If you are looking for an effective and engaging language trainer one of the first questions you will probably ask yourself is: how will I know if they are any good at the language they teach? And can they teach me?
Let’s take back to your school days…perhaps when you were being taught in classes, you had that one teacher whose lessons were inconceivably boring? I ask you, did this affect your learning experience? Learning should be fun, engaging, relevant and driven by a teacher with passion for and strong ability in the language.
When you’re happy to learn, that’s when information can be processed and we all know learning a new language or understanding cultures isn’t the easiest thing on earth…it can be daunting and quite stressful. But it can be fun.
Finding that perfect trainer who ‘gets you’ is not necessarily something you can simply identify through a CV, website personal profile or LinkedIn account… so how do you find out if you will get your money’s worth?
Specialisation and industry experience
Speaking the language and teaching is one thing but how about catering to your individual needs? How about the relevance of your training?
Let’s say perhaps you have a really important presentation coming up but can’t necessarily dedicate all of your time to learning the language – you just need to be able to present in a confident manner but not talk politics over a meal table. A proficient language teacher will work to adapt their lessons, not just to be flexible to busy schedules but to dedicate their time to tailor their various lessons to that specific presentation at hand.
Now, let’s take for example Facebook’s co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg in this video below where Mark addresses the crowd in Mandarin.
It’s impressive isn’t it? And with the right trainer and relevant training you can get to this point quickly and painlessly.
Knowledge of your industry
To ease your learning experience, a good trainer will either have experience or will quickly grasp an understanding of your industry before you start lessons. To mould and adapt to the language that is being interpreted, this is most important as the work provided by the trainer will be tailored to correctly suit your industry. They need to speak and understand your industry lingo and challenges just as much as you need to be able to speak the language they are trying to teach you.
Professionalism
Your language trainer should be:
- Experienced – being able to speak a language doesn’t mean you can automatically teach it. A trainer should have min 5 years’ experience in business language training so they are aware of your challenges, pressures and needs
- Qualified – a teaching qualification and degree in the language they are teaching are two essential factors to ensure you are getting what you need
- Empathetic – this is key to boosting your confidence, skills and progress. Make sure you feel your trainer has sufficient empathy to spur you on
- Fluent – A great teacher must have an up-to-date feel for and fluency in the language. They needn’t be a native speaker but must have a feel for current idioms and expressions to help you sound as natural as possible.. and not like a book
- Flexible – To work around busy business hours, a great trainer will work to adapt to your personal schedule and agree to the hours you request
- Responsive & feedback-focused – A trainer should be honest with their feedback to give both positive and negative points to work on.
Most of all your trainer should engage you and you should have a bit of fun together. If you’re not laughing for part of every lesson something is not going right. If you don’t feel – wow I can actually apply this in the workplace and use this now, something is even more wrong.
This is where we place the focus at Dialogue – as the below illustrates. So just ask yourself are you getting the training you are looking for or is something lacking? Call us on +44 (0)1793 513 321 to find out more or email [email protected]
A quote from one of our clients on our trainers…
“The teachers were clear, patient, encouraging, professional, interesting and humorous.” – Renault