Why Business English Training is like a Smart Phone

I had a discussion  recently with a fellow trainer about drafting and using performance objectives (can do statements).  In the discussion, I used the simile of a smart phone, but I did not really have my thoughts in order.  So here is a clearer discussion.

Anyone who works in marketing these days will tell you that we have moved from the era of mass production to the age of mass customization.  Product managers and marketers are continually trying to find ways to create products which support the individual needs or wishes of consumers while at the same time retain the benefits of serial production.

Few products demonstrate the power to mass customization more than the smart phone.  A smart phone by itself has relatively limited value and does not really differ functionally than its dumb phone ancestors.  It makes phone calls, it saves phone numbers, it can transmit and receive data (i.e. internet) and it hosts a range of utility functions like a calculator and alarm.  Perhaps the only significant addition is a GPS antenna.

Instead, the true power of the smart phone is ability to customize the functionality with apps.  "There's probably an app for that," is no small statement about the power of the device.  The apps on my phone are probably very different than yours and our phones likely reflect our priorities, lifestyles and needs.  We may have the same model phone, but we have completely unique products.

What can you tell about me from my suggestion list?

So let's take a closer look at smart phones and how they relate to training.  I tend to think of the CEF levels as the model of phone - the processor speed, the connectivity rate, the memory, the basic operating system, etc.  A lower performance phone will not run as many apps or runs them very slowly much like a level learner has very limited flexibility in communication.  By comparison, the latest iPhone will run pretty much anything on the market and perform multiple functions simultaneously, much like an advanced learner.

Naturally, there are some basic functions every learner must be able to perform in English just like a phone must have a calculator, an alarm, a calendar, an SMS function and so on.  These are universal utilities which come with the operating system.  There is no customization and they are standard.  I generally think of A1 and A2 as the operating system levels in which I try to install simple functions like introductions, writing a simple email, using basic vocabulary and grammar, etc.  But once we have installed the OS, we can start inserting contacts and appointments, as well downloading some apps.

There are now over 1 million apps on Google Play and even more on iTunes, so the possibilities are endless.  I see three levels of apps.  First are the mainstream apps like Facebook, Skype and Adobe Reader.  These reach a large audience and typically perform routine functions.  In business English there are similar language items which nearly all learners will need.  For example, writing emails for request, giving opinions in a meeting and some general business vocabulary are fairly standard.  These areas are typically covered in course book, but sometimes the books go too far.

The second group of apps contains 'conditional apps'.  These are only useful for people who meet certain criteria but they may also be very popular.  For example, the Sparkasse (a consumer bank) app has over 1 million downloads, but only by Sparkasse customers.    In business English, these 'conditional apps' are the industry or job field skills.  Sales representatives tend to need more socializing, greeting visitors, talking about products and making persuasive presentations.  Accountants need more finance vocabulary and reporting financial results.  Customer service reps need more troubleshooting, telephoning and giving instructions.

Finally, there are the highly individual apps which reflect your lifestyle, personality and priorities.  The Lady Pill Reminder app is probably only for women using birth control (I wonder how many boyfriends/husbands have it as well).  On my phone, I have the baby phone app so that I can still visit the hotel bar with my wife while on vacation.  I am one of only a few thousand with the 1.FC Nürnberg app for my favorite football team.  I have the pronunciation app for work and a time keeper app to record my hours per client.  Although they may not be among the top 1000 in downloads, these are extremely useful.  The same is true for business English, working on language to fit a very specific situation is often the most useful for the learners.

Useful for freelancers?

I draw a few lessons from this metaphor.  The key lesson for me is refining the role of the trainer.  First, a trainer needs to know the 'app store' inside and out.  They need to know what is available and what the different functions are.  The trainer not only helps install and run the software, they also serve as the "Recommended for you" function.

The second lesson is in course design.  The farther the developer is from the end-user, the more general the course should be.  Imagine buying a smart phone with a bunch of apps you do not want, do not need and cannot use.  The same is true for selling 'packaged can do statements'.  Minecraft may have more than 5 million downloads, but that does not mean I want it.  While packaging course objectives is easy, it is not mass customization.  Also, if the course is stuffed with required functions, the trainer will find that the student's memory is full and they can't install the truly useful stuff.

The third lesson is that general to specific is not always the best way.  Smart phone users often download highly specific apps before the general ones because of their priorities.  Do not be afraid to train communication and language non-linearly.

The final lesson is from programming.  App developers write code in functional blocks.  Each bit of code performs a specific function like initializing the data receiver.  When they write apps, they will often copy, paste and modify these blocks for compatibility.  The same is true for activity types and exercises.  Two very different lessons and courses can include copy and paste parts (with slight adjustments).  A good programmer always documents their functional blocks (nothing is more frustrating to a programmer than undocumented code), so a trainer should keep their activities neatly documented and organized.  But, they should also keep in mind that using the activity verbatim almost always results in a compatibility bug.

So, I will leave it to you to design your own software.  It is not an easy task.  But as I sit at this cafe watching everyone tapping away on their phones, I can see that customization is not only possible, but the new expectation.

Pre-experienced and Experienced Learners - Thoughts from Graz

I have been giving presentations and writing blog posts about in-company training for the last several years.  Especially with the presentations, I often have problems trying to fit the content to the audience.  The problem is that I am facing two separate market segments... in-company trainers (often freelancers) who typically have much greater scope in determining needs, selecting/creating materials and delivering training.  But also in the audience are the Business English teachers and lecturers who have less control over the learning objectives, resources and methods.  Additionally, they face drastically different challenges concerning learner motivation, class size and assessment/reporting.  Not having experience operating in such a formal structure, I'd like to pass on some thoughts on what I see as those students enter the workforce and perhaps reflect on where I could see changes in institutional teaching.

Despite being in-company, I actually receive many pre-experienced learners.  My training is often aligned with the company's on-boarding program and the majority of new participants are in their first days or weeks at the company.  It is also normal for me to get participants who do not use English in their jobs yet, but it is coming.  In these cases, I feel I can relate somewhat to the challenges teachers face with pre-experienced learners.

I can draw several conclusions from what I see as these participants enter my training.

1.  Learners who had an English course which was aligned with their field of study had great advantages over those who only had a general Business English class.

2.  Motivation was much higher for learners who clearly understood that a) English would certainly be a integral part of their job and b) being able to conduct their job in English would be a competitive advantage for career progression.  Those who lacked this awareness were surprised by the reality of a bilingual working environment and suffered lower self-confidence.  They often had negative feelings toward improving their language.

