Interesting question.

I used to use The Economist whenever I saw interesting articles that I thought might be of interst to certain students or groups of students.

Generally though I used Economist articles with individual students as prompts for conversations and fluency practice rather than for looking at specific language points. Of course there is usually plenty of new vocabulary that comes up when studying the articles. Especially intersting was when you found an article which discussed your student's country of origin. This brought up all sorts of interesting ideas like perspectives, stereotypes, assumptions, and so forth.

One interesting idea might be using The Economist style guide to look at writing issues with more advanced students. I've not done this myself though but it occurs to me their style is often thought of as the gold standard in terms of journalistic writing though it could apply for all writing styles. I'm pretty sure I've seen this guide somewhere on their website. Check it out. You might find it useful.

There is also the book Intelligent Business which is a language course for business students based on articles from The Economist though perhaps you use this already. If not I'm sure it can give you plenty of ideas.

Good luck.

Hi Cindy,

It'd be interesting to hear how you use the Economist in your Business English classes. Are there any other authentic materials you would recommend using? How do your students find the articles? Do you find that your students are motivated by reading authentic articles?

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Carol

Each month, I write a worksheet based on an article from the Economist which is posted on the Intelligent Business website. They usually contain questions for discussion, vocabulary tasks, comprehension tasks and sometimes language development tasks. I'd be interested to hear from teachers who use them.

Hi Fernanda,

I'm pleased you like the worksheets. Sometimes it's a challenge to select the articles but I always remember that the users will be learners, business people but also consumers. There is usually a nice selection of vocabulary and a range of idiomatic phrases which are frequently used in business contexts. It's also good to find an article with a topical theme, so that learners can relate the contents to their business reading in L1.

Regards,

Nick