BTS Assistant de Gestion PME-PMI
Transcription
BTS Assistant de Gestion PME-PMI
BTS Assistant de Gestion PME-PMI 1998 ANGLAIS LE DICTIONNAIRE BILINGUE EST AUTORISE (à l'exclusion de tout dictionnaire électronique) Durée 2 H 00 THE ACCENT IS ON BUSINESS Companies working in the international arena are sending their staff back to school to learn to speak their clients' language By Marcus Gibson When a big British insurance company was unexpectedly bought by a French group last year, its key staff had to take a crash course in French. They suddenly found themselves in a situation which is increasingly common these days: as a business leaps across national frontiers, its executives need to master a foreign language. It has long been known that exporters need to be able to speak the language of their potential clients. But that was just the beginning: it is now becoming important that employees such as dealers in the international money markets and those involved in financial institutions should at least be bilingual. "Anyone wanting to trade successfully in the international arena must be a linguist," said Professor Eric de la Croix of the European Business School (EBS) in London. In the past seven years there has been a monumental shift in the qualifications needed for jobs in finance. Nearly every advertisement emphasises ability in languages." The EBS requires students to study two foreign languages for six hours a week. It offers French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. All too often, however, businesses find that it is hard to fit expert tuition into their hectic, erratic schedules. There are complaints that language learning for business 24-30 JULY 1997 Coefficient 1,5 purposes is poorly served by some traditional schools, which tend to see themselves as part of higher education, not of the business community. The result, says Jonathan Smith, the director of the European Centre for Business, a specialist languages-forbusiness training college which opened in Manchester, England, in 1992, is that many schools have little understanding of the true needs of the business community. "Recognising what they really need is the first step," says Smith. "Many language colleges are happy to sell companies all manner of training courses when it might not be the best solution." Companies come to the centre, he says, "with a problem that needs to be urgently addressed." And language teaching has to be flexible. 1t is no good telling a major company that the teacher is not available on a certain day." Smith gave the example of a large British bank which wanted to transfer certain computer functions from Paris to Manchester. British staff required a fivemonth crash course in Paris, together with instant "on the phone" linguistic support after the course had finished. Smith says: “Instead of sitting in classrooms, our teachers spent 80 per cent of their time onsite with the client." [...] One new trend is that European executives require languages not just because they are selling across borders, but because they are having to manage across borders. While many can "get by" in a foreign language, it is not enough to enable them to be as competent a manager abroad as they were at home. This is a type of transnational responsibility that is becoming more common as most senior managers expect to shoulder cross-border duties during their careers. THE EUROPEAN QUESTIONS I. COMPREHENSION DE L’ECRIT (12 points) Après une lecture attentive du texte, vous rédigerez en ANGLAIS un COMPTE RENDU de 140 à180 mots. (Vous indiquerez le nombre de mots utilisés). II. TRADUCTION EN FRANÇAIS (8 points) Vous traduirez depuis “When a big British insurance company ...” (§1) jusqu'à “…at least be bilingual." (§2). Correction : I/ VERSION Quand un groupe français a créé la surprise en se rendant acquéreur, l’an passé, d’une importante compagnie d’assurances britannique, les personnes qui occupaient des postes clés dans cette dernière ont bien été obligées de prendre des cours intensifs de français. n’ont eu d’autre choix que Ils se sont trouvés brutalement confrontés à une situation qui est, de nos jours, de plus en plus fréquente : quand une passe d’un pays à un autre, entreprise change de nationalité, ses cadres ont besoin de maîtriser une langue étrangère. franchit des frontières, Depuis longtemps, on sait qu’il est indispensable pour les exportateurs de parler la langue de leurs clients potentiels. Mais ce n’était qu’un début : Le bilinguisme, au minimum, devient à présent primordial pour des employés tels que les opérateurs des marchés monétaires internationaux, ou que ceux qui travaillent pour des institutions financières. II/ COMPTE RENDU This article from the European deals with the increasing importance of mastering several languages in the business world, a phenomenon that grew more important in the 1990s’. In Import/Export activities, fluency in a second language has long been a requisite. With the globalisation of trade, though, the need has spread to other industries. The financial sector in particular wants at least bilingual executives. International buy-outs and mergers mean that linguistic skills are no longer necessary just to deal with foreign customers, but also for global managers to be able to run multinational teams. Business schools consequently stress the importance of languages in their curricula. However, many companies regret it that schools tend to provide a teaching which is too academic. They look for educational organisations that can address their specific needs : first, they should be able to adapt to the demanding time-tables of the company. They also should not limit teaching to the classroom, and be able to help students onsite with the technical specificities of a given job. (170 mots)