In this second part of the article, you will learn why many courses and programs have not helped you really improve your communicative competence. You will also learn about how your brain learns and then be able to use this knowledge to help you learn better and find a more effective Language Communication Training (LCT) program.
The problem with most LCT systems
The problem is that many training programs barely scratch the surface of LCT, if at all. More specifically, they stay at the level of sharing the language and knowledge of the attributes. And while this surface-level treatment can result in a-ha moments (which come from collaborative discussions), they will not become skills. And even when the training includes role plays, often they are one or two practice sessions with low or no stakes and with little or no feedback. This is only a precursor to skill development at best. And for longer term corporate language training, this is often like going to the gym a couple of times a week lifting weights: if you put in the effort, you may develop some biceps or glutes, but to do what? There is no functional end goal. A boxer does not randomly train her abs and core–she does this so that she can explosively throw a jab combination. A sales rep practices asking questions as mirroring and labeling strategies to not only gain information about client needs in a natural and indirect way but also to build a trusting relationship.
This is why there are few, if any, LCT programs that really work. Online courses can only focus on Attributes and Traits. In-person training workshops may also go into skill practice with role plays but the learning and impact on skill development is minimal. Longer term corporate language training focuses on general business English that has little functional relation or application to their job needs.
The assumption for all of these training types is that the learners will do the real work to not just “do the reps” and put in 100s of hours of practice but also figure out for themselves how to implement the training and be persistent to acquire the skill and proficiency. This is the elephant in the training room: everyone knows this is a flawed assumption, but no one does anything about it–not the HR department, not the professional trainers, and not the trainees.
Training the way the brain learns
If you want to correct this flawed assumption, you need to be clear about how our minds and bodies learn and develop skills.
At its most basic, training involves 3 necessary conditions:
- input (learning by reading, listening, and watching),
- output (practice), and
- motivation.
The first two are obvious, but motivation is also necessary. If there is no motivation to learn, 100s of hours of rote and inattentive practice will not improve your skills much. We can all relate to this: how many hours did you and your classmates study English as a foreign language (EFL) or another foreign language? Perhaps it was more than 10 years and several thousand hours. And yet, many of your EFL classmates, even after these thousands of hours of classroom and home study, still cannot carry on a basic English conversation. Why? – There is no need to use English in EFL environments. This means no motivation to learn.
It is motivation that creates the attention to the learning (attributes, traits), and more importantly the grit, to not just “do the reps” (skill) but to be mindful and focussed when doing a lot of boring practice. Of course, there are rare motivated individuals who develop an impressive language competence for EFL or who can take learning and development courses and methodically and consistently apply them to their professional lives to develop the relevant skills and tactics. But these people are the exception, not the rule.
For effective professional and corporate training, it must identify skills that are relevant and needed to boost work performance. If the skills are correctly identified and the professionals understand their importance – or are made to clearly understand their importance – then learner motivation should be there.
So, if you have the motivation, what are the specific training conditions to optimize learning and skill development?
The science behind the learning journey
If input, output, and motivation are the necessary conditions for you to learn, a desirable condition is to have a trainer. Good trainers (and good learners, for that matter) understand how you learn and follow scientifically proven principles to make learning both effective and efficient. Learning is a process or journey that develops over 4 stages (Boller and Fletcher, 2020):
- Stage 1. Preparing to learn: learners notice (a need or lack) and commit to learning
- Stage 2. Acquiring the knowledge and skill: here, the sprouts of learning happen from the encoding (or making sense) of input and perhaps some output
- Stage 3. Building memory and competence: this is when skills start to develop–not only is the practice repeated and elaborated, but there is also reflection and explanation of the performance and results of the practice
- Stage 4. Monitoring over time: the skills are re-practiced and sustained over time.
The main challenge of training is to help learners push the knowledge and skills from short-term memory to long-term memory. From the above description of the “learning journey”, short-term memory happens in Stages 1 and 2, and long-term memory starts to consolidate at Stage 3 and especially Stage 4. Unfortunately, typical skills development courses, training, and workshops only get to stage 2 and do not even consider the memory consolidation of Stages 3 and 4. That becomes your responsibility as a learner.
There are many reasons for overlooking stages 3 and 4. Most of the reasons deal with convenience and feasibility, and very often, even ignorance. For many, how short-term becomes long-term memory is a mysterious black box. But there has been a lot of research on best teaching and learning practices that can shed light into this black box.
Well-informed trainers can optimize the learning process by engineering the input/encoding and output/consolidation stages of learning. Back to our athletic analogy, just as coaches train athletes about how their muscles work and move, LCT trainers should train learners about how their brains and bodies work to learn and develop know-how, muscle memory, and procedural knowledge.
