Multilingual Education for International Business

Education for future international business (IB) practitioners must be linked to a clear multilingual and multicultural approach. In this chapter, the authors present a case of study of the setup, aspects, and implementations of an IB undergraduate program carried out mostly in a foreign language (English). The program here presented also requires students to acquire a third language, and thus has become the first IB program of its kind in Colombia. The consequences, challenges, and opportunities derived from this multilingual approach to business education are then discussed in this chapter. Through data collected from the study program, it is possible to draw attention to the link between linguistic skills and academic performance, which leads to a short overview of the cognitive correlates to multilingualism and the learning process aspects associated with the use of a foreign language in the classroom. Finally, the authors draft some recommendations for educators and professionals designing IB study programs with a multilingual approach.