A combined approach to teaching English and entrepreneurship

Abstract

"Having an entrepreneurial mindset" is as important as "speaking English well" for a successful career. These two qualities can be learned together in school. Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, which requires systematic and effective actions to be taken to promote entrepreneurial mindsets in society, suggests some proposals to realize this. Some of these can be applied in an EFL class, thus making it a dual-purpose one, which is both teaching English and creating an entrepreneurial mindset. The aim of this paper is to show that a lesson can be designed in a theme-based way to make this possible. In this study, entrepreneurship-based exercises have been used in the class for a certain period of time and the attitudes of the students towards entrepreneurship have been compared before and after the activities. It was promising to see that there was a positive change in their attitudes towards entrepreneurship. The study revealed that embedding theme-based activities on entrepreneurship in EFL classes can be a way to stimulate entrepreneurship spirit and to promote entrepreneurial mindset of the students. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.