2
Mateja Dostal
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
DEVELOPING FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE 
COMPETENCE FOR ENGLISH BUSINESS MEETINGS 
USING BUSINESS MEETING SIMULATIONS 
Abstract 
This article reports on the analysis of business meeting simulation data investigating the use of Business English 
(BE) in business meeting simulations at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The research 
explores the use of business meeting simulations in a higher education setting in order to bring into focus how 
patterns of linguistic interactions among BE students are structured, with and without a BE teacher’s corrective 
feedback. The findings provide possible solutions for the effective integration of business meeting simulations 
into BE programmes to improve students’ performance in international business meetings in which English is 
the lingua franca by using business meeting simulations as a BE teaching tool. Corpus analysis and qualitative 
analysis of linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of foreign language communicative competence 
(FLCC) were used to explore the development of FLCC elements of BE students in the spoken corpus of English 
business meeting simulations. The main finding of the study is that whilst repeated business meeting simulation 
practice may provide BE students with a certain concrete experience of this communicative context even 
without a teacher’s corrective feedback, practice without corrective feedback does not facilitate the correct and 
comprehensive development of FLCC. 
Keywords: foreign language communicative competence (FLCC), Business English, business meeting simulation, 
spoken corpus, corrective feedback, higher education.
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Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
1. Introduction
The aim of this article is to present possible solutions for the effective integration of business 
meeting simulations into Business English (BE) programmes. It is argued that business 
meeting simulations provide BE students with a framework to develop their foreign language 
communicative competence (FLCC) for business meetings (Council of Europe, 2011, p. 78), 
enabling them to benefit from a concrete experience of this communicative context.
Although business meeting simulations have been widely used as a BE teaching tool to 
simulate international business meetings (Crosling & Ward, 2002), it has received little 
attention by researchers. Due to this research gap, business meeting simulations have not 
yet been sufficiently analysed to understand how patterns of linguistic interactions among BE 
students are structured to develop their FLCC. Moreover, they have not yet been adequately 
analysed to understand whether or how corrective feedback integration can facilitate the 
development of FLCC for business meetings (Council of Europe, 2011, p. 78). 
The present study examined the learner corpus of English business meeting simulations at 
the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in order to answer the research 
question concerning how BE students’ linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of 
FLCC have developed with and without the corrective feedback of a BE teacher. This article will 
first outline the components of the interdisciplinary model for the study of business meeting 
simulations in English. Next, the background and methodology of the study will be presented. 
In the following section, the comparative results of FLCC elements will be discussed. 
2. Theoretical framework
New knowledge is learned by incorporating concrete experience into the learning cycle – 
the continuous spiral circulation through the stages of learning, i.e. concrete experience, 
reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation (Kolb 1984; 
Marentič Požarnik, 2011; Widdowson, 2012). In BE the learning process of an individual 
takes place in a broader social context of a BE language class, all participants and the target 
situation (Johns, 2015; Jurkovič, 2015). This allows for the development of language (Chandler, 
2003; Ellis & Johnson, 2010; Merrill, 2013), specifically by engaged participation in their target 
occupational domain tasks (Čepon, 2012; Ellis, N., 2005; Jarc 2007). 
As an activity at the heart of every organization (Boden, 1994), the business meeting has been 
universally recognised to be a key task in the occupational domain (Council of Europe, 2011, 
p. 78). Its purpose is a business transaction to “get the work done” (Bargiella-Chiappini et al., 
2007, p. 3); therefore business people need to be fully knowledgeable about its structure and 
patterns of interaction to use them efficiently. In international business meetings, English 
is most widely used and “largely accepted as a pragmatic necessity” among native and non-
native speakers (Rogerson-Revell 2008, p. 339) and every business person needs to be able to 
interact in English in such a way to do business transactions in business meetings efficiently. 
Interactions in business meetings are highly unpredictable (Evans, 2013; Handford, 2010; 
Maier, 1992). In its essence, the business meeting genre interaction patterns (Comfort & 
Brieger, 1998; Handford, 2010) are structured with genre specific language functions and 
4
genre non-specific language functions1. Genre specific language functions appear in fixed 
interaction sequences, e.g. opening the meeting, welcoming and introducing participants, 
stating the purpose of the meeting, giving apologies for absence, discussing the minutes of 
the previous meeting, etc. (Handford, 2011, pp. 69–75). These are central communicative 
functions in a business context. It is therefore crucial that the BE learning environment 
effectively prepares BE students for this “multidimensional discursive reality of international 
business environment” (Bhatia, 2008, p. 162), particularly for business meetings (Crosling & 
Ward, 2002). Consequently, a business simulation, as a key task in the educational domain, 
is used to facilitate the development of students’ FLCC as a set of linguistic, sociolinguistic 
and pragmatic competences for an appropriate interaction in their main target occupational 
domain task, which is a prerequisite for successful work in a foreign language environment 
(Council of Europe, 2011).
