What I Don't Teach and Why

There are several things I have all but removed from my training.  I am not unprepared to teach them nor do I inherently disagree with these points, but they consistently fall into the low frequency/low value part of my training plan based on the learners' need.

Whether it is part of a lesson plan, encountered in the lesson, or part of feedback, I typically evaluate the relative importance of the language item.  This includes lexis, grammar, functions and skills.

Frequency is how often they will use/see the language in their work tasks and international communication situations.  Value represents the impact of the item on a range of categories including possibility for miscommunication, impact of miscommunication, typical audience, effect on respect and reputation, impact on the situation intent (persuade, inform, build relationships, etc.).

From this I notice several topics which consistently drop in importance and do not warrant spending our limited training time on the subject.

Negotiating

While certain functions within the negotiation dance such as suggesting and bargaining (really just a disguise for the II Conditional in a grammatical syllabus) are useful, my learners almost never face this context.  For my German learners, there are few employees who have this responsibility without the pre-requisite of proficient English.  I will cover suggesting and the II Conditional in other contexts, but my general rule is, "If we can't create a simulation for it from the class, don't have a role play about it."

Idioms

Sorry, but they are all but gone.  This is based on several factors.  My learners normally have limited NS contact.  Of those they do work with, there are fewer exchanges with 'novice' international communicators.  In my observations, these Americans and Brits are experienced enough to monitor idiom usage.  They may add great color to language and provide for a quick laugh in class, but we can find humor in other ways, and giving the idioms a trainer 'stamp of approval' will only increase the chances for miscommunication when they use them with other NNSs.

Storytelling

I understand that telling good stories is important in building relationships.  But I also know many NSs (myself included) who can tell some really horrible stories.  In general, I find that when they want to tell a story... they get it out.  For the grammar, the narrative tenses only seem to increase doubt in my learners.  For the vocabulary, we simply don't have time to cover enough topical areas to fill the gaps.  Other elements (like linking phrases and adverbs of commentary) can be placed into other areas as well.  We do cover adjectives to describe emotions and other ways to express interest, surprise, stress, etc... but storytelling is not a key aspect of the training.

The Present Perfect for Past Events that Have Present Importance

This is always the element of the present perfect that confuses my learners the most.  As an American, I also see it as a nice element of British English.  So, I typically only teach the present perfect in two ways:  1)  life experience, 2)  giving current facts and states context.  I don't really see much wrong with saying, "If it is a finished action, put it in the past."  After all, my German learners typically make the opposite error and put everything in the present perfect.

Phrasal Verbs

This follows much of the idioms line of thinking.  We will look at the overall meaning of 'get' (get back, get up, get + adj) and few key phrasal verbs we see often in BE like 'pick up' and 'drop off'.  But when I see list of 500 Phrasal Verbs, I move on.  Remember, my learners are primarily communicating with other NNSs where proficiency levels are often lower.  Setting the idea of 'one word - one meaning' may sound sterile and cold, but ultimately much more effective in their high frequency situations.

Telephoning to Make Arrangements

How this became the standard for telephoning 101 in course books I'll never quite understand.  My leaners don't make arrangements by telephone... they make them with Outlook (or at least email).  My suspicion is that this lesson just mixes so nicely with the grammatical syllabus which states we need to learn the present continuous for the future.  By the way, this grammar is often not so important with my learners either.  By the time they are ready to learn, I typically already hear it emerge from on-the-job exposure.

Report Writing

Nope... don't do it.  I have a few questions about this.  Who has time to write and read prolonged reports?  My learners don't.  Some do write reports, but they are typically under 200 words in total with a wide range of images and graphics.  Who read these reports?  In most cases I have seen, the report travels at a maximum of two level horizontally or vertically.  Presumibly at that level, relationships, trust, and respect have already been developed.

Writing a Letter of Complaint

When was the last time you or someone you knew wrote a letter to a hotel to complain about the accomdation or service?  I have two types of learners, complainers and non-complainers.  The complainers already know how to do it (in any language, I think), and it feels unnatural for the non-complainers.  Yes, there are situations that are 'unacceptable' in daily business and conflicts do erupt between suppliers, customers, and colleagues.  Through my coaching I get to see them regularly.  Expressing disappointment or frustration may be a better way to describe this.  This is easily covered by teaching common uses of 'still', the 'present perfect continuous', and 'not...enough'/'too'.  Needless to say, I haven't seen a letter in a long, long, time.

But...

While these items are rarely part of my training, I would never refuse to work with learners to develop them.  For some job functions, these items may be more important (e.g. secretaries, intense work with NSs, specific department functions) and will be included in the performance objectives.  Furthermore, as they begin to master their current tasks, we will shift our importance to focus on future skills.

The point is, no materials writer knows my learners as well as I do.  What the ESL profession thinks they should learn is often not that important.  When planning lessons and dealing with emergent language, we need to pick and choose how we spend our time and their effort.

