Spoken English For Professionals – Tips and Tricks
If you google the phrase “Spoken English for Professionals” you will get thousands of search results. The reason is Spoken English is a critical skill to be succesful as a professional. You could have great technical skills but if you can’t communicate fluently in English, your career progress will be slow.
What are some tips for professionals who want to improve Spoken English?
Practice general English speaking, not just English related to your job
Most Spoken English courses for professionals focus on narrow areas such as Spoken English for lawyers and Spoken English for doctors. This is not a productive way to learn a language.
If you want to improve Spoken English, you must improve English overall, not just related to your profession.
Learn Idioms and Slang, not just textbook English
English is a language full of idioms and slang. If you struggle to understand idioms and slang, you will never become truly proficient in English.
If you want to take your Professional/Business English to the next level, you must learn idioms and slang, not just textbook English.
Fluency is more important than Grammar
Most Spoken English for Professionals courses (or Business English courses) spend around 80% of there course time teaching students grammar. This method is outdated – in fact research shows that ESL students who focus too much on grammar improve slowly.
Rather than spending all your time learning grammar rules, just start speaking in English as much as possible. Spoken English is all about practice, if don’t practice speaking, you will not become fluent.
Improve Pronunciation
Most Spoken English for professionals programs focus on grammar and vocabulary skills but ignore pronunciation. However, most times native English speakers will find it hard to understand you if your pronunciation is bad.
What can you do to speak more clearly with better pronunciation? Here are some tips.
Practice with a Native English Teacher, if possible
The best way to improve oral English skills is by practicing with a native English teacher. You can memorize thousands of words and grammar rules but it will not be as effective as practicing with a native teacher.
So when you pick a Spoken English for professionals class, make sure your teacher is a native speaker and that the focus is on conversational English and not just theory.
