In my almost twenty years of teaching office English courses for our corporate clients across the U.S., I’ve learned a lot of techniques and approaches that support the most effective outcomes but in the end, I have found that there are three key qualities that are the biggest factors in the success of a business English class experience. It’s very tempting to put the focus on things like textbooks and classroom materials, technologically advanced audiovisual equipment, etc. We once landed a really large contract for providing workplace English classes for a sizable corporation for a large population of over a hundred vocational workers. They asked me for recommendations for facilities and equipment to support the program and to my surprise, they accepted all of my recommendations. They rented dedicated classroom buildings and moved them onto their property along with modern mobile desks that I felt would really support a creative and adaptable learning environment, document projectors, internet, etc. I thought this would be an unprecedented dream environment for our teachers to have as a resource but in the end, all of the equipment and gadgets were not nearly as influential as originally anticipated. Instead there were three keys that proved to be the most influential in a successful outcome.
1. proper leveling of students
Assessing the population of prospective program participants to determine their level of English competency is critical so that the population can be segregated into classes comprised of participants possessing complementary English communication abilities. If the differences in levels among a group of students is unreasonably large, the effectiveness of the learning experience is greatly diminished. The lower level students in the class will feel intimidated by the more advanced abilities of the other students and will be frustrated and discouraged by the faster pace the more advanced students desire and vice versa. The more advanced students will start to feel bored and unstimulated by the slower learning pave of the lower level students. The entire experience becomes an exercise in frustration for all participants as well as the teacher and attendance will start to suffer.
2. supportive management
I’ve worked with clients who are excited about the prospect of having an on-site English course but in the actual experience of having one operating, their enthusiasm sometimes doesn’t translate into overt support for the classes. The program participants take great encouragement from the management team openly supporting attendance of classes as well as recognizing the improvement in their English communication skills. Upper management should communicate with all of the supervisors about having solidarity of support for participation in the English course so that participants can be made to feel that their enrollment in the ESL program is regarded as important. If employees participating in the business English training course need to leave their shift early, they should not be shamed for it. There have been cases where direct supervisors openly disapproved of employees on their team leaving their shift to attend classes and predictably, the lack of support and encouragement negatively impacted not only attendance but their enthusiasm for participating.
3. imaginative teachers
Arguably, there is no greater influence than having passionate, imaginative ESL teachers leading the learning experience. A great learning experience starts and ends with the teacher. It’s not merely about knowledge of teaching methodology. There are a lot of ESL teachers with substantial knowledge and experience but there is a smaller segment of that population that clearly have a particular facility and gift for the craft of teaching. They have an innate understanding of how to read ever changing student needs creatively respond in a manner that meets each student where they are at. The greatest teachers have a wonderful blend of passion, care, and imagination/creativity that they bring to the learning experience and it is infectious.
CONCLUSION
These three keys components of a successful business English training course experience can strongly elevate the probability of successful outcomes for all participants. If you are interested in a more in depth exploration of the key features of a successful business English training course, read the follow up blog post to this one.
