Would it change anything if the subjects were extremely cute puppies with eyes so wide and innocent that even the hardest lumberjack would soon?
Davis_Goodman
Karma: 27
It was one of the highest ranking business schools in the world. It wouldn’t be fair to “out” the school based on my own limited experience with one group of students.
I taught advanced English at the MBA level at one of Europe’s most prestigious MBA programs and another prep course for a different well known MBA program. When I started the unit on market vocabulary I found that they couldn’t explain what a publicly traded company was (towards the end of their MBA specialising in management and finance). I basically had to teach them both English and the fundamentals of economics, business and finance.
When I taught a unit on global warming and its effect on business...my students (most of them from Latin America) were sceptical that there was any evidence of global warming and they refused to do any research on it (I would have failed them for that but I was not effectively able to fail my student. I had to give them a second and third try. By then I realised I would be testing and retesting them (without extra compensation) until they passed. So I just passed them even though they barely studied or spoke English. They still couldn’t explain what a share was and how it is publicly traded after teaching it three times in three different ways.
They had no idea what exactly an economic model was. The believed that investing in stocks was a very safe investment. They believed that chance plays almost no role in business and investing success. They believed that economic models (even though they couldn’t tell me anything about it) was all the “evidence” one needed to justify any theory (the ones they agreed with such as full on pure free market capitalism).
Many of their teachers were CEOs of successful companies. The teachers did not use many sources of academic standard nor did they critically analyse much of their sources and “evidence” (let alone teach them how to critically analyse anything).
Some of the textbooks were OK in terms of university level material with chapters on how to objectively analyse theories, models, evidence etc. however those chapters were skipped.
Judging by conversations I’ve had with other students who have done MBA programs … I have my serious doubts that MBA programs are scientifically sound. Good luck finding any funding to properly investigate this.
I used a case study (widely used in English classes in MBA programs) on how to deal with global warming in business situations. This ranges from predicting the future costs of global warming on business (or benefits), having a policy or stand on global warming, the benefits of using green technology in response to global warming etc. An international businessperson should be able to express their stance on environmental issues in English.
In continental Europe global warming is not particularly controversial in politics, public opinion, the business world or academia.
Far more controversial topics are taught in English classes. It’s typical to open up a section of a class by stating an outrageous stance on a controversial topic to start up a heated debate. Students who otherwise stay quiet and uninterested in class engage in the class, speak spontaneously and learn to defend their views in English in a hostile environment.