3.  If an institution taught English as a practical skill, their graduates were much better prepared.  If the school treated English as a theoretical concept, the graduates were largely unable to adequately perform their tasks in L2.  This mindset was often reflected by the teaching methods and content.  Practical teaching focused heavily on production activities throughout the teaching, not just at assessment.  Unsurprisingly, those who emerged from a more theoretical approach were often overwhelmed by the apparent complexity of the language.

Let me give you examples of things going wrong.  You might be surprised at how often I am faced with entry-level accountants who cannot recognize the basic vocabulary from a balance sheet (almost zero new graduates).  Likewise, I routinely meet fresh-faced employees in the mechanical engineering field who cannot understand even the simplest terms like bearing, dimensions, or bolt.  I see this across fields with the exception of software.  I suspect that is because software terms have been developed in conjunction with the spread of English, they have an advantage because they often do not have L1 equivalent words.  However, you can see how wholly unprepared some of these learners are for performing their job in English.

Of course, I do not want to lump all educational institutions together.  There are many very good programs which are producing excellent international employees.  But the results appear to be hit or miss.  The one area in Germany which seems to be particularly poor is the apprenticeship path.  And this leads to a few observations about the content-need mismatch.

First, students and apprentices need English at a tactical level.  If course books reflect the nature of educational teaching, the content is far too managerial and strategic.  Even university graduates are entering the work force at a low level in the organization structure.  Most English communication at this level is problem oriented.  Companies have automatic processes/workflows and IT systems to handle routine tasks.  If everything runs as it should, very little communication is needed.  However, when the system breaks down, communication is needed to get back on track.  For example, missed deliveries, higher costs, missing files, incomplete reports, etc. are at the heart of communication.  New employees are not generally making business plans, discussing how to foster entrepreneurship in the company, devising a market campaign, or discussing who to promote and why.  Even among high-flyers, the company will not hand this much responsibility to a new employee from day one.  They typically have a separate development path in the company, but still deal with tactical matters at the beginning.

Second, far more English communication occurs internally or semi-internally than with customers.  Evan Frendo is right on the money with this observation and I cannot stress this point enough.  Most companies have strict communication filters between themselves and the customer.  In many cases, all external communication must go through a very small team in the corporate communications, marketing or sales departments.  There are a few exceptions to this, but they are all highly specialized.  For example, the customer service department speaks with customers, as will the accounting department in case of wrong invoices.  By and large however, entry-level employees are kept at arms length from the customer.  More English communication occurs semi-internally.  In this case, the employee needs to work with long-term suppliers or distributors.  While the communication is often between two companies, they work together so often and so deeply that they could almost be regarded as colleagues.  But by far, the most communication is internal - from department to department.  It is generally the consequence of off-shoring and outsourcing which are also the main reasons why English is needed so badly at lower echelons in the company.  A typical situation might be an email between the quality auditor in the home country and the factory in Romania.  Another example is the software developer in India and the tester in Germany.

Third, communication is highly transactional, but... it is far more complex that "Could you please...?"  I hear all the time from new participants that they want to improve "small talk".  When I scratch beneath the surface however, I find that what they really want is the ability to build relationships with their international contacts to ease the transactional nature of business.  They want to build trust with their global colleagues and suppliers.  The second aspect of communicating in companies is that students enter a high-context culture.  Office discourse is so difficult because of the body of shared knowledge, differing objectives and the hierarchical structure of decision-making and information flow.  While the email may be a simple request for clarification on the surface, the context can quickly land the employee in hot water.  I'm not sure this second aspect can be dealt with in education, but the teacher may want to keep it in mind.

So, what do I recommend?

1.  Create a balanced English program - one-third general English, one-third general Business English, one-third field specific "ESP Lite".  General English is important and under represented in the secondary schools (at least in Germany).  From the ages of 12-16, English is taught resembling CLIL.  Looking through the state school books, there is a chapter on Australia, the Big Apple, and reading about Obama's election.  I can distinctly remember helping a friend's child try to learn the words, abolition, underground railroad, whip, and quilt.  Can you imagine the topic?  I don't want to exaggerate, nor do I wish to insult school teachers at all.  I merely want to point out that some of the content prior to entering university is of marginal value in business socializing.  Also, by the time they enter the workforce years later, they often lack the simplest vocabulary to discuss their weekend.  I think ongoing general English learning would be very helpful.  I also think that general Business English is helpful as a foundation up to the intermediate level.  The problem with higher levels is the content of the course book.  Course books are generally organized by field:  one chapter on HR, one on projects, one on marketing, etc.  This works up to B1-B2 but then they become overly specific in the fields.  I think "ESP Lite" would be extremely helpful.  This will help the students prepare for the next steps.

2.  Take a step back from standardization.  I understand that a certain level of standardization is needed in an institutional environment.  However, I also observe that university level Business English teachers are an incredibly talented and professional group.  When I present at BESIG conferences, this is the group which makes me the most nervous because of their knowledge, expertise and experience.  I periodically lead standardized training with larger classes, but I always work under a very general set of can do statements.  Within the statement is enough room for me to maneuver.  I am able to conduct a modified needs analysis to refine the training.  The more detailed the can do statement, the more we rely on the institution's needs analysis.  In others words, the can do statement (and thus the assessment) had better be relevant or else we are wasting everyone's time.  I'm just thinking out load, but do these expert university teachers really need a step-by-step lesson plan with page numbers and activity types?

3.  Fortify the feedback loop from practice to content.  I currently have the suspicion from my pre-experience learners that many need analysis are conducted in Oxford, Cambridge or in the halls of Pearson Education.  Instead, I recommend shortening the feedback loop by drawing on a few resources.  Most institutions have a career placement program to help students transition to careers.  Where are graduates going?  What are they doing?  If a job is unfamiliar, read example job descriptions or visit the US Department of Labor Occupational Handbook for more.  Another idea is to build a relationship with HR groups and/or in-company Business English trainers in the area to get feedback.  For example, did you know that presentations are often much different in technical fields?  First, PowerPoint slides need more text because they must be clear without a verbal presentation.  The slide decks can travel far in the company without any meeting or spoken communication at all.  Second, verbal presentations are typically less than 5 minutes long and the most common visual aid is an Excel spreadsheet.  A presentation given in 'ELT format' is completely irrelevant.

