Why your performance management strategy needs language learning

Samantha Ball
Two business people both looking at a computer screen, gesturing and smiling.

The modern workplace is constantly evolving and undergoing a paradigm shift in performance management. The focus is now on fostering a culture of continuous learning and development, rather than merely holding employees accountable. It is particularly important to prioritize this shift when it comes to enhancing language and communication skills within your team.

It is important to connect performance management with language learning goals, as English skills are highly valued by both employees and businesses.

Performance management strategies and language learning
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Identifying a gap

So, you have identified a lack of English language proficiency within your team, and want to implement a performance management plan for the professional development of your staff.Now let’s look at how you can use your performance management system to effectively address this gap and support employees in their career advancement.

1. Map individual learning goals to business needs

It is important to understand your business's needs and aims before setting language learning goals. You need to determine whether you want to improve skills like technical written English for documents, spoken English for customer service, or prepare your team for a new market.

By aligning individual language learning goals with business priorities, your performance management plan becomes a strategic tool that benefits both employees and the overall business.

Example: Make your customer service more effective by improving the team’s spoken English.

2. Understand employees' language learning needs

To get an idea about your team's current language proficiency and personal preferences, you can conduct surveys and individual interviews. By gathering information about their confidence levels, preferred learning styles, and objectives, you can create a customized language learning plan that motivates them to achieve their goals. This approach ensures that your team members actively participate in shaping their language development. One way to evaluate language proficiency is by using assessments such as Versant tests.

Example: Build your employees’ confidence when doing workplace tasks, such as presenting in English, by expanding their business English vocabulary.

3. Fair performance management

An effective performance management system is crucial for achieving success in any organization. It is essential that managers possess the necessary tools and expertise to provide unbiased appraisals. In the context of language learning, this means ensuring that all employees have equal access to opportunities for developing their Workplace English skills.

A positive and supportive work culture encourages managers to conduct appraisals that contribute to the growth and development of all team members.

Example: Offer Business English skills development to every employee.

4. Regularly monitor progress

Language skills require consistent practice, making continuous feedback essential. Conduct baseline skill assessments using tools like Versant by app and complement them with interactive language learning platforms like Mondly by app. Establish a continuous feedback loop to monitor progress and set realistic goals for employees, using each performance review as an opportunity to review and refine language learning objectives.

Example: Improve your team’s language retention with daily practice in the Mondly by app app.

Workplace language program checklist

Use this checklist to ensure that progress is being measured effectively and that the corporate language program is suited to the business and your employees’ language needs.

  1. Are individual language learning goals aligned with business priorities?
  2. Do managers feel equipped and supported to deliver fair and effective appraisals?
  3. Is suitable and progressive learning technology in place to support the learning process?
  4. Is progress monitored and assessed all year round?

Integrating language learning into your performance management system is a strategic investment. It benefits both your employees' development and the success of your business. By aligning individual goals with business needs, understanding your team's preferences, ensuring fairness in appraisals, and maintaining continuous monitoring, you can create a performance management system. This system addresses language skills gaps and also fosters a culture of perpetual learning and improvement.

Not sure where to start for your organization? app offers language learning solutions for work to help boost your employee's language skills.

Want to learn more? Read the long-form article for more or explore our language learning and assessment tools for businesses.

You might also be interested in our post 'Language proficiency and succession planning: Developing future leaders'

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  • A teacher standing over a desk where a student is sat, helping them. Students are also sat at desks in the background

    4 key challenges in secondary education

    Por Anna Roslaniec

    Let’s examine four of the most common challenges secondary teachers have and look into some strategies to help solve them.

    1. My students are afraid of making mistakes

    You’re not alone! Many teachers say their teenage students are quiet and unwilling to answer questions in class. Sometimes, this might simply be because they don’t know the answers, but more often than not, they are nervous about making mistakes.

    When children grow into teenagers, they tend to become more self-conscious and worried about what their peers think of them – and making mistakes in public is a big no-no for them. However, there are several ways to facilitate a safe learning environment where your students are happy and willing to talk. Sometimes, though, it takes a little experimentation. Here are some things you can try:

    Celebrate mistakes

    When students make mistakes, ensure that you praise them for taking a risk or making an effort. Correct their errors and be clear with the rest of the class that the only way to learn is to try new things.