Corrective feedback is information from a teacher on how (much) the student’s FLCC differs 
from the target one. There has been much discussion in the field as to whether or how 
corrective feedback can affect the process of learning a foreign language. Some findings 
state that a teacher’s corrective feedback may not affect the process of learning a foreign 
language, its fluency (Long, 1996; Samuda, 2001) and/or accuracy (Trahey & White, 1993; 
Truscott, 1996). Other findings suggest, however, that it may trigger the progress of learning 
a foreign language (Chandler, 2003; DudleyEvans & St John, 1998; Rei, 2013), its speed of 
learning (Lyster, 1994; Polio, 2012; Savignone, 1991) and its fluency and accuracy (Ellis, N., 
2005; Lightbown & Spada, 2011; Mcdonough, 2004). 
While these studies focussed predominantly on corrective feedback in written assignments, 
the role of a BE teacher’s corrective feedback in students’ interaction in business meeting 
simulations has not yet been given sufficient scientific attention. Possible reasons for this 
research gap may lie in the difficulties with the availability of transcribed spoken corpora in 
general (Teubert, 2007) and the confidentiality of business data specifically (Nelson, 2000). 
Nevertheless, corpus tools are becoming more accessible for BE teachers. Consequently, 
there is a growing awareness of the need for knowledge transfer from and to the BE learning 
environment.
The present study was therefore built around the following components: (1) foreign language 
communicative competence (FLCC), (2) experiential learning, (3) corrective feedback, and (4) 
business meeting simulations: 
Foreign language communicative competence (FLCC): to analyse how the FLCC of a 
BE student develops using business meeting simulations for business meetings in the 
international business environment.
Experiential learning: to explore how the students’ concrete experience with business 
meeting simulations with or without corrective feedback in the course of language learning 
altered with regard to their FLCC.
1 Genre non-specific language functions are: imparting and seeking factual information, expressing 
and finding out attitudes, suasion, socialising, structuring discourse and communication repair (Council 
of Europe, 2011, p. 126).
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
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Corrective feedback: to explore whether and how FLCC develops with and without corrective 
feedback of a BE teacher in business meeting simulations to determine the teacher’s role 
with regard to fluency, accuracy, control, quality and quantity of FLCC elements.
Simulation of a business meeting: to explore the corpus of business meeting simulations 
(hereinafter referred to as the SAPS corpus) with regard to FLCC elements by using corpus 
tools.
The study attempted to determine how the BE teacher’s use of corrective feedback affects 
the development of linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of FLCC in BE students’ 
performance in business meeting simulations to better prepare them for their future business 
careers, i.e. English business meetings in the international environment (Council of Europe, 
2011, p. 78). To the author’s knowledge, there has not been any published research on 
developing FLCC using business meeting simulations and the role of a BE teacher’s corrective 
feedback in business meeting simulations.
3. Methodology
The research question posed in this paper was part of a larger study into the use of business 
meeting simulations as a teaching tool for students of BE. The research methodology sought 
to demonstrate the effectiveness of a combination of different qualitative and quantitative 
methods in the exploration of BE learning and teaching. The triangulation of methods, data 
sources and fields of study increased the width, depth and complexity of the findings, which 
allowed for a better understanding of the problem. For a comprehensive overview of results 
see Dostal (2015a).
For the purpose of this article, the following research question is discussed: 
RQ: What are the linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic FLCC elements in the spoken 
corpus of English business meeting simulations of students with and without the corrective 
feedback of a BE teacher?
To answer the research question, corpus analysis was used (cf. McEnery and Hardie, 2012; 
Tischer et al., 2000) and the linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic FLCC elements were 
analysed in experimental and control corpora of the spoken SAPS corpus. The selection of 
respondents included third-year university programme undergraduate students (96) at the 
Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. 
First, the SAPS corpus of business meeting simulations was built. After all permissions for 
recording business meeting simulations had been collected, students were organised into 16 
fixed groups with six members in each group. In the next step, all 16 groups were recorded 
during their initial simulation of the Marbi case study in their textbooks (Dostal, 2012, pp. 
24–26). In the continuation, seven case studies from a collection of case studies (Comfort & 
Brieger, 1998) were carried out, one every week by all groups, in eight experimental groups with 
BE teacher’s corrective feedback2 and in eight control groups without BE teacher’s corrective 
2 BE teacher’s corrective feedback was based on linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic elements of 
FLCC. It was incorporated through discussion before, during and after each simulation (see Dostal, 
2015b, pp. 23–42).
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feedback. Upon completion of the research by midterm3, all 16 groups were recorded again 
during the final simulation. For both recordings, the same case study was used in order to 
better compare the initial and final simulation corpora. Finally, 32 simulations of up to 20 
minutes each were recorded, i.e. 16 experimental group simulations (eight initial and eight 
final) and 16 control group simulations (eight initial and eight final), totalling ten hours of 
audio material. 
