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I travel to put on training courses probably 5 or 6 times a year and I am always amazed at how well everyone else speaks English. Other countries have a better attitude about learning languages in my opinion, with children learning other languages at a very early age.

So, as I write this I hope that it is not insulting to those outside of the United States.  It was intended to be applicable for any person training in any type of environment.

At any rate…

The US Govt. has a system for rating a person’s ability to speak read, listen and write a language. Most native English speakers probably communicate at a 4 or 5 on this scale, meaning that they understand subtle nuances in the language, comprehend difficult phrases (such as grasping meaning from slang), and can decipher what is being said, even when someone says something that does not make sense from the wording (kind of like that last sentence).

Most of us get to be a 1 or a 2 in speaking and maybe a 2+ in listening in Spanish or another language in High School or Junior High. We could communicate in this 2nd langauge using very simple phrases and understand someone else as long as they speak very slowly and clearly and use the basic pieces of the language that we were taught.

As I put on my training courses I try to keep this information in mind. When I am talking to a room full of native German speakers I do my best to try to interpret where their language levels are and speak English at that level.

If I say, “There is an easier way to do that” most of my class will understand me. If I say, “Breathe easy, gentlemen! There exists a fundamentally sound method that is much easier to facilitate than your current methods” most of them will waste time trying to figure out what I just said.  During that time I will be moving on and talking about something else.   

Now almost all of the students I have had in Germany and elsewhere speak excellent English. They are often easier to understand than my students from England, especially the ones with the cockney accents…

However, as they are attempting to translate inside their noggins: “Breathe easy, gentlemen!” which is Victorian English slang I guess, I am still talking. The amount of large words in that phrase are also difficult to parse quickly.

It is very hard to keep up when someone is speaking like this to you in a language that is not your native tongue.

 If the woman above, who speaks a language perfectly, speaks to the man who understands a language at a 2+ level, she needs to keep in mind that a lot of what she says could be misunderstood. 

On a trip to a country where they speak a different language one of my colleagues asked a woman at a supermarket if she could, “Recommend a suitable package of sweets… perhaps chewing gum.” She simply stared at him with a blank look on her face. I would guess that she spoke English at a 1 or maybe a 1+.
I pointed at the rack of gum and asked, “Which is good?” She smiled and pointed out 2 or 3 of the packages.

Later in the same store he asked a woman if she could “package up some cheese samples that would not smell bad in his luggage so that he could take them back to America on the supersonic jetliner…” she called a manager to see if anyone could understand what he wanted.

My point is that my friend did not evaluate who he was speaking to and adjust his communication so that he could be understood.

This happens in many situations in life even between two people who speak the same language, and that is sad, but for an instructor putting on a course, especially a technical course, it is a tragedy.   What a massive waste of everyone involved’s time.

You should instead cater your presentation to make the course content understandable.

How is this type of communication done? Well, it isn’t terribly easy to explain, which is funny since that is what I do, explain difficult concepts in a way that makes it easy to understand. Anyway…

• Avoid slang. Don’t tell someone to “break it down” or that you “couldn’t care less”.
• Explain a technical term in one way and then explain it in another way. You can do this simply, using diagrams and drawings to make the content clear. I do this with non-native English and English speaking students. In a way technical content can be like a foriegn language.
• Ask students if they understand and then wait for an answer. If it is critical that they get what you are saying ask someone to explain it to you, without embarassing them hopefully.
• Do not clutter up your speech by using words like “deprecate” or “synergistic” or other terms that are not directly related to content and can be replaced by simpler terms such as “not going to be used anymore” or “working well together”. The meaning is similar enough to explain concepts and simple enough that a foriegn language speaker can quickly assimilate what is being said.
• This is not language specific but acronyms should be defined.  I can remember once going through a course and using the term WRD several times.  At the end of the course one of the students, who had just failed the test asked me, “What is a WRD?”  “Why, it’s a Widget Refueling Droid, of course.”  I replied and then realized that I had never told the students what WRD means.  Good thing I wasn’t getting graded. 

What I am saying is that you need to be aware of student comprehension level and speak in a way that is possible to grasp. You also need to do this without patronizing them, “Gold star for you. You are my number one student!” is fairly insulting.

The other thing that my culturally challenged friend did in Switzerland is he began speaking louder when he realized someone could not understand him.  I assume he thought that if he did, some of what he was saying would sink in, as if comprehension is somehow tied to volume in direct proportions.

He would also do caveman talk. Sometimes that is necessary, don’t get me wrong, usually at a place where you find out no one speaks English, like a gas station or restaurant. However, putting your hand up to your ear as you say, “Listen students” or saying “This. Good. Widget. Very Good. Fast. Smart” is a fast way to insult a student.

Basically in any course your job is to find a way to aid comprehension. Make sure that you are communicating in a way that accomplishes that goal.

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