Learning English and employability

Tas Viglatzis
Business people stood together around a laptop in a office
Reading time: 4 minutes

English not only opens up career opportunities beyond national borders; it is a key requirement for many jobs. It’s also no longer a case of just learning English for employability, but mastering English for business – and that means an on-going commitment to learn.

My experience is consistent with this trend. If I had to estimate the value that being fluent in English has had on my career, I'd say it was my entire life’s earnings. Learning English has offered me educational options beyond the borders of my own country and enabled me to develop the skills to work for global companies that operate across national boundaries. I have been privileged to work in different countries in roles that have spanned functions, geographies and markets – and my ability to learn and evolve my English skills has been an underlying factor throughout.

Mastering English for employability
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How I improved my English

I grew up in Greece, where – as is common in many European countries with languages that aren’t widely spoken – learning a second European language is part of the education system. As a result, my first encounter with English was through the Franklin approach, which focuses on grammar and writing rather than all the four core skills. This meant I could read and write very well, yet when I first arrived in the UK I couldn’t hold a simple conversation in the pub.

It’s a common problem with traditional educational approaches that don’t cover all the learning skills – something still evident in many countries globally. In Japan, for example, after years of focusing on reading and writing there’s now a strong desire to teach students to understand spoken English and speak fluently.

I was fortunate to complete my postgraduate studies in the UK. This was challenging because I had to raise my English to a much higher standard. I also had to improve my conversational English to enjoy a social life, which was a pretty powerful motivator. I surrounded myself with people who only spoke English, because hearing and using the language regularly are powerful tools in more easily understanding others, and making yourself understood.

Precision learning in the workplace

This approach, together with formal learning, eventually paid off for me. However, once I entered the workplace, I found that there were many new aspects of English to learn.

One of the main barriers to learning at different levels and applications of English – for university, for friendships, for work – is knowing precisely where you are at any stage of your learning journey, and knowing where you need to go next (and how best to get there). As I found, this is compounded when you enter the workplace where you also have new skills to learn in a second language, from IT to soft skills such as negotiation.

If I had been given a precise learning path to help me in my first job, or to get my second job and so on, then my end goals could have been reached more quickly and easily. Yes, I was highly motivated to learn, but what worked for me does not necessarily work for others – especially since professionals who learn English for work often have very little time.And with greater technology advances, we all now expect much faster results.

Crucially, whatever the learning methods and tools are, this points to two most challenging factors in English teaching and learning: making real progress and staying motivated.

In the past, progress in language learning has been measured in broad levels. Common scales, and the curriculum tied to them, are not always best designed to reflect the four skills or different applications, such as academic versus business.

These measures were increasingly being exposed as incomplete and no longer being fit for purpose. It is that need that led to the extensive global research and development into the Global Scale of English (GSE) – a precise, standardised measure of proficiency from 10 to 90 across the four skills.

The GSE extends the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR); its steps are much more granular and it provides a powerful, focused motivator for further learning throughout your career. It includes sets of learning objectives as "can do" statements at each level; because these are tailored to the learning environment – for example, for work – learning goals and measures of progress are more relevant and accurate. That, in turn, leads to greater engagement and increased motivation.

The future of language learning in the workplace

The key trends of personalisation and adaptive learning are driving the future of English language learning. Online methods and the use of big data analytics and tools continues to expand and increase in sophistication, enabling English language learning to become more specific to individual needs, learning styles and capabilities while offering improved measurement of impact and results. This is vital because language learners learn at different rates and in different ways.

Technology is also helping us support another trend: increasing demand by learners for specific interventions and focus on micro-skills and competencies. As our ability to understand individual needs improves we will become better equipped to provide solutions that concentrate on what’s important for English learners and their careers, such as interviewing in English, running an effective meeting or being able to better express thoughts in writing.

There is a big opportunity for English language learning to embrace those trends, which is why we’re so excited with what we’re doing with the GSE: it gives us the necessary framework to offer flexibility of learning and increased levels of personalisation to English language learners, while ensuring that our products and solutions complement each other. Crucially, it also allows us to measure and show our learners their actual progress.

Finally, it’s important to remember that we never stop learning. Even after living in the UK for 20 years, I still find new words and expressions that open up new possibilities – both in and out of the workplace.

Read our blog posts "Internships: how they improve language skills"and "How adult learners navigate English language learning".

