How Can I Help My Team Improve Their English Skills for Better Communication?

Hello friends,

I'm working as a Manager-HR in a Branding and Designing company in Coimbatore. I want to engage employees in improving their English communication skills. I aim for them to read and draft replies efficiently without my assistance. Please guide me on how to conduct English sessions and suggest topics to include in the sessions. Additionally, how can I prepare myself to enhance their vocabulary? Kindly assist me at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,
Gauri JK

Planning English Speaking Sessions

Are you planning some classroom sessions for English speaking? How much time can be spared every day for such classes?

Employees normally need to know how to draft letters of various types, interdepartmental memos, fill in purchase orders, etc. Probably, sample letters can be made out and circulated.

You can conduct debates on various subjects related to laws governing your industry, financial planning, etc., which will help them improve their English. Conduct short reading classes where employees can read out newspapers or well-drafted sample letters of the type your business generates.

Basic Grammar and Vocabulary

Basic grammar classes, including plurals, antonyms, and synonyms, can be taught. What is the basic qualification of those who are to be taught English? Do they have a basic grounding, or are they not aware of English at all?

Your own query shows SMS language (I'm for I am), wanna for want to, "i" instead of I, and A is capitalized where it should not be.

Please remember this:

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
- Benjamin Franklin

Keep this principle in mind, and when you deal with employees, try to converse in English only—simple short sentences with easy words.

Thank you, Nathrao. They are hardly HSC passed and have a Diploma from a Vernacular Medium in Tamil Nadu. They need to stress to understand English. Sorry, but I used SMS language here to post on Citehr only. They can't read fluent English. They are awesomely skilled Graphic Designers. However, in Graphic Designing, they need to understand the client's requirements - What exactly do the clients need? Communication is mostly through emails. Therefore, they need to understand it properly. At times, they have to execute presentations where they cannot deliver what they want to explain.

I want to help them at least become a little proficient in reading and speaking reasonable English. I need to plan everything for classroom sessions, time spared, etc. I have to decide all of it. So, you can suggest your ideas.

First of all, let me applaud your initiative to facilitate your employees in improving their English language skills. The task would be challenging, but the rewards would be widespread and very fulfilling.

Categorizing Employees

It is essential that you categorize the employees into at least two broad categories:
- Those who need a lot of improvement
- Those who just need some additional inputs to improve

You may have to separately train both categories of employees, keeping in mind their specific requirements.

Key to Language Proficiency

To gain proficiency in any language, the key is to speak, read, and write that language. You would have to make it mandatory for the employees to speak in English at the workplace. If that is not possible, encourage them to converse in English. You should also make it a practice to communicate with them in English.

You would have to take a couple of sessions on basic grammar and preferably give the equivalent words in the native language (in this case, I think it would be largely a Tamil-speaking set of employees). Ensure you give them ample exercises and make it fun for them to attempt the exercises so that they enjoy the process. You can visit www.englishbanana.com and possibly download their Elementary Book 1 to get started.

HR Initiatives

Since you handle the HR domain, you could put up a word of the day, proverbs/thought of the day, and share interesting articles/write-ups in English on the notice boards. Encourage employees to use the word in their communication on that day/week. You could also ensure that there are magazines and periodicals in English placed at the workplace for employees to read.

Be innovative and make use of fun activities and spot games periodically to help employees improve their English language skills. For example, after lunch, you could visit a department and select two or three employees. Allow each one to choose a word from a random set of words you would have. Ask each one to make a sentence using that word. Thereafter, all three would form a sentence in which all three words appear. Other team members of the department would observe, encourage, and learn in the process.

Written Communication Skills

From a written communication perspective, especially drafting emails, focus on the following:
- Importance of the subject line and avoiding a generic subject line
- Precis-writing practice would help in ensuring short and crisp sentences are written
- Drafting skills (including pointers on using short sentences, one idea per paragraph, use of headings and subheadings) and ensuring a logical flow of ideas in written communication

I would also encourage you to visit www.englishgrammar.org for additional inputs.

Trust the above sharing would help you put your noble intent into action successfully.

Best Wishes

Start interacting with them in English in a friendly one-on-one manner as often as possible. Organize basic grammar classes and simple English sentences, especially using those words which they need in graphic designing. Professional help will be required to make teaching more useful. Some time will have to be allotted every day for special classes. The learned poster above has given some good ideas. Where there is a will, there is always a way. When your designers realize that knowledge of English is going to benefit them, they will also put in efforts to learn and speak English. It is good that you have such good ideas which will benefit workers and the company.

Just to add to the excellent ideas that have been posted, it would add value to all concerned if you can get the senior management to listen to your designers make a presentation, say an hour every week on a subject in which the designer is comfortable. You will invariably see that it will revolve around the workplace. This is a methodology that we had adopted to improve the vocabulary of engineers at a location in North India.

Please go through my post and you may get some ideas...

https://www.citehr.com/531694-10-sim...ml#post2240747

As learning communication, especially in writing, where you are leaving proof of your opinion, is not a quick process. You may arrange sessions, seminars, and classroom polls in a week. But I think you need to boost them by making them practice the same and criticizing as well as motivating them to have a hand in hand in their learning. This is a bit time-consuming to check their efforts and correct them, but it yields results. I have tried it and found improvement among my team members.

Dear Gauri,

God bless you. I have been teaching English to many students who came in contact with me through the site HR.

1. Please do not start with grammar. It is not comfortable for the trainee.

2. Please buy Tamil Nadu Board/CBSE English books from class 6 to 12.

3. Buy English comics like Amar Chitra Katha, Chanda Mama, etc., and circulate them.

4. Tell them to get into a group and read the headlines of the newspaper daily for 10 minutes.

5. Don't have a classroom system; have only a tutorial/syndicate system.

Lastly, instead of spending your time, please hire a visiting teacher for 1 hour a day. School teachers are available at very small fees to take on such sessions.

Blessings,

Dr. Ram