Snapchat is a free messaging app, which enhances all the 4 skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking) by exposing language learners to byte-sized, authentic English in real business settings! Your language learners can subscribe to major publications or friend entrepreneurs and receive their updates daily. These publications present news, information, and trends in Snaps, which are short English texts supported by images, video, audio, and urls. The resources below will help you get started using Snapchat to teach Business English. Check out our webinar recording, Teaching Business English with Snapchat, with more ideas and resources.
To learn more about integrating technology to support English language learners, attend our TESOL webinars.
Ideas and Resources
- Recommended publications for Business English students to subscribe to are The Economist, Wired, Mashable, WSJ, The New York Times, Vox, The Washington Post, and CNN. Students can download the Snaps of these publications and annotate them.
- One topic for exploration is comparing how brands market themselves. Check out this article with several examples, such as the @Everlane Clothing Company which answers questions from consumers and records walkthroughs of their factories.
- Compare the culture and environments of various companies around the world!
- Friend entrepreneurs. Check out these recommendations who share valuable tips and share snaps from notable business conferences and events worldwide!
- Students can compare and contrast how entrepreneurs use Snapchat to brand themselves.
- Get students to save one valuable tip from an entrepreneur once a week.
- Get students to keep a journal of the downloaded Snaps of new business phrases and vocabulary they come across in Snaps.
- Get students to study how companies advertise on Snapchat and design their own Snapchat ads.