Intercultural Training; The Options for a BE Trainer

Of course any issue covered by Chia Soun Chong gains immediate attention and debate.  And of course it is great to see some of my mentors like Marjorie Rosenberg and Ed Pegg add their thoughts.  So, I figured it might be time for me to reflect a bit on my approach to intercultural communication and how it applies to my business English training.

I have identified several options for the BE trainer to train the effect of cultural interference on their communication.

Option 0 - Ignore it.

Option 1 - Train 'above the surface' aspects for various cultures (etiquette, dos and don'ts).

Option 2 - Train values, norms, and beliefs for selected countries pertaining to class or likely interactions (often BRIC and US/UK).

Option 3 - Train learners about their own culture (whole iceberg) to raise awareness of differences and perceptions.

Option 4 - Train overarching concepts of inter-cultural communication (e.g high/low context, ethnocentrism, non-verbal message codes, uncertainty avoidance).

Option 5 - Train learners to recognize when culture has affected communication and how to resolve it.  This is often in the form of 'critical incident' training.

In discussion with Carl Dowse, he offered another option, giving learners a skill set (such as that provided in Bob Dignan's book Communicating Internationally in English) for the learners to handle a range of cultures and personalities.

Each of these options has advantages and disadvantages and the choice should depend on the training situation.  For this reason, the trainer should know when to apply various resources in training.  Course books handle this in various ways.  For example, Market Leader has tended to go for option 1, whereas Intelligent Business has gone with a mix of option 3 and 4 with an introduction to inter-cultural communication concepts and a rating scale for the learner to assess their own culture.  Either could be appropriate depending on the learners.

For this reason, we need some kind of assessment criteria for how to introduce this into our training.  I offer several criteria...

Needs - what do they want?
Time - how much time do we have and are we sacraficing language work?
Trainer and learner expertise/experience
ROI - how much will the training impact their communication effectiveness?
Behavior change - how much will the learners change/have to change to meet the goal?
Relavence - how likely are they to experience these concepts?
General to specific - where do we balance dealing with culture and handling personality types?

On this last point, we need to assess which cultures we are talking about here.  Ed Pegg and I were on the verge of a book deal on this one in Glasgow.  Hopefully, he can remember what we talked about.  Are they purely national?  Probably not.  Instead, they most likely include a whole range of cultural influences.

At the end of day, we can look at the materials we have and determine which option is best.  In my case, I most often find that option 3, teaching them their own culture from an outsider point of view, is most effective.  I train monoligual and often monocultural classes.  For them, the greatest benefit comes from seeing that what is normal and understood amongst themselves is often a far cry from what outsiders see, hear, and believe.

To give you an idea of the training, I have included the template presentation I give to my German learners.  Not all slides are used in training and this presentation does not include the discussion or activities which emerge from it.  These slides are generally introduced with the scenario: "This is training for employees in the US.  Your job is to review the presentation and determine if it is accurate and helpful for them."

Germany intercultural communication training

View more presentations from charlesrei.

So with all these options, it really is up to the trainer and learner to decide on what the right course of action is.  Simply training culture merely because it is in the material is not the best plan.  Additionally, not considering it at all is certainly not appropriate.  As business English trainers, our mandate is to improve the communication our clients.  If we stop at the present perfect continuous we are not realzing our value sold.

10 Tips for ESL Presentation Coaching

For me, one of the most rewarding experiences as a trainer is to rehearse actual presentations and web meetings with participants.  For them, it is a huge confidence boost and helps them stay on message during the real thing.  For us, we gain valuable insight on the business, and are better able to provide targeted follow-up training.

This situation, however, requires trainers to change roles and expectations for the training event.  When setting up the training there are several keys to success.  First, try to have the training in the same environment as the real event.  If it is online, set up a web meeting.  If it is in a technical training room, reserve the training facility.  Second, try to get the presentation before the event to help you prepare.  For the most part the rehearsal will be participant led, but walking in with some warning of what you are about to see it helpful.  Third, make sure the participant brings a printed copy of the slides to the training.  Constantly changing between presentation view and edit view in PowerPoint disturbs the flow of the rehearsal.  It is better to make written notes on the slides for later reference.  This also allows the participant to review what we covered after the training.  Finally, try to enlist the help of a colleague to sit in and also give feedback and take notes.  This person will help refine the content of the presentation and can augment trainer feedback.

Once the training is arranged there are several tips for a successful coaching, here are ten.

1.  Audience Analysis

More than likely, the presenter has been so wrapped up in the details of the presentation that they have forgotten about the audience.  First, elict as much information about the audience as you can.  Who are the attendees?  What are their jobs?  What do they expect to get from the presentation?  Second, because most presentations are given to other non-native speakers, try to find out what level of English we are talking about.  Very often I see slides come back from the translators at a higher level.  We need to make sure the audience will understand what we are presenting.

2.  Modelling

It is helpful to give the participant a starting point by modelling the introduction or certain key parts of the presentation.  This could include key diagrams and graphics or particularly complex topics.  Remember to keep the model at the level of the participant.  So, if the presenter is B1 and the audience is assumed to be A2, keep the language appropriate.  Setting the bar too high is demotivating for the presenter.  We are hoping to avoid the phrase, "Oh wow!  You should give this presentation."