In conclusion, I want to be very clear that my observations about the challenges in Business English teaching cannot possibly reflect every institution and every teacher.  However, I have questions based on the number of participants I see entering the workforce without the ability to conduct even the most routine tasks in their field.  Their brains are full of valuable knowledge and ideas, but they are locked behind the bars of language and skills.  I hope that my thoughts add something to the pre-experienced vs. experience learner discussion and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Three steps for improving ESP training

I've always been proud of my customer satisfaction figures.  Naturally, when I conduct my appraisals of Kirkpatrick's 4 Levels, I continue to see a slight decrease in results from response to results.  But, what has recently impressed me was how the whole satisfaction curve is starting to shift higher.  Greater engagement, faster application, higher results across the board.  On the emotional side, it is great to feel the customer mindset change from, "It's great training," to "It's absolutely vital training."  On the business side, referrals are up and sustainable success appears within reach.  It's inappropriate to boast, but I am genuinely proud that changes I made in training style and course design are starting to make a difference.  I'd like to describe a few of those changes.

Anyone who has read this blog or met me will know how passionate I am about relevance in training and using performance-based training methods.  In practice, this often means using framework materials.  Taken to the next step, it means using only pens, paper, whiteboards and the internet.  The trouble with approaching training with such limited resources is that you are restricted to the collective memory of the learning team (me + the participants) and what we can immediately resource using the internet.  This poses a distinct challenge for handling ESP situations in which I am not an expert.  Google only handles ESP at a general level, and the participants doubt the ability of the trainer to understand the complexity of the topic.  So here are the simplified steps to ESP.

Step 1 - Get the critical mass of knowledge

Yes, that is right... research.  I know you have heard this before, but it actually takes less effort than you realize.  Here are few ideas for researching an ESP topic.

1.  The standard - have them present it to you in class.  No articles, no handouts, just a whiteboard and a marker.  "Explain this to me."  Check Evan Frendo's blog for an idea on how to do this.  Or simply draw this on the board.

2.  Have sticky fingers - someone brings up a concept or process in class, ask them to send you a diagram of it.  Visit them at their desk... collect artifacts posted around their cubical/office.  Can't take copies or get the information?  Contact your training coordinator to sign a non-disclosure agreement.  I've never had a client refuse... they want this level of relevance.  If a participant talks about a supplier/customer in class, bring it up on the internet and bookmark it.

3.  Text mining - Your chances of piercing the discourse community without text mining and corpus analysis are close to zero.  If you are relying on the ESL publishing industry for this, all I can say is good luck.  My dual language dictionary for engineering is twice as thick as my Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.  There isn't the time here to go into corpus analysis and finding key words or clusters, but it doesn't take that long.  I recently encountered the need for vocabulary around air-cooled systems.  It took me less than an hour to find 200 key words from 'fins' to 'obstruct'.  

Where can you get texts for mining?  Start general... wikipedia.  Then move to specifics by visiting suppliers/providers.  Copy and paste product descriptions into a concordancer for key terms (usually nouns) and scan the text for verbs.  But remember, the goal here isn't to immediately create materials... that step will come.

4.  Use professional associations - Nearly every specialty field has a professional association attached to it.  Want finance?  Go to IFRS.  Want software service?  Go to ITIL.  Want project management?  Go to PMI or search PRINCE2.  Read a bit.

Remember, you don't need to be an expert, just have enough knowledge for the next step.

Step 2 - Demonstrate your knowledge constantly

Okay, so you have some research and knowledge.  You know some key words, a few acronyms and you have a general idea of how theory works.  Now it's time for the next step, use your knowledge.

Situation:  I need to teach my participants in the software department the difference in meaning between will, going to and the present continuous.  For practice, I can:
a) bring in an illegal photocopy from Murphy with sentences like, "Mary ___________ (attend) the party on Friday."
b) bring in an illegal photocopy of a technical English coursebook with sentences like, "Hans ________ (investigate) the bearing failure next week."
c)  write "I _________ (finish) installing the new compiler version." on the whiteboard.
d)  create a two part controlled practice exercise in which participant A creates sentences, then a gap fill for participant B.
Which should I use?

You probably guessed it right, option C or D.  The materials-light approach allows us to continuously create our own example sentences and relevant exercises.  We picked up the key words from our text mining.  We have a pretty clear idea of functions (i.e. grammar) from our needs analysis, diagnostic test and 'explain it to me' activity.  The goal here is three-fold.  We need to teach them the material so they can notice it, test it and use it.  We need to provide them with clearly relevant language input.  And finally, we need to demonstrate that we understand their discourse community for the next step.


Step 3 - Keep pushing them into more detail

In the past I stopped at step 2.  That generated good results, but there was a limit.  It wasn't enough.  Then I accidentally learned that framework materials were the key.  One of my favorite frameworks was the fish bone diagram which is used to analyze the possible root causes of a problem.  In general, the head of the 'fish' is the resulting problem and then then you add possible causes and contributing factors (a term from text mining) into the diagram.  I typically used this framework for could have, might have, etc.  But, then I figured out that as we drove the diagram deeper, the participants lost the vocabulary.  Even more troubling, it wasn't vocabulary which would appear in text mining.

This diagram led to all kind of activities...
1.  Vocabulary, of course... you have internet right?  Don't forget to check the professional association for the right term.
2.  Functions... you can take the results and build them into whatever is relevant.
3.  Skills... most problems are larger than one person and emails for request work perfectly here, meetings, too.
4.  Materials development... check off the words they know from your key word list and make materials within their zone of proximal development.

So then I tried other types of diagrams, like mind maps.  With a financial/tax/legal English client, we now have a working mind map over 10 levels deep as part of a PBL task.  Just keep pushing them for more detail.  As my Germans say, "Ach... die Wörter fehlen."  (Oh... the words are missing.)  But this is exactly my point.  In their discourse community everything general is already understood.  We need to get to the detailed tit-for-tat of their community.  Without research and without demonstrating understanding, step 3 will never happen.

But pushing them into more detail is the difference between great training and training they can't work without.

My Journey in Training Methods

I received some constructive criticism about my post on Business English in 2014 and it sent me into reflection.  One of the points was that we do have a working methodology for Business English training.  The author was promoting a BE certification course which I cannot currently endorse.  This is not to say certification courses (including the one the author promoted) are bad, just that I cannot clearly judge the value from the marketing material.  I am always a bit skeptical of business models which leverage the value chain (i.e. profit from teachers/trainers).  You can read more about this in my post about the value chain.

I continue to believe that existing methodologies of BE training are unsuitable to the realities of our clients.  It is helpful here to reflect on the methods I have tried and the results I have found.

Welcome to ESL!

