“I want to improve my English.”
What does that mean?
I hear this quite often from professionals. My next question isn’t usually, “How much time can you commit?” It is:
“What do you actually want to be able to do in English?”
We’re talking about adults. Busy, senior professionals.
For them, “improve my English” isn’t a tangible objective.
Improve what?
In what situations?
With whom?
And what would being better actually allow you to do?
These questions can significantly change the learning problem.
A couple of years ago, I worked with a professional preparing for a country-level managerial position.
His English was already fluent, with some minor mistakes and occasional expressions that sounded less natural in English, but overall he communicated clearly.
He never said, “I want to improve my English.”
He needed to improve, of course, but it was a specific objective: to maintain his level of communication through a stressful series of job interviews.
He needed to structure his answers, highlight his strengths, communicate his experience clearly and do all of this under pressure.
We only had four sessions to prepare.
He passed all the rounds and got the job.
That experience reinforced something I’ve seen repeatedly:
For many professionals, the right learning goal must be smaller and more specific than “improve your English”.
Motivation and commitment cannot compensate for an unclear objective.
You can be highly motivated. You can work hard. You can spend hours studying.
But if you don’t know what you are actually trying to become capable of doing, your effort may not be directed at the thing that matters most.
Before asking:
“How can I improve my English?”
there is another question worth asking:
“What do I need my English to enable me to do?”
Then think about what successful communication would look like in the situations in which you will need English.
The answers may help define what actually needs to be worked on.
And sometimes the answer is not “I need better English.”
Sometimes it is:
“I need to use the English I already have more effectively.”
That is a very different learning problem.
Do you need help communicating clearly in English?
I help senior professionals who want to communicate with greater clarity and confidence in English.