Emphasizing Foreign Language Use To International Marketing Students: A Situational Exercise That Mimics Real-World Challenges

An international marketing exercise consists of students orally providing an introduction in a chosen foreign language of what they, as potential salespeople, might say to a client in that country. Students speak (not read) their prepared statements to the class and are leniently, yet constructively, evaluated on language use and pronunciation and marketing credibility. The objective is to emulate a real business situation and to show students the challenges of working with different languages and cultures in international marketing and the imperfections of direct translation. Results of a student survey showed that a majority of students believed the exercise to be valuable. Adapted from the source document