The SAPS corpus was transcribed in Word. All turns4 were anonymised with S1–S6 (student1–
student6) and tagged with 21 error types. The CEFR 2011 classification of FLCC elements 
(Council of Europe 2011, pp. 108–130) was adapted to the purpose of research (cf. McCarten, 
2007; McCarthy, 2001). Errors were tagged according to the frequency of error types and 
classified into errors in vocabulary (WVOC: e.g. You are welcome to *enjoy me), grammar 
(WGRAM: e.g. Marbi is too *much focused), politeness (WPOL: e.g. I *want that you give 
me), prepositions (WPREP: e.g. discuss *about the problem), starts (WSTART: e.g. *I speak…
Could we speak in Italian?), register (WREG: e.g. *gonna), articles (WART: e.g. and *Italians), 
pronunciation (WPRON: e.g. *course as /kɜːs/), phrases (WPHR: e.g. Thank you for *a word), 
pronouns (WPR: e.g. *Our?), number (WNUM: e.g. Any *suggestion?), word order (WWO: 
e.g. Tell me why *are you sending the reports), tense (WTEN: e.g. *am working in Maribor), 
modals (WMOD: e.g. We must *to give you), continuation (WCONT: e.g. Is she informed? Does 
*he know that?), conditionals (WCOND: e.g. If it *would be), context (WCONTEXT: e.g. Your 
*Italian hasn’t improved.), conjunctions (WCONJ: e.g. But *however we), stress (WSTRESS: e.g. 
pur*chase), repetition (WREPEAT: e.g. we see and *we) and language switching (WLANG: e.g. 
You have to *kako se že reče?). 
The Word files (*.doc) were then changed into text files (*.txt) and analysed using the corpus 
tool AntConc (2014)5. The analysis comprised of qualitative and quantitative corpus analysis of 
SAPS as a learner corpus6 (Dostal, 2015c, pp. 193–223). The quantitative corpus analysis of the 
SAPS corpus compared linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic FLCC elements, specifically: 
the errors7, word tokens, word types, and positive and negative keywords in the initial and 
final experimental and control corpora. In addition to the quantitative corpus analysis, the 
qualitative analysis of the SAPS corpus compared various sociolinguistic and pragmatic 
FLCC elements8 in the SAPS corpus, i.e. the specific and non-specific language functions of 
the business meeting genre. Genre specific language functions (Comfort & Brieger, 1998; 
Handford, 2010) were classified into 26 categories, i.e. (1) opening of meeting: the chair opens 
the meeting (1.1), welcomes the participants (1.2), introduces the participants (1.3), states the 
3 In the second half of the term, experimental and control groups were swapped to enable 
the same working conditions to all students for their exam simulation at the end of the term 
and ensure that the research was conducted in accordance with professional ethical and 
scientific standards.
4  A turn is a time during which a single participant speaks, within a typical, orderly arrangement 
in which participants speak with minimal overlap and gap between them (Levinson, 1983, pp. 
295–296).  
5 Log Likelihood was used as the statistical measure with significance values p < 0.05 (critical 
value = 3.84384).
6 A learner corpus is a collection of authentic texts produced by foreign/second language 
learners (Granger, 1998, p. xix). 
7 tagged 
8 not tagged
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
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purpose of the meeting (1.4), gives apologies of absence (1.4), asks about the minutes of the 
last meeting (1.5), participants comment on the minutes (1.6) and take them as read (1.7), 
the chair assigns the roles (1.8), participants agree the roles (1.9), the chair sets the ground 
rules (1.10), introduces the agenda (1.11), participants agree the agenda (1.12), the chair asks 
about AOB (1.13), participants comment AOB (1.14), the chair introduces the first item on 
the agenda (1.15); (2) discussion of the agenda: the chair asks for an opinion (2.1), directs the 
course of discussion (2.3), brings people in (2.22), directs voting (2.39), summarizes each item 
(2.40), introduces a new item (2.41), introduces AOB (2.42), summarizes the main points of 
the meeting (2.43); (3) closing of meeting: the chair thanks participants for their participation 
(3.1), informs them about the next meeting (3.2), and closes the meeting (3.3). 
4. Results 
First, errors in the entire SAPS corpus (i.e. final and initial corpora of experimental and control 
groups’ simulations) were analysed. The corpus analysis showed that the most common 
errors were errors in vocabulary (17%), grammar (12%), articles (12%), politeness (10%), 
prepositions (8%), starts (6%), register (5%), pronunciation (5%), phrases (4%), pronouns (4%), 
number (4%), word order and tense (3%), modal verbs (2%), and continuation, conditionals, 
context, conjunctions, stress, repetition and language switching (1%) (see Figure 1)9.
The corpus analysis of the entire SAPS corpus showed that there were more errors in the 
control group corpus (initial and final control corpora together) than in the experimental 
group corpus (initial and final experimental corpora together) (see Figure 2).
9 For a comprehensive overview of results see Dostal, 2015a.
Figure 1: All errors in SAPS
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Figure 2: Errors in the experimental and control corpora
Figure 3: Comparison of the final and initial experimental and control group errors
The final and initial corpora of the experimental and control group simulations were compared 
to show whether and how much progress each group had made (see Figure 3).
