Designing Business English Courses with Workplace Tasks and AI

The presenter showcases an experiential, TESOL Canada–accredited micro-credential for Business English course design. Participants discover how real workplace tasks and AI trends inform curriculum development through Kolb’s experiential cycle and UDL principles. Attendees leave with interactive strategies to align Business English teaching with current workplace communication demands. This practice-oriented workshop introduces the Teaching Business English Certificate (TBEC), an experiential micro-credential program that equips English instructors to design business English courses aligned with authentic workplace communication tasks and emerging AI influences. Grounded in Kolb’s experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984) and Universal Design for Learning, TBEC emphasizes learning by doing. Instructors engage in the full cycle of concrete experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation, ensuring that classroom activities mirror real job tasks like business emails, presentations, and meetings. By aligning training with labour-market needs, the program ensures relevant, job-ready skills; unlike traditional degrees, micro-credentials focus on specific, industry-demanded competencies that translate directly to improved workplace performance (Zukowski, 2025). The workshop clearly models TBEC’s approach. The presenter guides participants through adapting a workplace scenario into a lesson plan: attendees experience a sample business communication task and collaboratively reflect on the language and soft skills involved. Using UDL principles, the session demonstrates how to design inclusive course materials that are “accessible, inclusive and challenging for every learner” (CAST, 2024). For example, participants see how multiple means of engagement and expression can support diverse learners in a business-English context. The session also addresses current AI trends in workplace communication (e.g. AI writing assistants) and discusses how these can be incorporated ethically into course design, so instructors stay ahead of technological shifts. Throughout the workshop, interactivity and reflection are emphasized: participants brainstorm course ideas, evaluate alignment with learning outcomes, and exchange feedback. By the end, attendees will have gained a framework and practical techniques for designing Business English curriculum that is experiential, inclusive, and tightly connected to the evolving communication needs of today’s workplaces.   References  CAST. (2024). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines 3.0. CAST. Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall. Zukowski, S. (2025, April 3). Microcredentials: Empowering modern learners & employers. The EvoLLLution.