I was politely indoctrinated in the communicative approach.  My CELTA course was at the Berlin School of English.  I had excellent teacher trainers and a wonderful education.  They taught me how to effectively survive a course.  There is no doubt in my mind that it was extremely helpful.  But, I took the good with the bad.  I learned that ESL lessons have a specific structure (generally according to Jeremy Harmer).  I learned how to manage time, select activities and how to create space for expression.  I also learned how to worship publishers and how to professionally photocopy.  Occasionally, I still find the citation strips of paper stuck in my library of course books, and I clearly remember how I broke the paper cutter at my first employer from overuse.

It was a valuable experience and I am thankful to have had it.  But it also became clear that it didn't work exactly as advertised.

I was immediately placed in Business English because of my background, my personality and I looked good in a tie.  But when I tried the methods from my CELTA, something was missing.  First, course books work on a grammar syllabus.  I haven't found one which doesn't (despite their claims).  If you know one... please let me know.  They work on a grammar syllabus because the CEFR is grammar based.  I'm sure that the authors of the CEFR would disagree but the words "routine" and "everyday" appear quite often in the lower levels.  In practice, books still take a grammar-based approach (typically under the cover of functions).

You're in the Army Again...

I realized that ESL wasn't working.  I was happy because I always knew what to teach - ESL told me.  But I wasn't really making a difference.  So, I made the transition to performance-based training.  I was well aware of tenants of PBT from my time in the army (see my post Lessons Learned from the Military).  Basically, we looked at the expected performance, broke it into concrete steps and then we trained and tested it until the performance met the standard.

This required a change in needs analysis and assessment (I have posted about this transition often).  I made the switch and things were good.  I could clearly identify the skills gap and train to fill it using ESL-structured blocks.  Performance and confidence improved dramatically.  My students reported exceptional improvement.  I was training to task using ESL-structured lessons.  But then things began to change.

Bite the Dog

The problem with all of this was that it was taking too much time.  I wasn't profitable.  I could not sustain a fully needs-based course.  It took 45 minutes to think about and prepare an hour of training.  My blended approach of fully needs based (customized) training with ESL teaching techniques generated much higher progress and high customer satisfaction and progress, but was still unsustainable.  Then I discovered Dogme which essentially said that if I could spontaneously create pedagogical activities, I was good.

I embraced and switched my focus from planning to recording and reviewing what happened in the lessons.  My post I Only Have One Lesson Plan is the essence of that approach.  It works, no question for me.  I saw immense progress, validated by real world performance, and my clients were extremely happy.  I was now incorporating everything into my training... the communicative approach, performance-based training and Dogme.  But then it changed...

The Patient has Complications

With greater customer satisfaction, I began to get closer to the organization and the real needs of the learners.  Suddenly, I had jumped into a deeper pool than I had imagined.  The problems were glaring.  It wasn't the language which was holding things back, it was cultural and communication skills.  In other words, speaking better English was not equal to higher efficiency.  In some cases the bottleneck was the language, but often it was only a contributing factor.

I remember speaking with some BESIG members a few years ago that our clients often equated a communication problem with a language problem.  The simple fact is that in the mind of the client language = communication.  I feel my mandate is to solve communication problems with a focus on language.  But as I moved, the situation became more and more complex.

Everything is Nothing

So, here I was... faced with an universe of methods and ideas.  I needed to teach the English language through the communicative approach, clearly understand the performance gap, let the learners direct the training and understand the real barriers to communication.  The result was not good.

• The ESL approach is long, boring and often useless.  Following a prescribed set of activities may be useful for mastering certain concepts, but we often don't have the time to fully complete the activities or the learning objective does not match the need.  The ESL approach is overly sterile and reflects a notional reality.  
• The communicative approach is right in creating a communication gap, but what happens when communication is no longer a problem (higher levels)?  ESL doesn't really have an answer to the image needs of BE students other than restrictive language exercises.
• Performance-based training works great with the communicative approach as long as there is a performance gap.  In other words, it is nice as long as there is a clear need.  It doesn't work when the need is reached or when the learner is striving for an intangible ability.  Then we have to revert to something like the CEFR.
• The trainer cannot sustain Dogme for more than a 50 hours of training.  It works great in short-term courses.  Dogme relies on the immediate recognition of need and spontaneous input and task creation to fill the gap.  I have difficulty keeping such a variety of task contingencies in mind.  The result is repeat task types which nullify the entire approach.
• Dogme kills vocabulary development.  The most critical piece of feedback from my learners is that I do not help them produce new vocabulary.  I have tried my best through review and in-lesson note taking to improve this aspect, but vocabulary retention is still less than 10% per lesson.  ESL methods and course books are better at this.  It is also a vital part of their needs.
• Office communication is unbelievably complex.  I have had the chance to read countless authentic emails, documents, reports, etc. as well as observe meetings and telephone conferences.  There are pragmatic, semantic and cultural issues at every turn as well as linguistic.  I have no doubt that clients attempt to solve communication problems with language training.

Conclusions

First, I think the complexity of our mandate is higher than our clients realize.  I sincerely believe that we are hired to facilitate communication not just that someone masters the Past Perfect.

Second,  I do not think existing ESL methods (including existing ESL-derived BE teaching methods) fulfill this need.  ESL prescribes a certain learning plan which does not fit with the immediate or medium-term needs of the learners.

Third,  Dogme is too loose.  It fails to fulfill the steps of Bloom's Taxonomy (as I implemented it) because it relies too heavily on the learner's sense of dedication to complete self-study.

So, I have tried all of these and they are not the complete solution.  Parts of them are valuable and I recommend a teacher development package which presents new trainers with challenges, but the solution is not in the book or on the internet.  We need to take BE further.

I'll present my work in Graz at the BESIG Summer Symposium.  It will be the culmination of a year of training with an entirely new approach which better fits the realities of BE training.  So far, it solves these dilemmas and provides the balance my participants and I need.

Giving Learners the Correct Ammunition for Business Conflicts

The Late Winter Doldrums - A Journal Entry

I hate routine.  I feel uncomfortable when I sense that things are becoming stale.  I like the creativity dial to be turned up to 11.  Yet over the last month, I have the feeling that I and my participants are just going through the motions of teaching and learning.  I feel the learning has stalled a bit and participants are leaving the training underwhelmed by the interaction, engagement, and challenge.  Like many trainers, my gut reaction is to simply blame myself for delivering poor training.

The main purpose of this blog is to help myself get out of situations like this, reflect on my training, set priorities, connect with others, and drive myself to do better.  So today I will give a report on yesterday's training and hopefully identify ways it could be better.

