How can reading and listening help you to speak English confidently at work?

I’d like to give you some ideas about how reading and listening in English can help you to sound professional in English at work.

The difficulty is that the language that we use in our jobs can be about really specific topics, which you may not have learnt about in your English class at school. So, how can we improve our ability to talk professionally in English in our careers.

Learn from the best

Let’s start by looking at what good language learners do. Have you ever noticed that some people seem to have the ability to make language learning look easy? How do they do it? Well, most of them

• read or listen a lot in the language
• take an interest in new language, and make guesses about what it means and how to use it
• and take opportunities to speak to people in the language about topics that are useful and interesting to them

Listening and reading about your profession in English not only improves your professional knowledge, it also improves your English. There’s a lot that you can do independently to learn from what you read or listen to. Here are some ways that you can turn reading and listening into language learning opportunities:

• Write or record a summary of what you have read, watched, or listened to: This is a great way to check how much you understand and reuse some of the language that you have noticed. If you want to practise your pronunciation then record yourself summarising the article, video or podcast. When you’ve finished, check your summary against the original. How well did you understand it? Were you able to correctly reuse some of the language that you read or listened to in your own sentences? Did the writer express the same ideas to you in different ways?
• Write and answer discussion questions: Once you feel that you understand what you’ve read or listened to, try to relate it to your own experiences or give an opinion on it. A good way to do this is to write your own discussion questions and then practise answering them in English. You could make questions like…‘Do you agree with the speaker’s opinion on…?’ or ‘How similar is your experience to the writer’s?
• We’d like to interview you, please: There are a number of good podcasts where professionals are interviewed. Listen to an interview with a professional in your area of work. Listen to the question and the answer, and then press pause. Now, answer the question for yourself like you are being interviewed. If the question doesn’t relate perfectly to your situation then change it slightly. This is a great way to practise expressing an opinion on a relevant topic, and giving reasons for your opinion. You can also comment on the answer that you’ve just heard. If you find it difficult to express your thoughts then go back and listen to how the person being interviewed talks about similar ideas in English.

I hope you find these activities useful. Let me know what you read, watch or listen to, and how you use these blogs, videos and podcasts to practise your English. I’d love to hear from you.

Would you like support to learn more English from what you read, watch, or listen to?If so then Enjoy it in English and learn is a great opportunity for you.

Enjoy it in English, and learn

Do you spend time watching your favourite TV show, reading a book or listening to a podcast in English. It’s a great way to learn the language. The problem is that many of us don’t learn very quickly. Enjoy it in English and learn is not your normal English course.

I won’t tell you what to read or listen to, or even what to talk about. What I will do is help you to learn from what you enjoy reading, watching and listening to in English by helping you to actively notice new language, talk about it, and practise using it. In short it helps you to fit learning English into your life.

So, how does it work?

You can join the Enjoy it in English and learn as a 1-to-1 class, or in small group class with a friend. Here’s what happens:

1. We have a conversation about what to read, watch or listen to in English, and how to learn from it.
2. You decide what you would like to read, watch or listen to in English, and how much time you can spend doing that per week.
3. Each week you read, watch or listen to what you have chosen, and you make notes on your Enjoy it in English and learn journal.
4. We meet and talk about what you have read, watched, or listened to, the use of English in it, and the discussion topics relating to it. This is your chance to practise speaking and to learn from the English that we use.

I can’t wait to find out what you’ve been reading, watching or listening to!

If you’d like to know more about Enjoy it in English and learn, then book a time to have a chat with me. It would be great to hear from you.