Modelling also provides the opportunity for the trainer to highlight discourse markers like "First..", "Next...", and "Let's take a look at..." as well as topic and slide transition phrases.  The model is only to get the ball rolling and should be as short as needed (typically 1-2 minutes is enough).

3.  The slides as an aid / hindrance

The slides can both help and hinder the presenter.  The presenter will naturally want to use the text from the slides as much as possible to help them find the words.  This causes several problems.  First, it normally distorts their body language and reduces the impact of their voice.  Second, if the attendees are not clear about the meaning of a bullet point, explaining it in the same terms will not help their understanding.  Finally, overusing the text often disturbs the flow of the explanation.  The presenter explains bullet point one... stops... reads... then explains bullet point two.  This makes it difficult for the listener to get the context of the slide and how all the parts fit together.

On the other hand, slides can provide a great reference for the presenter to organize their thoughts and signal where discourse markers should be placed.  I advise my learners not to have written notes or slide presentation notes because they already have most of the information on the slides.  Instead, we should look how we can use the text to aid the presentation.  I recommend placing some key words in bold, italics, or in different colors so that when they look at the screen they can quickly identify the main points before speaking.  Often, I will also have the learner turn away from the screen or close their eyes and simply talk about what they know on the subject.  This helps give the slide more flow and explains the text in different words.

4.  Timing

In most cases, the English presentation is copied or adapted from a presentation in L1.  The learners often fail to realize that presenting in L2 will take much longer.  Sometimes to fit the presentation into the allotted time slot, difficult choices must be made.  For example, if the most important information is at the end of the presentation, you might want to consider reorganizing the slides.  We don't want to be rushing to finish during our main point.  I find that the same number of slides and amount of content will take at least 50% more time than in L1 (depending on level).

This is also a time to remind them that going faster is not really the best answer.  Because the audience is also non-native speaker, they will need more time to to read the text, listen to the presenter, and understand the material.

5.  Audience Multitasking

Expanding on this, it helps to shows the presenter what the audience will be doing during the presentation.  In L1, it is possible for the audience to read, listen, and think about the material simultaneously.  In L2, this is a huge challenge.  Often, the presenter will change slides and dive right in talking about the material.  I typically tell the learner not to be afraid of silence.  Give the audience a moment to digest the material.  Don't ask them to read and listen at the same time... they will stop doing one or both.

6.  Two-way Communication

Many business presentations are inherently one-way communication, but in the L2 environment two-way communication is crucial for the presenter.  The audience will be very hesitant to interrupt them with questions and if they don't understand the material they might be too embarrassed to acknowledge it.  I encourage the learners to state at the beginning that if the audience doesn't understand something, let the presenter know.  The presenter will also often try to avoid two-way communication to minimize the demands in English.  They present a slide, transition, and start talking about the next.  Encourage the participant to stop, ask for questions, watch for non-verbal communication, ask for feedback, etc.

7.  Realistic Changes

Most of these training events occur shortly before the real presentation.  It would be great to be part of the drafting process, but that is not always practical.  So when making suggestions for changes we need to be realistic about how much time the learner has.  A rule of thumb is that for small edits, estimate 5 minutes per slide.  For text reorganization, 10-15 minutes per slide.  For larger reorganization and changes, 20-30 minutes per slide.  We don't want to make recommendations and then either stress the learner to make them (giving them less time to consider our feedback) or cause them to doubt the quality of the presentation.

8.  Content Gaps

One helpful thing during the rehearsal is to listen for topics they are not covering.  Have they assumed some kind of prior knowledge because they are an expert?  This is where having the colleague in the room can be very helpful.  When I am reading the presentation before the training, I am thinking of what questions the audience will have for the presenter.  Sometimes we find topics that the participant has simply forgotten to include in the presentation.

9.  Limited Language Input

This is not really the time for language input and correction.  Vocabulary retention is minimal in this context and improving accuracy should not be the aim of the training.  That said, any glaring cultural errors or errors which could cause significant misunderstandings should be corrected.  Occasionally, I will monitor for accuracy, but mostly only to drive future training.  In this scenario, we need to give the learner as much confidence as possible, pointing out verbs tenses doesn't help this effort.  I will, however, listen for words or phrases which are overly used, such as "overview" or "in this environment" and try to help the learner find other expressions.

10. Review and Summarize

Finally, save some time at the end of the training to review what you have covered, distill the feedback into general concepts, and make task lists prior to the presentation.  The coaching event is a stressful time for the learner and they have probably not had the chance to take everything in.  Also, they have been 'on stage' and have not had the opportunity to stop, take some notes, and really consider the feedback.  This review and summary stage helps them implement the advice they have received.

Of course, after the training event, check back with the learner to find out how everything went and congratulate them for a job well done.  The students will be thankful for your feedback and truly grateful for helping them make a great impression on their audience.