Context

On Tuesdays, I have a full day of training at the research and development department of a manufacturer.  The project is quickly approaching its two-year mark and has been extremely successful in terms of progress, value delivered, and participation among the employees.  The training day is built around 5 one-hour group sessions with similar language levels.  The overall ability of the department is very good and my groups range from B1 to C1.  Additionally, I have introduced special mixed-level 45 minute sessions for secretaries and technical English vocabulary.  Finally, the project includes some time for individual or small group coaching and general support for English communication.

After such a long time, I am so familiar with the business and internal processes that I often know more about the organization and current events than the individual participants.  The classes provide a knowledge sharing function (both among participants and between groups) as well as a tool for building communication competence.  I am treated much like a co-worker.  It has become very comfortable, but comfort also breeds laziness.

My day...

I started the morning at 6 am to brainstorm the lessons.  I read the class notes for the previous two weeks, looked back at the training report for the last quarter, and entered a few tentative topics for the day's sessions.

I arrived at the company at 7:30 and set up in my morning conference room.  Luckily, I was able to meet and talk to an American employee who handles documentation with American regulators.  I have been trying to pick his brain for the last few months about how the company communicates externally in English.  Because of regulation, there are many written and unwritten rules about drafting documentation.  For example, the company must make sure that it does not make unsubstantiated claims in brochures.  Specific wording is required and some words are taboo.  Finally, documents cannot bend the truth, and must not raise questions among regulators.  My goal is to ensure that I am training language correctly and not teaching vocabulary or phrases which might cause regulatory problems.  We had some small talk and arranged to meet another day so he could give me some resources and I could find out some of the issues the department faces in internal and external documentation.

I also stopped by the project sponsor's office to say good morning, find out how he was doing, and let him raise any issues about the training.  After a few minutes of small talk he asked me about my reservation for the conference room.  He had a supplier meeting and was having trouble finding a place.  I said I would talk to one of the admin assistants and see if my back-up room was available.  If so, he could use mine.  He told me not to worry about it and that he thought he had another solution.  Finally, he mentioned that one department wanted to add several employees to the project and that he might have to clarify the issue.  Then we talked shortly about how it is a good sign that people want to join the training because it means the employees are talking about how useful the training is (this is covert customer relations and feedback).

A cup of coffee later and it was 8:00 - time for a 45 minute session on technical English.  Recent sessions had been around software development and testing.  On this day, I brought my toolbox from home.  A very simple lesson with only one participant.  The session is open to all and optional.

1. The participant pulls out a tool and we write the name on a note card.
2. We talk about different versions of the tool and add them to the note card (internet helped here).
3. We talk about the last time they used it and what it is used for.
4. The realia causes questions about similar tools and related vocabulary.
5. Repeat.
6. We collect the note cards.  I read a card and the participant holds up the tool.
7. I give the note cards to the participant, they read the cards and tell me if I hold up the correct tool (sometimes I am right, sometimes I am wrong).

Despite the high level of the ability in the department, they often lack such general vocabulary.  Several have asked for help in this area.  For example, hammer and nails are easy, but most do not know wrench, pliers, insulation tape, or drill bits.

At 8:45 the first level class began and there was a quick good-bye and hello.  The B1-B2 participants took their normal seats in the classroom.  This is by far the class I am most proud of.  Five of the six participants came to the lesson and attendance is always excellent.  They are unbelievably smart and inquisitive people (this goes for the whole research and development department).  Over the last two years they have made so much progress that I am left in awe at far they have come.  The lesson time is great, they all use English in their jobs, and I think the training has been quite good.

This lesson, however, was a complete failure.  They have a coursebook (Business Result Intermediate) which we almost never use and by now is too easy for them.  But I decided to use it for a lesson on presentations.  We did the opening exercise about a company mission statement, listened to the model presentation, did the comprehension activity, and then finished the key phrases activity.  By that point, eyes were glazed over and I had lost them.  This was Charles going through the motions.  Everything about the lesson was too easy and I could see it going south the whole way.  I could feel the groan when I said, "Turn to page 78."  The intro activity failed to generate any comments, and by the time they heard my computer say, "Audio fifty-one," they were barely listening.

Here's my problem with this lesson and this group.  First, this was the third lesson of the last five which has included listening (or watching).  They want to speak and if my computer speakers fill the space, there is not any for them.  Second, the time is so short that if I try to use a typical teaching workflow, I do not really have time for much small group or pair work.  Thus, the speaking becomes teacher to learner.  I assume too much of a dominant presence in the room.  Third, they asked to work on presentations but I am constrained.  The lesson does not really offer enough time to prepare and deliver a presentation in the same lesson.  Self-study is near zero so I cannot expect them to prepare something outside the class.  I tried that last year, they discussed and decided on the topics, but it never materialized.  They just felt guilty and I needed to change tactics.  A few weeks ago they gave a spontaneous talk to introduce themselves, describe their department, and finally to explain their experience.  These went well, but they were too short and I want something more complex.

This book lesson included adjectives to describe a company.  To try to save the lesson, I asked them to find adjectives which described companies like Ikea and McDonalds.  I then set them the task of creating one slide with adjectives for a company and presenting it to us next week.  Let's see what happens.  I need to do better.

At 10:00 it was time for the next group, a C1 group of three participants.  As a side note, I have problems with level binning under the CEFR and I cannot really tell where C1 stops and C2 begins.  Let me put it this way, these participants are so good that I have a very difficult time figuring out what to teach them.  The easy way out would be to focus more on communication skills but they are also such expert international communicators with immense emotional intelligence that perhaps they should be teaching me (and often they do).

On this day, two of the three attended with one woman on vacation.  We are currently in the middle of a project to deliver a workshop.  The group consists of one mechanical engineer, one software engineer, and one project coordinator.  Thus, we devised a simple project in which the project coordinator would lead the planning and organization of a workshop with the two engineers giving presentations on new technologies in mechanical and software/hardware engineering.  The 'audience' of the workshop is a group of doctor candidates at university and their goal is to collect ideas from these researchers on how the company can use breakthrough technologies to drive innovative solutions and products (we are assuming the naivete of PhD candidates).  We have a hard deadline for the workshop because the project coordinator is pregnant and we want to finish before she goes on maternity leave.

Unfortunately, the software engineer could not bring his laptop to lesson so we could not discuss and finish writing his presentation.  So instead, we started talking about his upcoming business trip to Paris to a customer and the difficulty of meeting customer expectations for high-end products.  During the discussion, I picked up on the response, "I fully agree," which did not sound natural.  Many of our lessons feature collocations and phrases to help them sound more like native speakers.

