7. Business English and the Bologna Declaration in the Netherlands: Integrating business communication practice, content and research

In this chapter, we provide a description of the International Business Communication Studies Bachelor and Master degree programmes that were implemented between 2002 and 2006, at Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands), in accordance with the Bologna Declaration (1999). To illustrate the approach we take to integrate Business English in the curriculum, we discuss four (compulsory and elective) courses that specifically involve the teaching of Business English. Two courses aim at promoting language proficiency and business communicative competence, the others at investigating Business English as discourse. For each, we describe how business content, research components and Business English are combined, and how the courses reference new technologies and their use in an increasingly global business context, where English is the lingua franca.