A report of the Economist Intelligence Unit, entitled "Competing Across Borders: How Cultural and Communication Barriers Affect Business", states that:

1) 64% of businesses believe language and cultural differences constrain their international expansion plan.
2) 75% of executives rate their colleagues’ ability to communicate internationally as average or below average.
3) 89% of executives states that enhanced language and international communication skills significantly improve revenue, 89% of executives report profit growth, 85% of executives confirm expansion of their market share.
4) 49% of businesses report that communication misunderstandings have resulted in financial losses after a major cross border deal has
been fallen through.
5) “Around one-half of the executives surveyed for the purpose of this report admitted that ineffective communication or inadequate collaboration had obstructed major international transactions, inevitably resulting in financial loss.”
6) “The overwhelming majority (bordering on 90%) believe that if cross-border communication were to improve at their company, then profit, revenue and market share would all improve as well.

This report is a clear proof that Foreign Languages and Communications are key capabilities in a network, globalised world. Unfortunately, individuals, companies, organizations, and governments seriously lacking in Foreign Languages, Foreign Cultures, and Communication competencies. The former German Chancellor, Willy Brandt said "If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann müssen sie Deutsch sprechen.” (Then you must speak German).

One of the reasons why companies, organizations and individuals fails to acquire Languages, Cultures, and Communication competencies is the outdated training model, content, and approach. In effect, almost all Foreign Languages training programs have the following approach:
-Learning about the language only (syntax, phonetics, morphology, semantics).
-Focus on isolated skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing),
-Coverage of a textbook.
-Synthetic situations from textbook.
-Emphasis on trainer as presenter/lecturer.
-Isolated cultural “factoids”.
-Testing to find out what students don’t know.

As someone who speaks, listens, writes, reads and teaches 12 Foreign Languages (French, English, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch, Korean, Russian), the following approach is the best and the most productive:
-Focus on the three preoccupations: Growth, Performance, Profitability.
-Backward design focusing on the end business/organization, individual's goal: Save costs, increased revenues, expand market share/prevent missed opportunities, get employed, traveling, etc.
-Personalized real world organizational, corporate, business, professional, personal tasks.
-Emphasis on the trainee as “doer” - “creator” - “contributor” -“problem solver”.
-Emphasis on convergence (Language and Strategy, Language and Management, Language and Operations, Language and Technology,Language and Career Development/Promotion, Language and Employability etc.)
-Assessing to find out what students can produce as organizational, corporate, business, professional, personal results.

As a result, an excellent Language Training Program must have 3 stages/moments during each session: (1) Foreign Language ( 1hour), (2) Competing/working successfully across borders (30minutes), (3) Achieving Superior Economic Performance across borders (30 minutes). So, the training sessions go beyond speaking. They are creative sessions because the focus is also on solving trainees' unique challenges (career, business, employment, traveling, etc.) APART FROM SPEAKING. The classes should produce practical solutions to problems. Trainees must leave the classroom, after each session, with the solutions to their problems and the answer to their questions.

In order to achieve that, I adopt a backward approach that takes as a starting point the trainees goals and objectives, NOT THE TEXTBOOK. Therefore, I ask "HOW CAN MY TRAINEES USE THEIR COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCIES TO PROFIT, WHAT CAN THEY DO AND HOW CAN THEY DO IT TO GAIN?" A wonderful language program today should go beyond grammar and vocabulary. Failure to understand this will increase the number of people who give up, get bored, complain, get discourage. Why? THEY DON'T SEE THE RELATIINSHIP BETWEEN WHAT THEY ARE LEARNING AND THEIR REAL WORLD SITUATIONS.

If you want to know more, contact me: 07065395379