In this case, I pulled up Just the Word on the projector (we do this often) and identified several collocations with agree including entirely, generally, and reluctantly.  Next, I turned the conversation to performative verbs.

Another tangent... For me, the debate about English as a Lingua Franca is largely settled.  It clearly exists and I am quite certain of what it is.  For me, the question was closed after watching Mark Powell talk about Lean Language.  In fact, this video helped make me the trainer I am (good or bad).  I still have not found a more valuable and worthwhile resource for teaching.

Here is Part 1... you should really watch all five parts.

Second, Chia Suan Chong interviewed Vicki Hollett a couple of years ago on ELF in which she mentioned performatives between NNSs.  Sadly, I have since lost my other sources on this element of NNS interaction.  But my observations of written and spoken international communication have always confirmed that using words like suggest, apologize, agree, propose, and invite are valuable to international communication.  They can often be a short cut to developing functional language.

So, I told the participants that these verbs can be very useful when speaking with other countries, but they may be used less often among native speakers.  We pulled up a teaching website (nicely British) for phrases to agree and disagree and compared the use of functional phrases.  At this level, they should be able to use to both and adapt their language to the ability of the audience.

One participant then asked me if I could tell the difference between a NS and NNS author when reading a text.  I told them that I could nearly always distinguish a German author because I knew the language, but that their level was so good that sometimes I could not tell from their writing.  They had recently written presentation abstracts and 75-word bios for their project (with NS models) and I could not tell they came from NNSs.

We then discussed some of the ways I could identify a German translation or author.  We discussed the prominent use of nouns in German and reformulated a few example sentences (we had done this before).  We also looked at the use of the passive (also common in German).  Finally, I wrote a few example sentences with endless relative clauses and broke them down into smaller sentences using the subjects this, that, and it.

Overall, I think this was very good lesson.  I felt like a language guide and I feel they left with a better ability to change their language depending on the audience, which is a key skill for them to master.

At 11:00 it was time for the B2 group but my inbox showed that only one person would be able to join the lesson.  This group is particularly difficult to plan for.  The test engineer who came would likely pick up on the fact that I ended the previous sentence with a preposition and ask whether it was allowed.  In fact, many of our lessons focus on the difference between prescriptive and descriptive grammar (thanks Scott Thornbury and Michael McCarthy!).  He is a language lover and generally believes that proper grammar is the primary measure of language ability.  He studies Mandarin in his free time and often sends me clarification questions when he senses non-standard forms of English.  Unfortunately, most of his language learning has come from critically reading formal texts and his spoken English lacks staccato sentence rhythm. It can be difficult for listeners to patiently wait for the end of a thought or sentence.  Another participant in the group has similar difficulty in spoken fluency.  The group is rounded out by a Spanish woman with great speaking skills but tons of L2 interference and a new participant looking to gain speaking practice and refining feedback.

With only one participant, I took a tried-and-tested lesson plan... "What are you currently working on?"

He told me that he is working on software testing documentation and I questioned him in detail about the purpose of the document.  With another learner I might have seized this topic and looked at improving his writing.  But with this man, whose grammar is flawless and writing puts NSs to shame, clear explanations and spoken communication are the focus.  I asked him to change places in the room and for him to take the whiteboard.  I asked him to please draw and explain the process of the document.  What is the trigger for writing it?  What is the approval process?  Who reads it and why?

This placed him completely out of his communication comfort zone.  First, he is less aware of the non-linguistic aspects of communication such as visual aids and body language.  He is not used to creating a visual representation of thought and would prefer to simply rely on words to convey his message.  Twice I had to ask him to draw what he meant because I couldn't understand (keep in mind here that I have been working with the department for years and I am very familiar with internal processes and documentation).  Second, he is not adept at eliciting or reading feedback.  He does not include feedback questions and generally has trouble reformulating explanations.

My feedback was much less on the language (only a few lexical gaps) and much more on structuring messages and making things tangible.  I told him about the importance of examples, but left the visual representation topic for another day.

However, he expects language input and as a Business English Trainer, I am focused on giving it.  During his spontaneous talk he continually used the passive.  At lower levels I would praise this usage when describing a process.  But for him, he is simply overusing the passive and the sentences lack meaning.

Below is my 'board' which was in MS Word on the projector screen.  I wrote his passive sentences and the italics show his reformulations.  The reformulations might not be perfect, but the lesson is to reduce the passive voice.

At 12:00 I began my one-hour lunch break.  My wife and I are inching toward buying a house and we are seriously considering moving to a town in which one of my participants lives.  But not only the town, but also the same street.  So, I personally wanted to find out what it is like to live there.  I visited her desk and we had a half-hour conversation about the town (in English of course).  She is a B1 level and she likes to talk about her new house and her hometown.  We talked about land prices, lots for sale, directions, advantages and disadvantages, etc.  It would be nice to categorize this as a lesson, but let's be honest... it was just us talking (I was happy she asked many questions).  She did get speaking practice and the chance to use some functional language, but I was really just curious about the environment (I am also hesitant about giving feedback when colleagues can hear).  She loved it, I was very happy to get the information, and it is great to have such chances.  I ran to the canteen for a quick lunch and starting thinking about the afternoon sessions.

1:00 - It was time for the lowest level group of the day, B1.  Like the morning group, these participants have made great progress over the years.  I must remind readers that although two years seem like a long time, we are only talking about 60-70 total class hours over that period.  This group, like the B1+ group in the morning, has a bit more structure than the higher levels.  I generally approach things more systematically, but I am also very flexible to participants' just-in-time needs and communication issues.

I had planned a class to have a status update meeting.  We had had a listening lesson with phrases a few weeks before and I wanted to encourage them to apply what we had learned.  But the rule of thumb is that when I plan something, the participants bring something else.  If I don't plan, they bring nothing... go figure.

One of the weaker members of the group came in the lesson talking about a discussion with a German supplier which was frustrating.  I let them discuss the issue in German for a few minutes (she started in English but quickly changed to L1 because she was so wound up about the issue).  When I am teaching, I am always looking for topics like this because they are real and known.  If you have read my post "I Only Have One Lesson Plan", you will know that I am always seeking moments when I can capture the topic and turn it into relevant training.

