Four Tips for Speaking Better English

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As a Korean professional, you've probably spent a ton of time and energy trying to become an effective English communicator. You’ve most likely watched countless videos, studied grammar books, and taken courses promising to make you a better English speaker. However, you're still not at the level you want to be at in your career.

You might have trouble delivering engaging presentations or participating in English business meetings. Maybe you feel nervous or uncomfortable while speaking English, and wish you were able to express yourself with more confidence. Perhaps you don't use English at work now, but dream of living and working abroad someday. Whatever your situation is, I feel your pain and I truly want to help you.

The Truth...

Many Koreans believe that if they just speak more and spend more time talking with native speakers, their English will improve. This is only partially true. Yes, you need to speak English often if you want to become a highly skilled English communicator. However, to truly reach your potential and unlock the communication abilities you need to progress in your career, you need to be doing more than just 'speaking English'. If you want to reach your English and career goals as soon as possible, it's incredibly important that you do four things.

1. Practice the actual conversations you have at work.

You really need to make your practice as close as possible to the English you need in your professional life. Discussing what you did on the weekends is nice, but it isn’t going to help you improve your sales pitches, presentations, meetings with clients, and other work-specific English situations. 

For this reason, it is quite important that you find someone you can role-play your work-specific English conversations with. A majority of my 1:1 clients work in international companies, and we spend about 40% of our class time practicing and reviewing the conversations, presentations, and speeches they need for their jobs. Ideally, your instructor should be able to help not only with your English, but also with the actual content/organization of your speeches/presentations. 

Getting this extra practice and feedback can make a huge difference in your work performance. You’ll be able to communicate your ideas more effectively, you’ll make better impressions on your colleagues, bosses, or customers, and you’ll unlock exciting new career opportunities for yourself. So, if you don’t feel confident in your work-specific English abilities, find someone that can help you. They’re out there! 

2. Always discuss new topics

I feel bad for students that get stuck with lazy, uninspired teachers who ask them the same questions week after week: ‘How’s your week going?’ ‘What will you do today?’ ‘How’s work?’ etc. In addition to being not very interesting, when you only talk about these basic, superficial topics in English, you won’t have the ability to discuss deeper, more interesting topics. 

Truly effective English practice should challenge you to always discuss new topics. In addition to everything related to your job/industry, you should also discuss history, politics, money, traveling, relationships, self-improvement, fitness, science, technology, different cultures….the list goes on. 

By doing so, you'll feel much less 'limited' by your English. You’ll have a richer vocabulary, be able to share your opinions on a wider variety of topics, and have a lot more fun improving your English.

3. Make your listening practice as close as possible to the real world.

This tip is important because if you can’t understand what other people are saying to you, then you can't communicate effectively even if you have good speaking skills. A lot of Korean English learners struggle to communicate effectively in the real world because they can’t understand ‘real world’ English. 

There’s a major difference between ‘classroom’ English and ‘real world’ English. Classroom English is often slow, overly simplified, and made to be as clear as possible. In the real world, people speak much faster, use filler words such as ‘umm’ or ‘like’, and conversations often quickly switch topics. It’s very important that your listening practice is as close as possible to what you’ll experience in your real life. 

One recommendation I give to all my intermediate and advanced Korean clients is to listen to unscripted English content as often as possible. What I mean by ‘unscripted’ is that it’s real English speakers having real conversations. TV and movies are great, but they’re still actors reading lines. You want to experience all those filler words, quick topic changes, and interruptions that often happen in a real English conversation. 

Some of the best English listening resources are live interviews, talk shows, debates, podcasts, and group discussions. If you work in a specific industry, such as IT or finance, it’s also great to find listening resources about your industry. There are podcasts and Youtube channels about basically everything now, so with a bit of searching you should be able to find some interesting, relevant resources that will really help your listening and communication abilities. By listening to natural, unscripted English, you'll be much more prepared to understand and respond effectively to the English you experience in the workplace.

4. Get feedback 

This is perhaps the most important tip of all, and the main difference between an average English class and a great English class. If you’re serious about improving your English, then it’s incredibly important to get detailed feedback on your speaking and the mistakes that you make.  

Imagine you wanted to be a professional soccer player. So, you went outside and played soccer for hours every single day. You did this for months. Sure, you would likely get a little bit better, but your improvements would be very limited because you’re not getting any actual instruction. You aren’t able to recognize the mistakes in your playing. You don’t have anyone there to correct them for you and teach you how to play soccer more effectively. If you had an expert coach organize a training program to fix your mistakes and help you become the best player possible, your soccer skills would improve at a MUCH faster rate.

A vast majority of Korean English learners know that their English isn’t perfect, but they don’t know the specific mistakes they’re making. Even if they know some of the mistakes, they likely don’t know how to fix them. This is where you really need an expert's help. Someone who can point out all the mistakes you’re making, show you the corrections, and explain the corrections so you fully understand.

This is especially important when you practice the specific speeches/presentations you give at work. I've had many Korean clients who significantly improved their workplace communication in a relatively short amount of time simply from me correcting and explaining the specific speaking errors they were making.

Click here to read positive reviews from some of my Korean clients.

CONCLUSION

You’ve made it to the end of the article, so you obviously care about improving your English. I know the English journey can be frustrating at times. You might feel like giving up, or that you'll never reach your goals. However, if you follow these four tips, I promise you that your English will improve. These methods have worked for many, many of my clients, and I know that they'll work for you too. Don't settle for staying in your current job forever, or always being limited by your English. Find an effective program, and invest in your future. It can be tough, it can be scary, but the better career and more fulfilling life you'll get at the end will absolutely be worth it.

I believe in you.

- Grant

If you want a proven system that will give you the English skills you need to improve your work performance and finally reach your career goals, contact me today.