Ioana Claudia HOREA1 , Cristina Laura ABRUDAN2 1,2 Department of International Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Oradea, Oradea, Romania 1 ioanahorea@gmail.com 2 cabrudan2003@yahoo.com …

Today, more than ever, effective communication, regardless of the shape it takes, is important for every company’s success. Having as a target the idea of going global, employers search for employees who know exactly how to express themselves in order to be understood efficiently and correctly, constantly ranking writing ability among the most popular skills for business graduates to possess. Nowadays, the global business image needs professionals who possess communications skills, especially writing skills since businesses want to convey their idea, a message, a concept to employees, customers, partners, contractors all over the world. We can think of a lot of reasons why writing skills are important in the business world. As communication technologies and information are having a great impact on all the aspects of the language use, written communication changes, too. The more diffused computer-mediated communications are, the more we witness a modification in the purpose of writing, the genres of written communication and the nature of the audience. For both teachers and students, writing has always been a problematic issue, due to several aspects, among which the most significant ones are: it is more time-consuming, it is not very dynamic, it is not very interactive and therefore, it is more difficult to be integrated in the structure of the course of Business English. The whole picture has changed. One of the most used platforms among students is WhatsApp, being a popular instructional learning medium. The present article is based on research using semistructured interviews, in the qualitative phase, as an instrument for data collection, aimed to find out the students’ perspective towards the use of WhatsApp group in improving their writing ability in English. The sample of the study consists of 45 students at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Oradea, first and second year of study. The author wants to research how today’s technology influences the development of writing skills in Business English students, more exactly the impact of the WhatsApp groups, in the case of the abovementioned students. The elements discussed are the following: tone, simplicity, clarity and concision. The results show that the students feel that their writing skills have improved after a period of using WhatsApp group and benefit during the teaching and learning process. It also shows that it can develop the writing ability of the students. This result is supported by the opinions of the students who gave more good responses than bad ones. Thus, the result shows that the WhatsApp group is one of the most appreciated and appropriate learning platforms for today’s Generation Z.

Business English, as we know it today, is a part of the field of English for Specific Purposes, having two distinct areas: English for General Business Purposes and English for Specific Business Purposes. Both these areas are facing a rapid growth, with an increasing demand for teaching materials and improvement. Nowadays teachers face the challenge of developing not only general speech habits for their students but also rhetoric skills in order for the negotiations to be effective. The complex economic and political scene worldwide requires specific abilities for sophisticated communication. Thus, the teaching of the speaking skill has become increasingly important. Two decades ago, the accuracy of the students’ language would most likely tend to be the major criterion whereas nowadays educators and researchers alike have come to the conclusion that communicative competence entails not only grammatical accuracy but also some other factors such as: sociocultural rules of appropriateness, discourse norms, and strategies for a rhetoric approach of the skills. Some applied linguists consider that the communicative competence comprises the following elements: grammatical or linguistic competence, socio-cultural competence, discourse competence and strategic competence. The present paper tries to express some of our ideas regarding the question: How can teachers of Business English improve their students’ communication skills?