But let's analyze a bit what was happening in the classroom at that moment.  First, I think she was quite concerned with her image to colleagues, suppliers, and even her trainer.  Her written English is well above her level and she knows it (plus, I've told her).  She does not like my visits to her desk or speaking in class because (I think) she feels mistakes might embarrass her in front of others.  In the group, she is the only person who is still unwilling to take risks and make mistakes in the search of learning.  Second, she came into class with something on her mind and she wanted to tell her colleagues about it.  She was proud of how she had handled the situation.  Third, she had attached emotions to the story and she really wanted to communicate what happened.

My thinking was to let her finish, let her tell her story in German.  Let her shine and get praise from her colleagues.  Cutting her off or forcing her to speak English would only have caused frustration.  I need her to feel accepted and comfortable in the group.  I need her to speak!  Listening to her story I realized that she had all the grammar to tell this story in English and about 75% of the vocabulary.  But she needed scaffolding and time to tell it.

Here is where I made the wrong decision.  Instead of giving her the opportunity and structure to formulate this story in English, I took another route.  First, I told her that I did not understand everything she had said (a lie) and I asked her clarification questions about the story.  Specifically, I asked questions which targeted specific lexis, "What does the supplier make?" [looking for the word cabinet].  This is simply bad training.  It is completely unfair to ask participants to produce words I know they do not have with the hope that they will somehow emerge with some Pavlovian bell.  I have watched other trainers do this and reminded myself not to fall into this trap.

During the story, she raised a common topic within the group - people who do not respond to emails in a timely manner.  This was my second mistake.  I decided to focus on this subject and work toward phrases for making suggestions.  This was TEFL pure, I pulled out a function from my portfolio and not what they immediately needed.  This is not to say that making suggestions is not useful, but taking the lesson toward simple negotiations would have been better.

Why did I choose this topic?  Because I am horrible at responding to emails.  I have been working on it for years but I do not seem to be getting any better.  I made the lesson about me and that was a mistake.  It should always be about them.  In fact, I am wondering whether all the lessons for this day were more about me and what I want than about the participants and what they want.  I need to listen more carefully.

So, we discussed as a group our frustrations about people who do not answer emails.  We discussed how often it happened and why.  It was generally a good discussion and I was writing their thoughts on the board (adding vocabulary).  Then, I revealed that I am horrible at writing back and I feel really bad about it (again about me... arg).  Next, I asked them to give me tips on time management and handling correspondence.

Each person talked a little about how they handle emails and we stumbled across some lexical gaps like out of office reply, respond, and immediately.  They used several phrases we had seen to make suggestions and I put a few more on the board.  Time was running and I considered having them write an email to follow up when someone does not write back, but it would have taken too long.  We shared ideas on how we use email, telephone, and the chat tool within the company.  The participants were able to vent a little and discuss the issue, but I am generally dissatisfied with the lesson.  The topic has great potential and I did not use it.  Now I have lost it.  The discussion was dominated by the confident speakers.  The dynamic reverted to teacher-student and not student-student freedom.  I could have done better.

At 2:15, I was looking to rebound from two poor lessons and two average ones.  I needed to refocus and salvage my day.  But I was also battling thoughts far away from the training and was having trouble focusing on the next lesson (I'd been watching my inbox fill up all day among other concerns).  Also, the last group lesson is a B2+ group with the most inconsistent attendance.  These lessons are always a one-off and it is nearly impossible to link them because the people change so often.  Finally, I am never as focused in the afternoon as the morning.

Two participants from six appeared and I was happy to see the weakest member of the group in attendance.  He is a software testing engineer and has been working on an individual project for quite some time to develop a software requirement.  The requirement is highly political and costly and he is generally fighting a losing battle of mixed department interests.  The company works on a product development cycle and the two participants find themselves on the extreme ends of the process.  One defines the requirements for the product, the other tests the completed system at the end.  I do not need to introduce a notional information gap (like a role-play) because there is enough of a gap already.

The tester started by talking (without prompting) about how his project is going and his latest successes and challenges.  He brought up the document management process and I asked them to map the document management system over the product development process.  Specifically, this was about how the company organizes product requirements both at the macro and micro level.  This may seem like Greek to you, but I'm sure you would get the hang of it after some time around software project management.

Within a few minutes, all three of us were standing at the whiteboard with markers in our hands drawing diagrams, explaining processes and folder trees, using examples, discussing constraints and problems with the system, etc.  The two participants were sharing their perspectives from their ends of the system.  We were having a meeting.

I noted a few comments for feedback but the 'meeting' took so long that I only had time to look at collocations with suffer, cause, and face.  I corrected their usage, added a few more collocations and we transformed the collocations into different tenses.

It was not really the home-run lesson I had been looking for but I felt good about the discussion.  I was able to give some on-the-spot corrections and some delayed language feedback.  The participants were able to compare notes on a real business process and produce language they need in work.  The weaker student highlighted a few words he remembered from the stronger student.

Finally at 3:15 I had my final session of the day, a repeat of the technical English vocabulary lesson.  Two engineers came who I'd seen earlier in the day.  I pulled out the tool box and we repeated the same lesson as above.  The 45 minute session was fun (they are both women in their thirties and we laughed about men and tools, "better to have it than to need it") and I believe they picked up on the vocabulary (we'll see).  Again they were quite surprised that they did not know the words for such everyday tools.

At 4:00, I packed up... exhausted... and went home.  Typically, I would have stayed longer and visited the participants who could not come to their lesson.  But I am increasingly getting requests for support via email or chat, I needed to save a few hours.

In a quiet apartment I had the chance to catch up on the emails I had received that day including a few urgent coaching requests.  I created Quizlet flash cards for the adjectives and antonyms from the 8:45 lesson.  I sent out 'board work' photos or documents from the lessons.  I responded to all the outstanding issues and I felt good.  It was an average day of training and was not quite good enough, but I was happy.

Not so good...

So overall, the day was okay but I feel like it lacked creativity.  The participants and I are all in the February doldrums, a long way from vacation and the winter keeps dragging on.  We are not at our best and that is frustrating.  We are all stressed and tired.

If you have managed to read this long, I'll ask you... What do you think about my training on this day?  How do you shake yourself awake when projects are for a long time or things become stale?  How do you reinvigorate yourself?

Business English in 2014

Like many of you I assume, I have finally emerged from a tunnel of work (and reentered another).  After a few weeks of vacation, I am already looking forward to a great 2014.  I will be doing a bit more travelling and hopefully will pick up on a few more ideas to explore, test, and evaluate in my training.

Here are a few topics I see for arising in Business English training for 2014.  This is my professional development guide (and blogging) agenda for the new year.

