You’re already a professional in your career. You have qualifications and experience which make you a valuable asset to your company and a hot prospect on the job market, should you be looking for a change.
But you feel that your English is not professional.
You feel embarrassed when you can’t understand what is being said at work, and even worse when people don’t understand what you are saying.
Fortunately, you don’t need to speak English at a professional level to be professional about improving it. What’s important is your attitude and the way you go about your own development in this language.
As they say in the Oxford Review, “being professional’ and ‘being a professional’ are two very different things.”
The group of researchers highlight the importance of:
- being autonomous, which means being able to learn things ourselves
- being able to understand when we are at the limits of our knowledge
- doing something about it
As a professional working in a highly-connected global environment, your proficiency in English may determine the job you get and your effectiveness within that job, especially if it involves communication and ‘moving others’.
Interviews, presentations and public speaking often rank among the most difficult and scary events in our lives, add in a second language, and the pressure increases even more. So if you’re scared, don’t worry, it’s quite natural.
However, as Steven Pressfield says in his War of Art,
“A professional acts in the face of fear” whereas “the amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work.”
If you’re waiting for the perfect time to start doing something about it, you’re likely to waste a lot of time and effort in procrastination. The truth is: the time is never perfect. Like the proverb says, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the next best time is now.
Keep in mind the benefits of learning professional English, which include:
- job opportunities, open doors to better careers and stand out as an applicant
- better communication, whether interviewing or working together
- getting promotions, the higher you rise, the more likely you will need English
- chance to work abroad, it’s your passport to the world
When it comes to speaking English, professional means communicating clearly in a business environment. It means using appropriate language with your colleagues, customers, bosses or anyone else related to work.
Yes, getting there can be a long process – language mastery takes time, and may even be a life-long pursuit. But if we think we have our whole lives to get better, we have no urgency, are inconsistent in our approach, and end up doing little of much use.
That is why, here at Go Interview, we provide short intensive courses to achieve fast results as well as habit building tools which support continuous improvement over the long term. From our experience, this combination is the best approach!
While goals take time to reach, you can raise your standards straight away…
Find a coach who can
- encourage, energise, and challenge you to get results
- hold you accountable if you are not putting in the work you know you need.
- give you objective feedback and suggestions on how to improve quickly
It’s easy to fool ourselves, but we’re less likely to make excuses if we have to convince someone else.
Shop around for a professional English course with the most suitable teacher/tutor/coach – you should be able to find a free consultation. Use this to establish whether that person can really help you, not as a free lesson.
Are you compatible, do you have the right energy together? Yes, this is work, but unless you enjoy the process, you’re unlikely to succeed.
The right attitude combined with the right motivation then a professional English coach will be able to guide you to impressive results in a short space of time.
This will boost your confidence and before you know it you’ll be flying as high as any professional speaker of English.