While there were fewer errors in the final experimental group corpus (795) than in the initial 
corpus (876), there were more errors in the final control group corpus (1242) than in the initial 
control group corpus (994) (see Table 1). The comparison of the initial and final experimental 
group corpus showed that there was a dramatic decrease in the frequency of errors in 
grammar (–22), pronouns (–22) vocabulary (–20), number (–16), phrases (–11), politeness 
(–11), article (–9), register (–4), word order (–4), continuation (–4), language switching (–4) 
and repetition (–3), while there was a slight increase in errors (highlighted) in prepositions 
(+19), starts (+9), modal verbs (+9), conditionals (+6) number (+4), stress (+3) and conjunctions 
(+1). Additionally, the comparison of the initial and final control group corpus showed a 
dramatic increase in the frequency of errors (highlighted) in politeness (+50), pronouns (+29), 
prepositions (+25), register, tense and vocabulary (+21), modal verbs (+20), continuation 
(+16), pronunciation (+14), grammar (+11), starts (+10), article (+8), phrases (+6), number (+2), 
language switching (+2) and stress (+1) and a minute decrease in the frequency of errors in 
word order (–9), conjunctions (–2) and context (–2).
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Table 1: The initial and final experimental and control group corpora
Table 2: Comparison of the initial and final corpora of the experimental and control groups
ERROR SAPS EXP. INITIAL FINAL DIFF. CONTROL INITIAL FINAL DIFF.
WVOC 675 278 149 129 –20 397 188 209 21
WGRAM 479 232 127 105 –22 247 118 129 11
WART 477 181 95 86 –9 296 144 152 8
WPOL 399 197 104 93 –11 202 76 126 50
WPREP 320 149 65 84 19 171 73 98 25
WSTART 239 113 52 61 9 126 58 68 10
WREG 190 66 35 31 –4 124 51 73 22
WPRON 180 82 42 40 –2 98 42 56 14
WPHR 169 53 32 21 –11 116 55 61 6
WPR 153 46 34 12 –22 107 39 68 29
WNUM 146 68 42 26 –16 78 38 40 2
WO 127 60 32 28 –4 67 38 29 –9
WTEN 119 58 27 31 4 61 20 41 21
WMOD 93 39 15 24 9 54 17 37 20
WCONT 48 4 4 0 –4 44 14 30 16
WCOND 51 14 4 10 6 37 17 20 3
WCONTEXT 12 8 4 4 0 4 3 1 –2
WCONJ 11 9 4 5 1 2 2 0 –2
WSTRESS 6 5 1 4 3 1 0 1 1
WREPEAT 3 3 3 0 –3 0 0 0 0
WLANG 10 6 5 1 –4 4 1 3 2
∑ 3907 1671 876 795 –81 2236 994 1242 248
The comparison of length (i.e. time), word tokens, word types and turns, showed that all final 
simulations were longer than the initial ones, with more word tokens, word types and turns 
used. However, the comparison of final simulations of both groups showed that, while final 
simulations of the experimental and control group were of very similar length, there were 
fewer but at the same time longer speaker turns in the experimental group simulations. 
In comparison with the control group, there were fewer errors in the experimental group 
simulations, while the number of word tokens used in a turn was higher. The token-error 
ratio, which shows the number of word tokens per error, and time-error ratio, which shows 
the time span between two errors, increased more in experimental groups than in control 
final groups. Besides, the type-token ratio, which shows lexical variety, was also higher in the 
experimental group simulations (see Table 2).
INITIAL 
EXPERIMENTAL
FINAL
EXPERIMENTAL
INITIAL 
CONTROL
FINAL 
CONTROL 
time (s) 6271 8084 6239 8463
time (h) 1:44:31 2:14:44 1:43:59 2:21:05
turns (∑) 472 637 537 743
word tokens (∑) 11800 15682 12283 17201
word types (∑) 2753 3222 2516 3359
type/token ratio 9 % 8 % 7 % 7 %
Errors (∑) 876 795 994 1242
word tokens/error 13.47 19.72 12.36 13.85
time (s)/error 7.16 10.17 6.27 6.81
word tokens/turn 25 24.62 22.87 23.15
time (s)/turn 13.29 12.69 11.61 11.39
word tokens/time (s) 1.9 1.94 1.9 2
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The study then compared the final experimental corpus with the final control corpus to 
determine which keywords were typical for each final corpus and how they were different. The 
comparison of the final experimental corpus (FeC) with the final control corpus (FcC) showed 
the positive keywords which were typical for the experimental corpus and simultaneously, 
negative keywords which were untypical for the control corpus. Some typical keywords for 
the experimental groups, yet untypical for the control group, were believe, help, aaa, should, 
group, situation, colleagues, create, feel, deal, recommend, aware, pleased, convinced, deal, 
proposal, please, rather, opinion, offering, proposal, etc. and errors (*) in pronunciation and 
stress (WPRON, WSTRESS) (see Table 3).