1.  One of the big topics from the BESIG conference in Prague was the mix between skills training and language training.  Here are my initial observations.

• Naturally, we like to think of ourselves as more than simply English teachers.  The career conjures up memories of Mrs. Friedhof standing at the chalk board hammering away at the past perfect.  Our pride and ego which drive us to self-development are vulnerable to such misrepresentations and we work hard to fight this image.  So, it makes sense that we not only integrate skills training into our service, but also market these abilities.
• The skills training we are talking about has a broad scope.  I have been asked by students to help them with technical skills and working with software.  They have also asked me to help them with other areas of digital literacy.  Of course, there is great scope for business communication skills like presentations, effective meetings, and negotiations.  Most trainers I meet are already incorporating intercultural communication aspects in the training.  Finally, I meet trainers who are cognitively incorporating team-building, management, and creative-thinking skills in the BE classroom.  Which skills are within our mandate and which are not?
• Finally, there is the price issue.  Scott Levey of Target Training touched upon the pricing issue and over-delivering services in his pre-conference session in Prague.  He is right that pricing this offer is certainly a concern.  At what point have we accomplished what the customer is paying for without "giving away the farm"?

2.  Like all industries we are facing creative destruction from external factors.  Businesses and organizations are quickly eating away our ability to find customers and offer significant value.  Here are some external factors I have identified.

• Public education systems are improving and Business English proficiency upon graduation is increasing.  Secondary and tertiary teachers and lecturers are becoming more adept at the communicative approach.  Mandatory study abroad programs are increasing English exposure and mastery.  This is causing three effects.  1)  Learners are demanding more specialized training (more ESP).  2)  Doubting that a trainer can deliver such training, prospective customers are convinced that their English "is good enough".  3)  Proficiency is increasingly a mandatory hiring requirement and companies are less likely to invest in training.  This attitude filters down to the education system and students/parents are more likely to take the learning seriously and as life skill.
• English is diminishing as a differentiating skill.  As globalization progresses, the well of learners in proficient countries like Germany is drying up.  Currently, we are benefiting because the companies have globalized their operations down to a technical/operational level without considering the employees' skills.  But we are reaching the bottom of the organizational hierarchy and the market is drying up.  In short, English ability is a given and no longer a decisive factor in reaching personal career goals.  Instead, other qualifications and training are more important and more valuable for both companies and individuals.
• Technology and the low barrier for entry is allowing virtual training to eat away at revenues.  One example is Colingo, a company which offers online English teaching.  Check out it's YouTube channel for more about their operations.  I once saw a recruiting video (from another company) for native-speaker teachers online at $9 per hour - perfect for college students!  When the customer cannot differentiate the offers, where does that leave us?
• Combined with the virtual training factor is that e-learning software is becoming more effective.  In the past, language learning software was limited to lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.  Next, it was able to evaluate a specific user response.  Now it can evaluate a range of user responses.  The technology will continue to improve to a point at which the difference between face-to-face or virtual training can be replaced by software.  Luckily, humans require relationships and interaction.  But this continues to be a price threat.
• Finally, automatic translation tools are becoming more accurate.  I foresee a day in which my German students speak German into a microphone during a virtual meeting and nearly flawless English is heard on the other side.  The other participants respond and German comes through on the other side.  This development is being helped by specialist translation memories.  I use SDL Studio for my German/English translations and the opportunity for creating specialist glossaries and context specific translation is amazing.  I give Google about 5 years before they have mastered the world's top languages.

3.  We are still stuck in the materials dilemma.  My estimation of the problem:

• Published materials are pedagogically sound and effectively work through Bloom to achieve proficiency and even mastery.
• They offer continuity and repetition.
• They reduce the burden on the teacher/trainer to conduct research and writing.
• But, we are now all aware of copyright infringement and if we preach ethical behavior we must also follow it.
• Self-written materials take so much time that they are unprofitable.  It takes so long to write gap-fills and other lower learning level exercises that we cannot possibly keep up such a workload over time.  The steps takes hours we cannot afford:
• Step 1 - Research desired linguistic area (create word list, examples of grammatical structures, phrase list)
• Step 2 - Create lower level exercises (identification, meaning, translate, explain, etc.)
• Step 3 - Create higher level exercises (analyze, explain, differentiate, argue, etc.)
• Step 4 - Use in practice (scaffolding still needed)
• Step 5 - Master
• We have found a compromise with framework materials.  But are we really using them to their fullest extent?  
• We do not have time to write material.  I found out recently that I am in class much less than many of my comrades (only about 17 hours a week).  I have more out-of-class time, but that does not mean I have more time.  The basic fact is that we cannot be expected to write a new course book for every class.
• Finally, considering the aspects above, we have to value trainee-trainer interaction time as the highest value activity.  How do we maximize our interpersonal time?  What focus do we need to have when we are talking with students?  To what extent are we 'material' and a which point do they need other material to succeed (basic learning, usage, reference, etc.)

4.  We still do not have a workable methodology for Business English Training.  It is clear from the recent presentations I have seen (sadly, Business English blogs are extremely rare) that we have not yet found our own identity in either English as a Second Language or in corporate training.  We are either working through frameworks in the ELT world or from corporate training like coaching, sales training, etc.  We need an approach which is unique.  We need a benchmark for evaluation.  We need a methodology and network which provides consistent and measurable development structures to extend the field.

Certainly, some approaches are ubiquitous and represent good practice.  We are doing needs analysis and using the basics of performance-based training.  We have incorporated technology along with the rest of the world.  We have introduced goal-setting and reflection.  We are working on the business case for English training through evaluation.  Also, the Dogme movement has awakened responsiveness as a key skill in training design.  The learner is the focus again juxtaposed against traditional academic teaching where the teacher is the primary focus.  In short, we are on the right path.

The final element for Business English training in 2014 is to design a methodology for this specific market.  It must draw upon ELT and corporate training.  It must declare certain principles and concepts as most important.  Consequently, it must be applicable in practice down to the lesson plan level.  It must also be communicable to customers to generate value.  Finally, it must be adaptable to fit new paradigms of technology and market development.

I am convinced that this methodology exists in other domains; areas where complex systems are an everyday occurrence.  Our industry is not alone in 2014.  Others are also facing questions of specialization, creative destruction, and resources.  But I am convinced that by looking at similar industries we will find the solutions to improving training effectiveness and the leads/sales ratio.

I am looking forward to 2014... I think this will be a great year for Business English Training.  I wish you the best of luck in your classes, feedback, and sales negotiations.