Cross-Cultural Communication
Navigate cultural differences in global business with diplomatic communication
Who it's for
Written for C1 (advanced) students whose English already works and who want it to work in demanding situations.
C1 lessons on leading teams and working across cultures. More Business English Advanced lesson plans
Skills it practises
- Speaking: discussion questionsevery lesson
- Vocabulary: a target word listevery lesson
- Reading: a text or news storyevery lesson
- Controlled practice: gap-fills, matching, sorting and moreevery lesson
- Role-play: a dialogue to act outevery lesson
- An answer framework to structure what they sayevery lesson
Lessons
- Understanding Cultural DimensionsGoal: chair a meeting where one colleague is bluntly direct and another carefully indirect — decode the soft 'no', draw out the real opinion, and land a decision both can live with.1 hr 13 minFree
- Navigating Cultural Differences in BusinessGoal: deliver the same piece of difficult news twice — calibrated for a direct culture and an indirect one — so the message survives and the partnership does too.1 hr 6 minOutline
- Building Cross-Cultural RelationshipsGoal: repair a cross-cultural working relationship after your message lands badly — the CARE conversation, from catching the silence to agreeing new ground rules.1 hr 13 minOutline
- Communication Styles Across CulturesGoal: catch the hidden message — decode hedged feedback like 'quite good' or 'we will do our best', check your reading aloud with the Read-Back, and pin down what was actually agreed.1 hr 13 minOutline
- Managing Multicultural TeamsGoal: lead the first meeting of a multicultural team — frame difference as the asset, co-create working norms, and defuse the first style clash without taking sides.1 hr 13 minOutline
- Cross-Cultural NegotiationGoal: run a negotiation where the other side's silence, indirectness and decision-making rhythm differ from yours — probe the soft 'no' with checking-assumptions language, reshape the deal, and close without forcing.1 hr 13 minOutline
- Cultural Intelligence in Global BusinessGoal: walk into your first meeting in a business culture you don't know — and surface the local rules before you break them, with one researched detail, mirrored behaviour, norm-surfacing questions and a flagged assumption.1 hr 6 minOutline
- Avoiding Cross-Cultural MiscommunicationGoal: close any international meeting so every side leaves with the same understanding — strip the idioms, read back the agreement, ask the safe question, and anchor it in writing with a flag window.1 hr 13 minOutline
How to use it in a lesson
- Lessons run 66 to 73 minutes, with a timing on every stage, so you can see before you start what fits your slot.
- Start with "Understanding Cultural Dimensions": its whole plan is on this site, stage by stage, with the target vocabulary, free to read and to teach from on any video call.
- For a shorter slot, skip a practice stage or cut the discussion short: the stages are a guide, not a script.
Teach Cross-Cultural Communication with your student
Lesson 1 of this course is free. A free account opens it in the interactive player, and the rest of the course is included with Starter. Teaching it live with your student in the Tuton classroom starts with a 7-day free trial.
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