no frequency keyness token no frequency keyness token
1 31 26.777 BELIEVE 26 5 7.507 ISN
2 62 24.585 AAA 27 5 7.507 PLEASED
3 117 17.112 SHOULD 28 33 7.160 LESSONS
4 83 11.720 GROUP 29 8 7.010 FOUR
5 20 11.396 SITUATION 30 10 6.756 ALWAYS
6 7 10.510 COLLEAGUES 31 62 6.436 OTHER
7 7 10.510 SIDES 32 18 6.320 THESE
8 7 10.510 WORDS 33 22 6.056 CROATIA
9 99 9.784 AS 34 4 6.006 CONVINCED
10 10 9.590 GUYS 35 4 6.006 CORPORATION
11 16 9.117 HELP 36 4 6.006 DEAL
12 6 9.009 HOSTILE 37 4 6.006 FORM
13 6 9.009 OTHERS 38 4 6.006 GIVEN
14 6 9.009 PROFIT 39 4 6.006 HUMILIATING
15 6 9.009 UNTIL 40 4 6.006 INFLUENCE
16 14 9.008 CREATE 41 4 6.006 OFFERING
17 14 9.008 FEEL 42 4 6.006 OTHERWISE
18 115 8.945 ON 43 4 6.006 PROPOSAL
19 9 8.289 CONTROL 44 4 6.006 RATHER
20 15 8.074 OPINION 45 4 6.006 RECOMMEND
21 13 7.908 PLEASE 46 4 6.006 THINKING
22 53 7.861 ITALIANS 47 4 6.006 *WPRONCOOPERATE
23 49 7.670 THEM 48 4 6.006 *WSTRESS
24 5 7.507 AWARE 49 19 5.931 SLOVENIANS
25 5 7.507 CORPORATE 50 31 5.862 EACH
Table 3: Positive keywords of the experimental corpus (= negative keywords of the control   
 corpus; FeC:FcC)
The comparison of the final control corpus (FcC) with the final experimental corpus (FeC) 
showed the positive keywords for the control corpus. At the same time it identified the 
negative keywords for the experimental group. Some typical keywords for the control 
groups, yet untypical for the experimental groups were write, project, it, your, think, need, he, 
yeah, nobody, wants, cannot, laughs, pause, etc. and errors (*) in pronouns, register, phrases, 
modals, vocabulary, prepositions, pronunciation, grammar and indefinite article (see Table 4). 
Informal yeah denoted informal register, laughs indicated more laughs in the control group, 
whereas pause indicated longer pauses than in the experimental group.
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no frequency keyness10 token no frequency keyness token
1 30 38.323 *WCONT 26 6 7.665 PERCENT
2 30 30.989 *WPRDEL 27 6 7.665 PERHAPS
3 18 22.994 WRITE 28 6 7.665 WANTS
4 17 21.716 PROJECT 29 6 7.665 *WPRTHIS
5 215 19.428 IT 30 55 7.623 *WPRON
6 57 17.177 *WREGYES 31 15 7.445 DOING
7 112 16.263 YOUR 32 110 6.741 LIKE
8 184 12.907 THINK 33 9 6.497 PAST
9 49 12.811 NEED 34 16 6.428 TALK
10 9 11.497 HE 35 5 6.387 ADMINISTRATION
11 13 10.903 *WPHRDEL 36 5 6.387 EMPLOY
12 27 10.426 IMPORTANT 37 5 6.387 HAPPENS
13 74 10.242 YEAH 38 5 6.387 INFORM
14 12 9.780 *WMODCOULD 39 5 6.387 RUINED
15 35 9.325 *WVOCDEL 40 5 6.387 TOPIC
16 7 8.942 WEEKS 41 5 6.387 TWICE
17 7 8.942 *WPHR 42 5 6.387 *WVOCLUXURY
18 27 8.874 REPORT 43 124 6.049 NOT
19 14 8.830 BEST 44 11 5.892 *WGRAMDEPEND
20 11 8.669 WORLD 45 28 5.883 *WARTA
21 16 8.369 *WPREPAT 46 21 5.845 WHEN
22 18 8.137 LAUGHS 47 8 5.442 CANNOT
23 13 7.829 PAUSE 48 8 5.442 DIDN
24 6 7.665 BOOST 49 8 5.442 SERIOUSLY
25 6 7.665 NOBODY 50 8 5.442 TOP
The analysis of sets of concordance lines of the keywords showed that positive keywords for 
the experimental group (and negative keywords for the control group) were frequently used 
to express cooperation (e.g. Can we take them as read? / Help them cooperate together. / How do 
you feel about it? / Why do you feel that? / I feel that…/ We feel responsible. / We would feel more 
like a part of a company), common interest (e.g. will provide / will become / will produce / will aim 
for), and politeness (in my opinion / We would rather see that... / we were thinking / we have been 
thinking / help your company). Furthermore, the analysis of sets of concordance lines of the 
keywords showed that positive keywords for the control group (and negative keywords for 
the experimental group) were frequently used to express lack of cooperation (e.g. everybody 
wants / nobody wants / Who wants to say something?), confrontation (e.g. your duty / on your 
own / you need to improve / you need to respect / You make it better! / you cannot), and personal 
interest (e.g. not taken seriously / not taking us seriously / seriously jeopardizing). 
In conclusion, the comparison between experimental and control group corpora showed that 
positive keywords in the experimental corpus (and negative keywords in the control corpus) 
most frequently expressed common interest, and on the other hand, negative keywords in 
the experimental corpus (and positive keywords in the control corpus) were used to express 
personal interest. While politeness and appreciation were frequently expressed in the final 
experimental corpus, lack of politeness and rejection were frequently expressed in the final 
control corpus (see Table 5).
