How to Improve Your English Skills Without Wasting Time, Money, or Effort

If English isn't your native language, you're likely to face disadvantages as an IT professional. Many interactions and a lot of success on the global stage depend on your ability to communicate well in English. You also need to know what English expressions to use, correct pronunciation, and how to speak with confidence. The fact is elementary English skills aren't enough.

It might seem like an enormous task that will take a lot of effort. There are so many resources to explore: Youtube, podcasts, online lessons, etc. It can appear hopeless to know where to begin and how to work your way through them. 

If you're feeling stuck, this could be why. You may think you don't have the time to do all the reading and listening exercises you imagine is needed to improve. There's just so much to do! 

But here's the good news: the real obstacle isn't the time required or the amount of information you think you need. The actual issue is that you don't have a systematic and customized approach to learning English.

You DON'T need to do ALL of the reading and listening exercises! What you need is to only focus on what's important to you as an IT professional. Then systematically improve those skills. 

Think about what happens when you're feeling ill. Do you take every medication you can find? Aspirin, antacids, pills for headaches, colds, and so and on?

I hope not! 

I'd wager the first thing you do is focus on precisely what the problem is. Maybe you decide to talk with a doctor who will help find the root cause of your discomfort. Then, once the real problem is more apparent, you can make a plan and take the correct steps to feel better. 

It's the same with improving your Information Technology language skills. You don't need to work on your medical vocabulary, for example, unless you want to be a doctor. You need to identify the crucial areas in your profession and your weaknesses in those areas. That's Step 1.

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Step 1: Identify the most important language skills for your work and assess your strengths and weaknesses in those skills.

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The assessment in Step 1 gives you a diagnosis. Maybe your pronunciation skills are weak, and you need to speak more clearly. Perhaps, you need to improve your confidence or develop a more engaging speaking style. Once you have a diagnosis, you can focus on the real problems and start on the 'cure' right away. That's Step 2.

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Step 2: Focus on the essential skills for you and strengthen weak areas. 

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Step 3 is to apply your skills and practice. Now that you've started your 'treatment' and your skills are getting healthier, it's time to practice them in realistic situations. Whatever you do in your work -- meetings, presentations, or even job interviews, you need to apply what you've learned to a practical situation and get feedback on your progress.

With realistic practice like this, you can polish your skills in a low-stress setting and get corrections and advice right away. There's no better way to develop the confidence you need to transfer those skills to your job. That's Step 3.

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Step 3: Practice your skills in low-stress realistic situations and get immediate feedback and corrections.

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Having a focused, step-by-step system takes away the stress, indecision, and the wasted time trying to figure things out yourself. It offers the most efficient way to improve language skills that are vital to your success. 

In my own experience, I've tried both ways of learning -- the hard way and the easier way -- and the easier way has worked much better every time. Not that there's no effort or challenge, of course there is. But what's best is to avoid wasted effort, which is much more exhausting than a step towards improvement. 

Instead of teaching yourself or spending a lot of money on general language lessons, the easier way is to work with a coach who can provide you with guidance and a systematic plan. If that sounds like a good option for you, let's talk about it in a free strategy session where we can make a plan to start improving your English immediately. 

As a language coach specializing in Information Technology communication, I'd love to help you improve your skills and enhance your career -- while making the very best use of your time, money, and effort. Just send me a message, and we'll set up a free strategy session.

Have a fantastic day. 

Patrick O'Grady ??

patrick@EnglishCoach.vip

Patrick O'Grady offers focused language coaching to help non-native English speakers develop excellent communication and presentation skills.