Learn about the GSE

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    Three ways to learn new English words

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    It’s more important for teachers to help students find ways to practice their English outside the classroom. The more efficient students become at autonomous learning, the better they’ll be able to overcome interruptions and make up for lost time.

    It will be even more challenging if you're a self-learner as you do not have a teacher looking over you and steering your learning. But it’s helpful to learn from the teaching world and pick up teacher tips that you can apply to your own studies and techniques.

    Why are learning new words so challenging?

    Students learning new words in English generally progress steadily up until the pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. But after that, they start to struggle.

    This is because there’s a big difference between the volume of the vocabulary that intermediate students and upper-intermediate students need to know.

    • Intermediate (B1/B2 level) students need to know about 2,500 words
    • upper-intermediate (B2/C1 level) students need to know about 7,500-9,000 words.

    That’s a big jump in numbers. But the real challenge is that those 5,000+ new words are not very frequent. Consequently, students don’t encounter them very often, making it difficult to recall them and leap from one level to the next.

    While there’s no simple answer to this problem, there are ways to help students overcome it. The following framework can be a big help in any classroom:

    1. Focus on the most important words:Always teach appropriate words for the levels your students are currently at.
    2. Provide memorable first encounters:You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So, ensure your student's first encounter with a new word is as memorable as possible.
    3. Teach effective word-learning strategies:Provide your students with valuable tools, tactics and resources so that they can learn new words outside the classroom, too.
    4. Organize repeat encounters:Vocabulary works on a “use it or lose it” basis, so ensure your students encounter the vocabulary you want them to learn repeatedly.

    How to teach effective word-learning strategies

    There are three steps to teach students how to learn new words effectively:

    1. Help learners maximize their exposure to English and find opportunities to use English outside the classroom

    Thanks to the internet and technology, there are many ways that students can engage with the English language outside the classroom.

    However, simple exposure to a new language is not enough – it takes much longer and is less effective than active learning. When students do something with the language they’re exposed to; it is far more memorable.

    That’s why it’s crucial for teachers to help their students seek out English in their own time and use the language, turning passive exposure into active learning.

    • Encourage students to read, listen and view things that they’re interested in or passionate about in English. For example, introduce them to new blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, or TV series that fit their interests – since personalization leads to more effective learning.
    • Help students find ways to use English in different ways. For example, they can start a learning diary, make to-do lists in English, write social media posts, and create word cards to practice their writing. For speaking, they can record voice memos or video stories, take part in Zoom discussions, or participate in speaking projects and live classes.

    2. Provide ways for students to discover the meaning of new words

    It’s crucial to help students improve their guesswork. Instead of asking online translators to translate every time they encounter a new word, they should be able to guess the meaning of new vocabulary differently.

    • One approach is to look at the morphology of words and consider word families. For example, you can ask your students to brainstorm words with a common root. Or, you can have them identify and practice common suffixes.
    • Explore “true friends” or words that are similar in English and your student's native language.
    • Help your students figure out how to guess the meaning of a word from the context. To do this, you must ensure that your students don’t just hear or read new words but also put them into use.

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    This helps to connect learning inside and outside the classroom, and it’s fun!

    3. Provide students with strategies to consolidate their knowledge of new words

    Finally, teachers should give students ideas on how to memorize words outside the classroom. You can have your students produce word cards and use a Word Store booklet to practice tasks like matching words with images or definitions.

    Lastly, it’s important to teach students memory tricks or mnemonics so they can retain the new words they encounter.

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    1. English words with friends

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    2. Add some music

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    3. Try, try and try again

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    4. Join online English forums

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    If you feel nervous about people identifying you, make an anonymous profile. Then read through the forum to see what people are discussing. Once you feel confident, actively participate in the forum by answering questions posed by other people – or post your own questions and have a conversation with the other members who answer you.

    5. Get with the language

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    6. Read to learn English

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    Origins of English

    The history of English shows this taking place from the very beginning. When the Germanic tribes first arrived in Britain, bringing with them the dialects that would become English, their vocabulary already contained words and phrases borrowed from Latin, a consequence of the interaction with the soldiers of the Roman Empire.

    Today we think of such words as 'butter', 'cup', 'kitchen', 'mile', and 'street' as true English words, but they are all Latin in origin ('butyrum', 'cuppa', 'coquina', 'mille', 'strata'), taken into Germanic while the tribes were still on the European mainland.

