So, a lot of people have been asking me what I consider to be the most important things to be able to communicate more effectively in English. I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week. I have 4 things that are really important.
I know that time is always short, but, someone once told me that you don’t make a cake without a recipe (at least not the first few times). And a recipe usually has a list of ingredients which means you are going to have to do some planning if you are going to bake a cake. If you are going to communicate effectively in English, you need to do some preparation too, and a few other things!
With a classic Project Management or Design Thinking tool, I am going to suggest that we should apply the mantra of Plan, Do, Review, Change to our English communication skills.
Let’s get into it.
1. Plan
It doesn’t matter if you are going to have a phone call, go into a meeting or go on a business trip, you need to prepare. Think about what you need to say, what are the important things that you need to communicate. Then think about how you will say them. Write them down. Practise in front of the mirror every morning. Or if you are about to go into a phone call or meeting, write down those key phrases. Research them to be sure they are exactly what you want to say. If you get your main message accurate, you will have achieved what you need to.
If you don’t have the vocabulary you need, get onto an online dictionary, look for synonyms and find the words you need. Make a note of them, and practice using them. If you prepare, you’ll feel more confident.
2. Do
Just do it. Push yourself but don’t apologise for your English. Say what you need to say and say it clearly. Again, practice, but don’t lose your confidence and then back out. Push yourself all the time. And as I said, don’t apologise for your English. I wrote a blog post back in March 2022 about not apologising for your English. You can get that here.
3. Review
Once you’ve done your call, meeting or trip, look at how you performed.
Look at what you said, was it well understood? Did you struggle with some pronunciation, or sentence structures? Look at the places where you had difficulties and try to be honest with yourself about how effective you were at communicating. Once you’ve done that, you need to make some changes.
4. Change
Once you’ve identified the places where you struggled, you need to look at ways to improve that element of your communication. Maybe you need to get some advice on the best way to express a certain point. Maybe there was a false friend that you used from your first language that didn’t quite translate well for you. Check what the alternatives to that word might be. And pronunciation. If you have mispronounced some word, go searching in a dictionary for a phonetic representation. Online dictionaries tend to have a spoken version of words to help you understand how they are pronounced correctly.
Find the answers to those problems, then make the changes.
Using English as a second or foreign language is a lifelong learning process. That process needs us to be actively working on it. So, Plan, Do, Review and Change. That’s how you progress, that’s how you grow and that’s how you become a more fluent communicator of English.