Table 4: Positive keywords of control corpus (= negative keywords of experimental corpus; FcC:FeC)
10 Log Likelihood was used as the statistical measure with significance values p < 0.05 (critical value = 
3.84384).
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POSITIVE KEYWORDS NEGATIVE KEYWORDS
EXPERIMENTAL 
corpus
cooperation
common interest
politeness
avoiding confrontation 
lack of cooperation
personal interest
confrontation 
informality 
CONTROL
corpus
lack of cooperation
personal interest
confrontation 
informality 
cooperation
common interest
politeness
avoiding confrontation 
Table 5: Comparison of the final corpus with the initial corpus
Table 6: The experimental group: genre specific language functions
All final simulations were more effectively structured than the initial ones. They included more 
business meeting genre specific language functions. In the experimental groups, they were 
also sequenced more logically. The students in the experimental group were more aware of 
the genre specific language functions than control group students, and consequently used 
them more often than the control group (218 vs. 173). The lack of awareness of genre specific 
language functions in the control group resulted in the incorrect use and less frequent use of 
certain genre specific language functions (compare Tables 6 and 7). In the initial simulations 
(I), 8 to 14 genre-specific language functions were identified for the experimental group (I1–
I8), and 5 to 15 for the control group (I9–I16). In the final simulations (F), 14 to 20 genre specific 
FUNCTION I1 F1 I2 F2 I3 F3 I4 F4 I5 F5 I6 F6 I7 F7 I8 F8 TOTAL
1.1 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 16
1.2 X X X X - X - X X X X X - X - X 12
1.3 X X X X - X X X X X X X X X - X 14
1.4 - - X X X X - X X X - - X X X - 10
1.5 - - - - - - - X - - - - - - - - 1
1.6 - X - X - X - X - - X - X X - - 7
1.7 - X - X - X - X - - X - X X - - 7
1.8 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 1
1.9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
1.10 - - X X - X - X - X - X - X - X 8
1.11 X X X X X X X X X X - - X X - X 13
  1.12 - - - - - - - - - - - - - X - - 1
1.13 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 1
1.14 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
1.15 X X X X X X X X X X - X X X X - 14
2.1 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 16
2.3 X X X X - X X X X - - X - X - X 11
2.22 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 16
  2.39 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
2.40 - - - X - - - - X X - X - X X X 7
2.41 X X X X - X - - X X - X X X X X 12
2.42 X X X - X - - - X X - X X X X - 10
2.43 X X - - - X - X - - - X X X - X 8
3.1 X X - X X X X X X X - X - X - X 12
3.2 X - X X X X - - X X X X X X - X 12
3.3 - X X X - - X X - X - - X X - X 9
I / F 13 15 14 17 9 16 9 16 14 15 8 14 14 20 8 16 89/129
I +F 28 31 25 25 29 22 34 24 218
F – I 2 3 7 7 1 6 6 8 40
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13
FUNCTION I9 F9 I10 F10 I11 F11 I12 F12 I13 F13 I14 F14 I15 F15 I16 F16 TOTAL
1.1 - X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 15 
1.2 X - X - - X - - - - - - - X - - 4
1.3 X X - X X X - X X X X - X X X X 13
1.4 X X - - X X X X - - X X X X - - 10
1.5 - X - - X - - - - X X - X - - - 5
1.6 - - - - - X - - - - - - - - - X 2
1.7 - - - - - X - - - - - - - - - X 2
1.8 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
1.9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
1.10 - - - - - - - - - X - X - - - - 2
1.11 X X X X - X - X X X X X X X - X 13
1.12 - - - - - - - X - - - - - - - - 1
1.13 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - X 1
1.14 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
1.15 X X X - X X - X - X X X X X - X 12
2.1 X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 16 
2.3 - X X X X X X X X X X X X X - X 14
2.22 - X X - - - - - - - - - X - X X 5
2.39 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 0
2.40 - X - - - X - X - X X X X X - X 9
2.41 X X X X - - - X - - - X X X X X 10
2.42 - X X - - - X - X - X X X X - X 9
2.43 X X - - X - - X - - - X X - X X 8
3.1 X X - X - - - X X X X X X - - X 10
3.2 X X - - - - - X - - X X X - - X 7
3.3 - - X X - - - - X X - - - - - X 5
I / F 10 15 10 8 8 11 5 13 8 11 12 13 15 11 6 17 74/99
I + F 25 18 19 18 19 25 26 23 173
F – I 5 -2 3 8 3 1 –4 11 25 
Table 7: The control group: genre specific language functions
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
language functions were identified for the experimental group (F1–F8); and 8 to 17 for the 
control groups (F9–F16). In the final simulations of the experimental group genre specific 
language functions were present more often than in the control groups (129 times vs. 99 
times) (compare Tables 6 and 7). Some genre specific language functions were present in all 
simulations. In all experimental and control groups the chair opened the meeting, introduced 
the agenda, introduced the first item on the agenda, asked the participants for their opinion 
and directed the discussion. In all simulations, there was progress in some genre-specific 
language functions, for example when the chair introduced the agenda of the meeting, but 
a decline in many others, for example giving apologies of absence, informing about the next 
meeting and closing the meeting (compare Tables 6 and 7). The experimental groups made 
more progress than the control groups as they used more genre-specific language functions 
(40 vs. 25) in the appropriate order. In comparison with the initial simulations, some control 
groups digressed, while experimental groups all showed progress in the use of genre-specific 
language functions. The range of progress of individual experimental groups was lower than 
in control groups (from 1 to 8 per group, from –4 to 11 per group, respectively); however, all 
experimental groups showed progress, while two control groups even deteriorated in the use 
of genre-specific language functions. The specific structure of the meeting (Bargiela-Chiappini 
and Harris, 1996, p. 269; Koester, 2010, p. 26) was only established in the experimental group 
simulations, where progress was made in the use of genre specific language functions. 