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    When the French arrived, in the eleventh century, the borrowing became a flood, with thousands of French words expanding the vocabulary to an unprecedented size, in such domains as law, religion, politics, food, and the arts – 'duke', 'abbot', 'war', 'peace', 'pork' and 'beauty'. During the Renaissance, Latin added tens of thousands more.

    In all cases, the words traveled because cultural contact – in its broadest sense – made them do so.

    The history of contact

    This history of contact is one of the reasons that English has so many near-synonyms: we can 'ask' (from Old English), 'question' (from French), and 'interrogate' (from Latin). We can talk about a 'fire', 'flame', and 'conflagration'; 'kingly', 'royal', and 'regal'. But although French and Latin are the dominant voices, they are put in the shade by the accumulated impact of the many languages that English has since encountered as its speakers moved around the globe, especially in the days of the British Empire.

    Today, a search through the files of any major dictionary shows the presence of hundreds of languages, from 'aardvark' (Afrikaans) to 'zygote' (Greek).

    It’s been estimated that around 80 percent of present-day English vocabulary comes from languages other than the original Anglo-Saxon Germanic. English seems to always be a vacuum cleaner of a language, sucking in words from whichever culture it was in contact with. The process continues. In recent years, dictionary writers have been considering such new borrowings of words from other languages.

    But not everything in language change is due to borrowing. When we look at recent lists of updates in the dictionary world, we find hundreds of phrasal expressions, such as 'solar farm', 'travel card', 'skill set', 'cold caller', 'air punch', and 'set menu'.

    Blends of existing words form an increasingly large component of modern vocabulary, such as 'glamping' (glamorous + camping) and 'Pokemon' (pocket + monster), as do internet abbreviations, such as 'GTG' (got to go) and 'BRB' (be right back).

    And it’s here that we see the most noticeable phenomenon of the last few decades: the impact of English on other languages. The traveling is now going in both directions.

    Over a decade ago, Manfred Görlach published his Dictionary of European Anglicisms, showing English to be "the world’s biggest lexical exporter”. The book lists hundreds of words and phrases that have entered the languages of Europe. A small selection from letter 'A' shows 'ace' (from tennis), 'aerobics', 'aftershave', and 'aqualung', as well as phrases such as 'acid house' and 'air bag'.

    The factors are exactly the same as those that brought foreign words into English in the first place, such as business, culture, medicine, sport, the arts, popular music, science and technology. The difference is that these expressions come from all over the English-speaking world, with American English the primary supplier, thanks chiefly to its presence in the media.

    The impact of media

    It is the media that provides the main answer to the question “How?”. In the old days, face-to-face contact caused expressions to be shared, and it would take time for words to travel – a generation before a word would become widely used. Today, the use of English in film, television, and especially the internet allows 'word travel' to take place at a faster rate than ever before.

    A new word or phrase invented today can be around the globe by tomorrow, and if it appeals it will spread on social media and become part of daily use in no time at all. Even an everyday phrase can receive a new lease of life in this way.

    Many countries try to resist the borrowing process, thinking that an uncontrolled influx of English expressions will destroy their language.

    The evidence from the history of English shows that this does not happen. Because of its global spread, English has borrowed more words than any other language – and has this caused its destruction? On the contrary, in terms of numbers of users, English is the most successful language the world has ever seen.

    Borrowing does change the character of a language, and this too is something that causes concern. But again, I ask: is this inevitably a bad thing? Shakespeare would have been unable to write his characters in such an effective way without all those borrowings from French and Latin.

    Much of his linguistic playfulness and creativity relies on how everyday words are contrasted with their scholarly or aristocratic counterparts. In Love’s Labour’s Lost, Don Armado gives Costard a coin as a tip, calling it a "remuneration".

    Costard has no idea what the word means, but when he looks at his coin he realizes he’s been given a tiny amount. “Oh, that’s the Latin word for three farthings”, he reflects. “I will never buy and sell out of this word”. It always gets a laugh from an audience.

    Today's challenges

    Keeping up-to-date with language change is probably the greatest challenge facing foreign language learners because there is so much of it.

    Textbooks and teachers face a daily risk of falling behind the times. But the risk can be reduced if we build an awareness of change into the way we present a language. And understanding the natural processes that underlie linguistic change is the essential first step.