Mastering Business Communication in English - Habit 1

If you are keen to master English to succeed in business, this article is for you.

The purpose of this article (and the series to follow) is for you to master English, so that you can communicate with impact and achieve business success. However, if your mother tongue is English or you have mastered English already, this article is not meant for you. Each article will talk about a habit that you need to adopt and put into practice immediately.

Habit 1: Immersion Technique

The most important thing you can do to master a language is for you to develop the ability to think and operate in that language – just like a native speaker of that language. If you think in your mother tongue and convert your thoughts into English, you will never, ever achieve native-fluency in English. Let me repeat that: if you translate your thoughts from your mother tongue to English, you will never, ever master English. You will be, at best, a mediocre communicator in English.

The best way to master any language – including English – is to practice what I call the “Immersion Technique” (immersion). “Immersion” means you pretend to be a native speaker of English for 2 years straight. This is the bare minimum – the longer the better. Come to think of it, this is like improving any skill – for example, leadership skills. If you don’t practice leadership skills, you will never become a great leader.

Immersion means that you immerse yourself in English – like a tea-bag is immersed in hot water! Immersion means you think in English; you dream in English; you speak in English with everyone; you act English; you watch English videos, movies, news, and YouTube clips (TED Talks); you listen to English channels on radio; you write in English; you take down notes in English; you read English books, articles, magazines, blogs, social media, and newspapers. And you do this all the time (24 x 7)! Immersion also means – and please note this very important point: you do not use your native language for anything! This is the Immersion Technique. If you do this for 2 years straight, you will come very close to becoming a native speaker of English. There is one caveat: if your English language competency is very weak, then you have to first work with a spoken English teacher and improve your English language skills, including grammar and pronunciation (Since English is not a phonetic language, you have to learn the correct pronunciation of each and every word). After you are relatively fluent in English, you can start practicing immersion.

You will notice from the above account that practicing the Immersion Technique is like living in an English-speaking country – where you are compelled to operate only in English, since no one understands your mother tongue.

To practice immersion, you must be ‘determined’ to master English. The Immersion Technique is not for the faint-hearted, because practicing immersion means – among other things – that you have to respond in English when someone speaks to you in Sinhala or Tamil (I assume here that the person who is talking to you in your mother tongue knows English.) This is not a joke – this is serious stuff. And this is what it takes.

This means, you need to create an eco-system that will help you operate only in English. To this end, you might want to talk to your boss and convince her to support you on your journey to master English by conversing with you only in English. You can have similar conversations with your other colleagues (peers and subordinates) and get them to talk to you only in English. You can have the same conversation at home, and convince your family members too to talk to you only in English. In my practice, I ask my students to convert their “native-language-speaking homes” to “English-speaking homes” - at least for the duration of the course. If you want to make your eco-system complete, you can get an English teacher, trainer, or coach to keep you on track by having regular meetings with them (Say, once a month). At these meetings, your teacher, trainer, or coach will hold you accountable for your progress – as well as fill any gaps you may have.

In my communication coaching practice, some students do not take the practice of the Immersion Technique seriously. This is to their detriment. Consequently, their improvements are marginal at best. However, the students who do take the practice of the Immersion Technique seriously, improve their communication skills in English by leaps and bounds.

So, if you want to improve your business communication in English, start practicing the Immersion Technique right now. In the next article, I will share Habit 2 with you.

Till then,

Happy immersing!

Yukthi