​When I finish working with a client, I always ask them to fill in a feedback form. A couple of weeks ago, someone wrote:
"I never thought I would enjoy speaking English. I hated English at school. Thank you."

I've had similar comments from other clients before, either around how much they have always disliked learning English or how bad they are at it (often both!) People often assume that is just the way it is and it will always be like that. However, this is not the case.

If your school experience of learning English was negative, please remember that it's probably more a reflection of the school system or teacher, than it is about your ability to speak English.

And just because you didn't enjoy learning English at school, doesn't mean you can't enjoy speaking English as an adult.

Of course, improving your English takes time and practice. (And if you find speaking hard, remember you need to practise speaking!) But that practice doesn't have to feel like being back in the classroom. It can be interesting, enjoyable and often fun -one of the reasons I like my job so much is how much I laugh with clients.

So, if you've been telling yourself for years that you hate English or you're simply not good at English, perhaps it's time to question that belief.

Click here to I got a wonderful email yesterday from a previous client. She'd just got back from a work trip to the West Indies and wanted to let me know how my course and my emails had really helped her with an English presentation she did there. 

"Just back from Jamaica. I would like to express how thankful I am. Your course and emails helped a lot to make me more confident when I had to present. Honestly, I felt good speaking English and in the end it was fun." 🎉

I decided to share the story in this week's Blog because its a great example of how keeping your focus on the task, rather than the English, can make everything easier.

The light-bulb moment for most people on that course was when we did a fun exercise where the participants all had to argue why their historical character deserved to be the one who survived a hot-air balloon accident. At the end everybody voted on who was the one person they thought should stay in the balloon and therefore survive. 

We had a very clear winner (we all voted for the same person!) and it was not the person with the best English in the class.  When voting, nobody was thinking about whether the person had used complex  vocab or had made any mistakes. Instead, it was all about how clear, logical and persuasive the arguments were.

And that is the same when speaking English at work.

Your English does not have to perfect and there are no extra points for using high-level grammar or long, complicated words. As long as your English is easy to understand, it is good enough. After that, working successfully in English is all about how well you do the task, not about how great your English is. 💡

September is always the most stressful month of year for me. There is  lots to organize at the start of a new school year. Plus with the change in seasons, the kids needs new clothes and then we also have two  September family birthdays to celebrate.
Every year at somepoint it always get too much and I start to make stupid mistakes. My favourite this year was we had to send a letter to our children when they were away on their school trip and I forgot to put a stamp on my letter! When the kids got back, I had a polite note from the teacher telling me I owed her money for the missing stamp and connected fine.

It is the same with speaking English if it is not your first language. In my sessions and also listening to my clients talk about their own experiences, when they are feeling overwhelmed their ability to speak English noticeably reduces. It's harder to find the words they need, they make lots more mistakes and overall fluency drops.

Therefore, I wanted to share this BBC article on '30-second habits to improve your mood' which specifically looks at quick ways to help reduce the feeling (and therefore the consequences) of overwhelm. If you are having a very busy or very stressful day and have an English meeting coming up, try one of these suggestions beforehand. The 30-second time investment should be well worth it. 

​When I first started teaching, it was all about the traditional elements, so grammar and pronunciation etc.

However, I soon noticed there was a key aspect missing. I would have two clients with a very similar level of English but their English work performance differed massively. This was due to more than just nerves. The belief that many of my clients had that their English should be perfect, was reducing their ability to speak.

If you think
-you shouldn't make any mistakes when you speak
-you need to learn every English word you don't know
-you need to impress your audience with complex grammar or vocab
-you should have an accent like a native speaker

you are probably making your English worse!

You are taking your focus away from where it should be - your message.
Your fluency and your ability to listen to other people in the room suffer.
You are putting huge amounts of unnecessary pressure on yourself.
And most likely you are often keeping quiet even though you have important things to say.

If you can see yourself in the text above, please remember 'real life is not an English exam'. Your goal for speaking English at work is to communicate your point, not speak flawless or high-level English. If you can remember this, it will both take the pressure off and help you communicate better.

This week I did a 15-minute LinkedIn live on the topic of three quick wins to feel more confident in your English meetings.