14
In all of the final simulations there was also a greater variety of business meeting genre-non-
specific language functions, such as the language function for expressing views and making 
suggestions. Whilst in the initial simulations only the chair of the meeting made suggestions 
(S1) with the group members either accepting them passively or refusing them directly, in 
the final simulations, both groups explained and expressed their views better, repeatedly 
signalled they were following the debate and frequently checked their understanding. They 
made suggestions more actively and expressed disagreement more appropriately (see 
Example 111). 
Example 1: Expressing the views and suggestions (initial and final corpora)
Initial experimental group:
S1 Of course, this programme Group Communication, I think that is really good idea and
 I have also arranged for sports and social events to take place in all three locations 
 and this should really work great on our relations.
S5 Ok. 
Initial control group:
S1 But that’s funny because in a way you don’t want to cooperate and you think you’re
 better than us or you have the know-how, but you expect us to pay.
S5 Yes.
Final experimental group:
S4 May I interrupt? I’m afraid I don’t agree with that on the whole. I believe that English is
 the second language in Italy, in Slovenia, in Croatia. So, in my opinion there should be 
 the … English language … the second language in Italy, too.
S2 Sure, I agree up to a point, but English is so hard, and we always spoke Italian. So,
 there is no problem. Why would we change it now?
11 Students’ errors were not corrected.
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
Nevertheless, this hasn’t been established for the control group simulations, where some 
groups even digressed. The study showed how the awareness of BE students of the specifics 
of the business meetings genre developed with support of corrective feedback for a broader 
understanding of the professional business code (Albi, Vidal Lopez, 2011, p. 3). It can therefore 
be concluded that corrective feedback facilitated the correct and frequent use of genre-
specific pragmatic elements of FLCC.
15
Final control group:
S6 I disagree with that statement, because I think that improving your English is vital for 
 Novara plant and improving the climate in it.
S1 Ok. Great. So, that’s I think ... maybe these are great solutions.
There were numerous differences between the experimental and control group corpora. 
Whilst students of the final experimental groups tactfully expressed wishes, students of the 
control groups unwittingly and inappropriately expressed demands and even threats. In the 
final experimental groups there was agreement and partial agreement, whilst there was 
strong disagreement in the final control groups (see Example 2).
Example 2: Expressing wishes and demands; agreement and disagreement (final 
experimental and control corpora)
Final experimental group: 
S2 It seems to me that I can talk to our staff and let them know about this and yes, I can 
 discuss with them.
S1 What would be an affection on this group? Do you think this group would bring better
 that we cooperate, better corporation…I mean that... Do you think that our cooperation
 would improve?
S3 Yes, definitely. Yes. Because people will know each other more like in private way, so
 that they can discuss even personal things and not just things that matter to the
 company. So, maybe this could be good. Maybe Italians could present to us their 
 culture even more, because as you know… Italians usually eat like pasta and we don’t. 
 So, maybe this would be a good thing to discuss with them. What do you think?
Final control group: 
S1 Are you suggesting that we might …that we should consider other people for your
 position?
S2 No, I consider…We…may…We can maybe…
S6 … we could arrange … I don’t know, fourteen-day reports, twice a month would be 
S2 … enough. It’s not weekly, it’s not monthly. It’s something in the middle.
Only in the final experimental groups was there hesitation where students were searching 
for more appropriate and more polite expressions to avoid confrontation. This resulted in a 
more polite interaction in the experimental groups (see Example 3). 
Example 3: Avoiding confrontation (final experimental corpus)
S1 Agree is too hard a world…word, too hard for us. We may say that we will make a
 proposition to our, to our top management that there has been a…maybe…we 
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
16
 discovered a new solution, but we can’t force our workers to…into learning two 
 additional maybe three additional new languages. This is just not an option for us. 
 Maybe we can scan our departments and maybe we’ll find someone who already 
 speaks Italian, Croatian or on your part, Slovenian, and maybe we should put them in 
 charge of communicating with our other plants. So, this is one solution we have come 
 up with
Only in the final experimental groups’ simulations did students know how to interrupt the 
discussion politely, assume the role of the speaker tactfully, develop the topic logically and 
structure their discourse appropriately (see Example 4). 
Example 4: Interrupting and structuring (final experimental and control corpora)
Final experimental groups: 
S5 And if I may interrupt, as my colleague said previously, atmosphere is not delightful, 
 aaa…because you don’t know what we have to cope with. We have to cope with …
 high phone and petrol expenses and it’s not easy, you know. Correct me if I am wrong, 
 but I heard…
Final control groups:
S5  But we already said our workers to learn English language.