    Be firm

    Don’t tolerate any bullying or laughing when someone gets an answer wrong. If your students fear that others will mock them for their efforts, they’ll stay quiet. So make sure you have clear rules and that your students understand that mistakes are normal and to be expected.

    Have students discuss their answers in pairs or groups

    If your students are painfully shy and afraid of making mistakes, avoid picking on individuals to answer questions in front of the class. Instead, when asking a question, tell your students to discuss it in pairs or small groups first. This will allow them to formulate their ideas and feel more confident. Afterwards, you can ask the pairs to share what they discussed – leading to a natural open-class discussion.

    Listen to your students

    Another, powerful way of engaging your students in discussion is to listen to a conversation they are having with their partners and then express how impressed you are with their ideas during a feedback session. E.g. “You said X, which I thought was very interesting. Could you explain this to the class? It was a great idea.” This gives them the confidence to share their thoughts.

    2. My students are not engaged with the activities I choose

    This is another very common problem for teachers of teenagers. You spend a lot of time thinking of fun, interesting activities – then, when you present them to the class, your students look away and say they’re bored. Soon enough, you’ll get frustrated and not know how to re-engage them. Here are some ideas to help:

    Get to know your students

    Without fail, the best way to engage your students is by getting to know them as individuals over the year. Find out about their hobbies and interests outside of school, and learn what makes them laugh and what worries them. Use your knowledge of your students to find interesting books to read, videos to watch, or relevant subjects to discuss. This way, you’ll deliver tailored lessons your students find truly interesting and useful.

    Allow a degree of autonomy

    Sometimes quietness is also a sign of disengagement with the learning materials. To get past this obstacle, you can get your students to brainstorm things that interest them in groups, list them on the board and have a class vote on the topic of their next class project. As a teacher, you always have the power to veto inappropriate ideas, but giving students a voice is a powerful way of making them feel valued and involved in their own education.

    Make things (a little) competitive

    Even teenagers love games! And play is an integral part of learning, as it allows our students to be themselves, have fun, and communicate freely at the same time. By allowing them to play language-focused games in class, they’ll soon forget their inhibitions and start talking.

    3. My students just want to do grammar exercises

    Language is all about communication, speaking, listening, reading and writing – yet all your students want to do is grammar exercises. Frustrating as this is, it’s probably a sign that our students are not confident in their speaking or listening abilities. Here’s what you can do:

    Encourage free language practice

    Grammar activities are very structured and there is often a clear answer. Day-to-day communications, however, are much freer, which can intimidate less confident students. This activity will help you combine the two aspects of language learning:

    • Put students in small groups and give them a set of cards with exciting topics printed on them—for example; music, sports, environment, school, vacations, friends, food.
    • Tell students that they should each choose a card and speak freely about their topic for 30 seconds – the short time will help them overcome their fear of speaking and can be gradually increased as they get used to this type of activity.
    • Have students record themselves when they are speaking and then, when they listen back, have them identify the grammatical structures they used.

    They should write down and correct any mistakes under your guidance. Not only will this get students used to talking and encourage a lot of emergent language, but it will also help them feel they are practicing grammar.

    If your students really enjoy learning grammar, you can ‘flip’ your grammar activities and make them more communicative. First, provide them with a series of sentences or listening clips which have a common grammatical structure (second conditional sentences, for example).

    Then have students work together (in English) to identify how the language is structured, so they can discover the grammar point for themselves. This not only gets them talking, but they are doing something they feel confident at.

    4. My students are bored of all the repetition

    Repetition is an important part of language learning. By practicing things over and over again, your students will come to understand it better and will be able to produce the language more easily. However, repetition is often quite dull, especially for fast learners. Here’s how you can make things more interesting for your teenage students:

    Use a greater variety of activities to engage your learners

    If you’ve been teaching your students a particular set of vocabulary, a grammatical structure, or some pronunciation rules, think about how else they can practice them.

    For example, instead of drilling pronunciation over and over again, ask students to think of all the words they can think of that have the same sound in them (e.g. book, look, cook, shook, etc.). This will help them ‘hear’ the sounds in their heads and improve their understanding of other words.

    If you have been learning vocabulary through reading, have students write or tell stories that incorporate the words.

    The idea is not to stop repeating the target language or skill, but to practice it in different ways. Apply this principle to other areas of language learning so your students won’t feel like they are repeating things.