Hello and welcome to the course Business English for Cross-cultural Communication. Hi I'm Sean McMinn, and I am one of the instructors that will be with you throughout the following weeks in this course. Together with Delian Gaskell and Kin Tang, the three of us are extremely excited about our journey. And we're really looking forward to the various discussions, activities, and engagement that we've developed for you in this course. That we'll be focusing on A, your English proficiency, B, your business communication skills, and three, your cross-cultural communication skills. So in a sense, this course has many different goals. We are going to be using the concept of culture and cross-cultural communication to help build your business English proficiency skills. So there'll be a lot of talk of us talking about culture and what you think culture is and how you can use cultural understanding to enhance your business. We'll be using this content, and theories, and discussions about culture to help build your English proficiency skills. So that's one thing that we hope to do. We hope that by making this course interesting by talking about culture. And the idea of cross-culture communication in today's globalized world that will be able to improve your English vocabulary. Your English pronunciation, your communication skills, your writing and your speaking. Of course, on top of talking about culture and cross-culture communication we'll also have specific activities that focus on your English skills. So you will be able to practice your vocabulary. You'll be given input about pronunciation, and you'll also be given input about common grammar errors. So we're combining three things, we're combining content, content about culture, cross-culture communication, globalization. And a little bit of digital literacies and a little bit of ethics, things that we need to consider in today's globalized world. And you'll be taking that content, you'll be taking that knowledge. And you'll be using it to improve your English, whether it's spoken or written, your vocabulary skills, your pronunciation skills. So really, this course has two main goals. But at the end of the day, our biggest goal is to help improve your English. We really are excited about this course because there's a lot of interesting things to talk about. And in one way this course is very fit for this type of world, because many of you are going to be from different cultures. From Asia, from South America, from North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, we are going to be within a network of many learners. And what better subject to talk about than culture. And hopefully, by the end of this course, you will have a better understanding of other cultures, cultures other than your own. And hopefully you'll be able to learn from that. And you'll be able to apply it when you are in a business situation and dealing with people from other cultures. So we're really happy to have you here. Good luck with this course. We're looking forward to the engagement, and I'm looking forward to learning more about different cultures by engaging you in this course as well. Have a look at the rest of the content in this module to learn more about this course in the specialization, and what to expect for the weeks to come. Thank you for watching.