COBCOE 600-1000 words
Language training for 21st century business
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela What added value can a language training partner bring to your business? Everyone speaks English these days. English is the language of business. So why bother learning anything else? Obviously many people feel this way – or at least many English speakers feel this way. However, they are missing a trick in the business communication stakes. When building close customer relationships is the key to successful business, making potential clients speak in your language without making any effort to meet them halfway is simply a bad strategy. Imagine that you speak rusty French, and two French businesspeople come to visit you to try and gain your business. One forces you to speak French, as they have no English, have spent little time in the UK, and know nothing about the place. The other expresses a preference to speak English with you, has heard of your hometown and knows something about UK current affairs & UK customs. Who will you treat more sympathetically when it comes to awarding the contract? Assessing your needs The first thing you need to know is what language needs your staff actually have. Managers often express the need for employees 'to be able to speak Spanish' but it is important to analyse this in more detail. A professional language training provider can assess your staff's skills and needs with a Language Audit. This consists of interviews with managers and staff to assess what contexts foreign languages are required for, and to what levels of skill, in what areas of specialisation. For individuals, a detailed Needs Analysis can be carried out. This will identify the purpose of this person's foreign language skills – do they need to speak on the phone or just read materials and write a brief email? Do they need to give presentations in the language – and more importantly, answer questions from the floor - or only make social small talk at receptions? These are very different contexts that require different learning programmes.
How language learning works Language learning is simple and natural for children – but can be difficult for adults. For most people there is no quick fix – you can't learn a language overnight. Teachers often have stories of clients who call and say 'I have a sales conference in Rome next week and have to give a presentation – can you teach me Italian?' Of course this is not possible – but in a short time you can learn enough to make some social connections, if the learning is targeted and efficiently planned. Of course everyone is different. Some people can 'pick up' a language very quickly, especially if they are living in the language context – for these learners, language learning is intuitive. For others, it is a much more explicitly cognitive process, and they try hard to learn words and grammar as if they were items of knowledge – like learning dates in history.
This is a natural desire – to know what is going on and 'understand' the system of the language. But people rarely learn to speak well – to communicate effectively in business contexts – by learning grammar and phrases from a book. Learning to speak is like learning to ride a bike or drive a car – you have to learn by doing. You can study how it works (grammar or mechanics) but that won't necessarily let you speak or drive well. The key issue is speaking. You learn to speak a language by speaking it in a learning context with a qualified trainer as a guide to save you time and money and keep you on the right track.
What to look for in a provider Every language training provider will say that have high quality courses and highly-qualified teachers. These statements bear some examination Is the language provider assessed externally by a Quality Assurance body? For schools teaching English to foreigners these may include EnglishUK (in UK only), EAQUALS (Europe-wide, and for all languages) ACCET (USA) and so on. If they are not inspected by this kind of body, as relevant to the location and language, then they have no claim to quality. And don't be dazzled by ISO certification. This is an excellent and highly regarded quality mark, but it is not enough. It is based mostly on an assessment of management process and administration, not an assessment of academic content or delivery. In other words, a school can be well-organised and well-certified and still have under-qualified or poor teachers. Are the teachers qualified? For teachers of English to foreigners – if you need to contract with teachers for nonUK staff - the international minimum standard is a qualification such as CELTA, Trinity TESOL, or the International House Certificate. There are many 'TEFL' courses which are not accredited and teachers may be well-intentioned though inadequately prepared. For the teachers of other languages there are different national and international standards, depending on the language. Insist on learning the nature of the qualification and whether it included detailed methodology – and observed practice teaching as part of the assessment of the teacher's skills.
What else do you need? Everyone has different needs. Some employees will need only a quick brush-up of language learned but rusty. Others will need a long-term learning plan, covering different skills (eg writing reports as well as socialising at business dinners). Others again will need some inter-cultural input – an area easily overlooked at the company's peril. If a manager is going to be travelling a lot, or posted abroad for an extended stay, then it is wise to assess their levels of sophisticated cultural sensitivity. A newly-promoted manager who has never lived abroad and only been on brief vacations outside their own country may need a brief intensive course in cultural awareness of different ways of living and working – to avoid those embarrassing gaffes. An intensive 1-day investment is better than a disappointed and unimpressed client on the receiving end of someone who steps on their cultural toes.
Some golden rules Language learners are all at different levels – it's like learning to ski. You wouldn't send a beginner down a black run, and similarly language learners need to be assigned to learning groups by the level of their oral performance. Written tests don't give the full picture – in the same way that a beginner skier could answer multiple choice questions on skiing rules successfully but not cope with the black run, a language learner can answer written questions at a higher level than they can perform. And oral performance – aka how well you can actually form sentences and communicate when speaking to real business partners – is the only thing that counts. Language learning takes time - don't believe anyone who says you can learn to speak fluently in a short time. There is no 'unique' method – successful learning takes, time, effort, and the support of a patient and experienced teacher. Any provider that claims to have a 'unique' method to allow you to speak 'in a week' or 'learn 100 words a day' is simply not realistic. Cheaper is not better – when providers tender for a teaching contract, their price will be based on the rates they pay their teachers. A low price suggests they are employing unqualified teachers with no real employment relationship. This may be a factor in a competitive market, but such teachers are likely to have little motivation to prepare training sessions carefully, spend time on detailed trainee assessments and reports. A professional provider will have professional staff, who have a long-term commitment to working with the provider. Investment in communications is always a benefit to your business - and when working internationally, a key investment not to overlook is effective language training for key staff. "Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages." David Barry, American humorist
Michael Carrier
Michael Carrier FRSA is Executive Director of International House World Organisation Ltd, a network of over 130 language schools in 46 countries teaching over 20 languages.