For the full 15-minute video click here. Ignore the first two minutes of me sitting in silence! It was my first time live streaming and I got a bit stuck on with tech.

Or for the PDF summary click here. This was meant originally as a summary for people who attended the live. However, it also works as a standalone document.

Yesterday I watched a video on the BBC entitled 'the alarming rise of perfectionism with-in young people'. I watched it because my youngest daughter gets very anxious before tests and exams and feels like a failure if she doesn't get a '1' (the top grade you can get in Germany). However, when I listened to the speaker, a professor from the London School of Economics, it made me think of so many of my clients. 
​
Here is my favourite section from the interview:

Perfectionism causes us to feel "we are not enough, that other people are judging us, they are watching us, they are waiting for us to make mistakes.
The data are very clear on this. It doesn't help you to acheive, One, perfectionists burn out a lot as they work way too hard. But the other one is that they are the master self-sabotagers. They procrastinate, they are indecisive, they don't get started on things because it is too challenging. The aniticipated shame and guilt of failing is so strong they don't get started.
Perfectionism holds us back and the data are clear on that. You get no benefit from perfectionism. What you do get is more anxiety and less satisfaction."
I often have clients who
-have good English, more than good enough to say what they need to say, but won't speak in meetings in case they make a mistake
​-avoid speaking as much as possible as they have 'the worst English in the room.'
-have sleepless nights before their English meetings worrying about what they will do if someone asks them a question they don't understand or they are speaking and they don't a word they need.

If this sounds like you, remember your English doesn't have to be perfect. And by thinking it does, you are limiting yourself. Your audience isn't sitting there writing down your English mistakes, they are writing down interesting points or next steps. What matters is that you communicate effectively. If you do this, no-one will care about a badly pronounced word, the level of your vocab or a grammar mistake.

Today is a big day in our household as it's my daughter's last day at primary school. Overall it's been a good experience for her. We are very lucky with our local school, its beautiful playground and great facilities. Most of the teachers are good. However, the older she gets, the less I like the school system here.

In Germany, from a very early age, there is a huge focus on grades and a huge focus on accuracy. At 8 years old, my children were losing marks in maths because they wrote outside the margin, or they hadn't written a number exactly right, even though it was perfectly obvious which number it was.
The same happens in German lessons. Isabel writes amazing stories with great descriptions. All she gets back from the teacher is the story with the spelling mistakes highlighted in red and a grade, possibly with "good" written next to it. No comments like "What an exciting story", "Great story, well done", or "Lovely description". Just the mistakes highlighted.

I'm not a psychologist, but I'm sure this way of teaching has an effect on how professionals who use English at work.
They:

• sit there in silence in meetings, even when they have something useful to say, in case they make a mistake.
• put all their focus on "Is my English correct?" and "Is my English good enough?" rather than communicating their message.
• feel too embarrassed to say they don't understand.

The result is that perfectly capable professionals hold themselves back—often not because their English isn't good enough, but because they're afraid of getting it wrong.

The good news is that this mindset can be changed. It's not easy, but it's possible.
Start by looking at what you measure. Instead of asking yourself, "Was my English correct?", ask, "Did people understand me?"

If you are someone who avoids speaking English wherever possible, give yourself the aim of contributing one idea or asking one question in the meeting. Don't worry about accuracy or your level of English. Your goal is simply to speak.​

​When I talk to new clients, they often say they "feel scared", "feel nervous", or "feel under pressure" when they speak English at work. If this sounds like you, you are not alone. It even has a proper name: Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) and there is scientific research on it that demonstrates the negative effects it can have.

So, what do researchers say about Foreign Language Anxiety?

• It reduces speaking performance 📉
• It slows language processing in the brain 🥴
• It causes people to avoid communicating 🤐

This means that if you could relax in your English meetings and no longer feel nervous, you would:

• speak better English
• communicate your ideas more clearly
• speak up more often in meetings

If you have an intermediate level of English or above and you get nervous or stressed speaking English at work, the thing that will help you the most is not:
❌ learning more vocabulary
❌ studying grammar
❌ watching and listening to English

It is losing your fear of speaking English and being able to stay relaxed when you speak. That's what will help you be able to make the most of the English that you already have, communicate more clearly and contribute more in your meetings.