Photo by: Sajjad Hussain M
Any time is a good time to start a business English course, but the start of the year is an excellent time. People are fresh off their holidays and more motivated. Perhaps 2024 feedback showed you’re missing out on new projects because your teams are not confident enough to work in English. Now is the perfect time you can do something about it.
So, how do you start? Here are some suggested steps:
1 Survey your employees and find out who needs to improve their English level for their daily work. In which cases is it mission critical? Are you missing out on new projects because some people are not confident enough to work in English? Which teams and departments will benefit most from business English coaching and training? Start with these employees.
2 Find out who would like to improve. Even when it’s not the top priority for some people to improve their business English, offering business English classes boosts employee well being and creates a more positive and collegial atmosphere. It fosters greater connections between teams and departments, breaking down silos and facilitating problem solving.
3 Identify what the interested people need to improve and why e.g. do they need to improve their English presentation skills for international conferences? Or do they need to improve listening comprehension so they can understand (in a phone call) what the client needs?
4 Identify the company, department and team needs. This will ensure that your budget will be well spent and that courses have an impact on your business as well as addressing the individual needs and wishes of your employees.
5 Run an appropriate level test for everyone to identify their current level of business English (language and communication skills). Online tests often test passive skills only, but if you want to train your employees to speak English with confidence, make sure the level test includes a proper speaking level test.
That’s all for today, folks. Look out for part 2, which will be published later this week!