners have been pre-selected according to their current English language ability and the relevance of the programme to their job,' comments James. 'Vocabulary expansion is particularly useful in this context, but the whole programme is very attractive– the material is relevant, high quality and well put together, and the classroom material is excellent, encouraging students to practise what they have learnt through plausible simulations and role plays.'

Interview with an ICFE student

ICFE ACCA Financial English Newsletter
Interview with: David Ran

David Ran worked for the finance team in the Beijing office of international marketing communications company Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) when he studied for – and passed – the ICFE qualification. 'My employer wanted me, and my colleagues, to improve our English language skills, especially in a professional context, and so arranged for us to attend a tuition course for ICFE,' explains David. Tuition was delivered in-house by specialist local learning provider The Learning Institute: 'We took about 20 classes, and were taught by an English teacher - Kiran Patel - which really helped us a lot,' he adds.
Patel, who is regional manager – North China of The Learning Institute, points out that this combination of focused financial English language teaching delivered by native speakers proved particularly effective: 'O&M were enticed by the overall quality of the qualification, and by our enthusiasm for the course and our native speaking teaching resource,' he says. In addition, formal skills certification is an important benefit in the highly competitive Chinese employment market, and the ability to offer staff a qualification accredited by both ACCA and Cambridge ESOL was seen as a further benefit.
Up to 16 O&M employees attended each class, which developed students' ability to use English confidently and accurately in a financial environment, focusing on the core skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. The class used study materials published by BPP Learning Media together with supporting resources developed by Patel and his team. 'I found help with writing English the most useful section of the course,' says David; classes prepared students for the final exam, but also incorporated simulations of real life situations in order to provide plenty of opportunity for students to practise their skills.
David passed his exam in January 2010 and is now making the most of his new qualification: 'I have found that the course has been useful in helping me perform day to day tasks, such as writing emails, but I also hope the Certificate will improve my longer term career prospects as it is proof of specific professional skills.'

Blog Statistics

Pageviews 1000 from 35 countries.
The IB is running an  in-company Financial English course and students will take the ICFE exam in the middle of the year.
I hope that teachers and students will continue to browse this blog and would appreciate any relevant comments on its usefulness.

100% Pass ICFE

 Huge congratulations to the candidates at IH Costa Rica on their excellent ICFE results.

Alex Case on ICFE

Alex Case lists available ICFE exam resources and I would like to say that I found the Cambridge resources invaluable. Some comments that my group made about the course were that there were only a limited amount of practice tests available. In the future I hope that CUP will publish practice test books as they do for their other exams.
.http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/tefl/cambridge-icfe-description-and-links/#comments

ICFE end of preparation course Statistics

I just checked the audience figures for this blog and there have been around 850 page views from over 24 countries since the blog started three months ago.
I would like to wish everyone the very best of luck in the ICFE exam this week and I hope that the blog has been useful. Thank you for your comments and feedback.
 I wish you every good fortune in the future with  Financial English.
A new ICFE preparation group will be starting in January 2011, so keep checking  this blog for more Financial English.
Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all the ICFE blog viewers.

Testimonials/ End of ICFE preparation course review

In the final class you will be asked to give an evaluation of the ICFE preparation course.
 I would like you to read the ICFE exam testimonials, especially the ones written by students.
This is good practice for skimming and scanning for key words.
http://www.financialenglish.org/icfe/testimonials.html
You will also be asked to review the progress that you have made and to think about your objectives for the future.
I welcome any feedback on the usefulness of this blog.