S1 I think this is solved already, so.
S4 I am sorry, but I didn’t hear you.
Due to the poor structure of their simulations, the control group students often did not know 
when or how to react. Turn stealing was frequent and consequently there was overlapping 
speech and impolite interaction. The overlapping speech (…) was not evidence of members 
finishing each other’s lines enthusiastically, as was the case in the experimental groups, but 
rather evidence of conflict (see Example 5). The students were unable to tell when it was their 
turn to speak. 
Example 5: Overlapping speech (final experimental and control corpora)
Final experimental groups: 
S1 Because aaa…the… the thing is that Marbi is still their…
S3 …subsidiary...
S1 …still their subsidiary since the takeover, right? So,…
Final control groups: 
S5 But older …
S1 …That’s a good idea.
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
17
S5 …people are…They don’t want to learn. Just…
S2 …but maybe if they are…
S5 …ask my father. He don’t want to learn now anything. He just works and…
S2 …but our company doesn’t have only old people. Maybe the young would want …are 
 motivated and like to be…
5. Discussion
The main aim of the present research was to explore how FLCC for business meetings 
is developed using business meeting simulations to effectively integrate them into BE 
programmes. Corpus analysis and qualitative analysis of FLCC elements were used to explore 
their use as a teaching tool in a higher education setting. The main finding of the study is 
that whilst repeated business meeting simulation practice may facilitate a certain concrete 
experience for experiential learning even without a teacher’s corrective feedback, practice 
without corrective feedback does not facilitate the correct and comprehensive development 
of FLCC.
As mentioned in the theoretical framework above, within the foreign language teaching 
research community, several studies have indicated the positive effects of corrective feedback 
integration on language performance (Chandler, 2003; Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998; Ellis, R., 
2005; Lyster, 1994; Mcdonough, 2004; Polio, 2012; Rei, 2013; Savignone, 1991) whilst others 
have not (Long, 1996; Samuda, 2001; Trahey & White, 1993; Truscott, 1996). While these 
studies focused on language performance in general English, the present study explored 
language performance in an ESP setting, i.e. the development of FLCC in BE specifically. 
Research results have shown that FLCC developed differently with instruction integrating 
corrective feedback in the experimental groups and without it in the control groups. Corpus 
analysis and qualitative analysis of FLCC elements showed that in the experimental groups all 
parameters in business meeting simulations improved with the teacher’s corrective feedback, 
i.e. fluency, accuracy, sophistication, control, range, length and variety in interaction (cf. 
Chandler, 2003; Merrill, 2013; Polio, 2012). In the control groups, however, only the quantity 
of business meeting genre-specific and non-specific language functions increased. Moreover, 
the results show that whilst linguistic FLCC elements developed in both groups, with the 
experimental groups progressing faster and better in all groups, the sociolinguistic and 
pragmatic elements did not. In the control groups, in which corrective feedback was not 
provided, they only developed partially in some groups and incorrectly in most groups. 
Given that the results of the study show that corrective feedback instruction in business 
meeting simulations yielded the desired results, it would seem reasonable to further focus 
on various specific aspects of corrective feedback instruction in different business meeting 
simulation settings (e.g. in-company training, language schools, tertiary education; locally and 
internationally) to see how language learning is best enhanced. These results also bring into 
question the organisational aspects of communicative language teaching in a higher education 
setting. They indicate the need for corrective feedback which has significant implications for 
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
18
all ESP settings, e.g. e-learning, where corrective feedback needs to be integrated into the 
programme to facilitate the correct development of students’ FLCC. 
Additionally, they may have several implications for CLIL classes in tertiary education for a BE 
teacher, particularly organisational, e.g. in specialised business meeting simulations modules 
which allow for highly flexible settings. In a broader perspective, team-teaching across various 
subject areas with BE teachers would be another option to better cater to the development 
of students’ FLCC. In conclusion, these results indicate the need for BE teachers to more 
carefully facilitate business case simulations in terms of preparation (of the students and the 
materials used), how they are integrated into the BE class and the BE programme in general 
and finally in terms of their dissemination. Without corrective feedback, FLCC may develop 
incorrectly; therefore a teacher’s involvement in all phases of a business meeting simulation 
is essential to improve BE students’ performance for their target professional environment. 
Only by doing so will a teacher facilitate a significantly easier integration of BE students into 
the international business environment using business meeting simulations.   
Several limitations of this study can be identified. The first one is the amount of time dedicated 
to business meeting simulation instruction. The total language course was limited to sixty 
hours and the time dedicated to business meeting simulations was deducted from this time. 
In my opinion, the organization of a more extensive separate module would possibly give a 
more long-term perspective of the results. The second is the size of the experimental and 
control groups and consequently the size of SAPS corpus. The study was conducted among 
16 groups of third-year students who were taught by the same teacher, which produced a 
rather modest sample of 96 participants and consequently a 56, 966-word corpus. The ability 
to generalize the findings is thus somewhat limited.
Dostal / Scripta Manent 11 (2016) 2 - 20
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