Scientific principles for the encoding and consolidating phases
At the input or encoding stage of the learning journey, the emotion centers of the brain (the limbic system) are key for helping or hindering learning. For example, too much fear and stress create too much cortisol which dampens learning (although some stress-cortisol can be useful to reinforce memory), as does fatigue or boredom; on the other hand, excitement and happiness creates dopamine that can help reinforce memory. So, varying teaching methods and activities is a good way to prevent boredom. Encoding is also helped by associating new knowledge with old knowledge.
As for consolidating learning (stages 3 and 4), the best times for recall are at the beginning or end of a training session when learners are most attentive. Frequent formative testing by the trainer (to remind learners what they don’t know) and self-testing by the learner forces effortful recall, unlike simply reviewing notes.
No pain, no gain.
The amount of effort put into output practice (like recall) is much more important than the amount of time. Sleep is also crucial for consolidating learning and strengthening long-term memory. Other principles that influence both the encoding and consolidation phases include giving learners choices in learning to improve engagement and motivation and finding enough time to allow for learners to play and also reflect on the learning.
Well-educated and experienced trainers will understand these principles and techniques to facilitate encoding and consolidating, but even they may be forced to compromise training due to
- constraints of the training environment,
- those paying for the training,
- training budget,
- training schedule, and
- trainee willingness.
For convenience and feasibility, short term or intensive training are typically conducted. But it has always surprised me how many companies have loose demands (if any) concerning the ROI of training, or in more educational terms, the learning outcomes of the training. Yet they still carry on with LCT. And as for the trainers or training organizations, they receive their fees and move on to the next case.
And how about learners like you? You need to be aware of the training options and their strengths and weaknesses.
Comparing different types of training programs
There are 3 types of training that you should consider if more effective learning is your goal: mentoring, 1-on-1 coaching, and what I call focused Agile Role Play Gamification (A-RPG). Let’s discuss each of these. I have not added general business English programs or even short-term specific-skills workshops (e.g., negotiations) as effective options: the former do not target the specific context or skills needed and the latter, as I mentioned previously, do not go deeply enough into the practice to really develop skills.
Mentoring
Mentoring is in many ways the best possible situation. An experienced colleague helps you prepare for certain communication events, gives you advice, know-how, and maybe also tactics and feedback. Since they are already experienced in the exact communication situations and contexts you are in, they are the best teachers to help you flatten your learning curve. Unfortunately, you may not be able to find someone who is willing or who has the time to do this with you. And even if you do, the learning, feedback, and practice will not be structured. Mentors, like anyone with advanced skillsets, suffer from the “curse of knowledge”: they have already forgotten what others need to know when they start learning a new skill and assume the learner knows much more than they actually do. That is, they have the know-how of procedural knowledge but have already forgotten the attributes and traits of declarative knowledge.
1-on-1 coaching
1-on-1 coaching is another possibility, and a common choice for executives or those with the financial resources to afford them. Although the coaches may not know the specific industry, they usually have
- The competences in the communication areas to share with the client, and
- The ability to structure the learning into steps for repeated and gradual learning and practice.
Highly skilled coaches will perform an in-depth needs analysis to better understand the client’s context and design specific practice relevant to the client. This intense preparation is one reason why coaching fees are so high. Unfortunately, because the coaching is 1-on-1, there are no peers learning and sharing collaboratively, which is how humans as social animals learn best. Another drawback is that in this 1-on-1 situation, the client tends to become the boss of the relationship and there is an unproductive power or influence relationship. Here, it is the teacher who often has to accommodate the student, which diminishes the pressure the teacher can put on the student to achieve learning.
What you need to look for in a more effective training program is not just on-the-job relevance but a collaborative learning environment, healthy pressure to perform, repeated practice, and timely feedback. The next approach considers these key factors.
Agile RPG
There is a third option which involves collaborative learning in a classroom-type environment, but several conditions need to apply. I call this approach Agile Role Play Gamification (A-RPG). Since our best learning happens in small groups of about 3 (large enough to get different perspectives, but small enough to not be able to hide), Agile RPG ideally sets up about 4 teams of 3 in a role play scenario. The role play follows a prepare-perform-feedback sequence that gets repeated 3 times (PPFx3) with different partners under strict time constraints. Each team is assigned a role and communication skill and goal, which they prepare for and then try to achieve in competition with each other. At the end, learners vote for the teams (not their own) that best achieved the goal, and then a brief post-mortem with the students and teacher pointing out problems and successes of team performances.
The repetition and sharing with teammates is essential because it can let them revise their strategy in real time to prepare for the next PPF sequence. This is why I call this kind of training “Agile” RPG–it forces the learners to prepare for a performance with feedback which can be immediately recognized and acted upon in the next round of practice. The learners need to dynamically learn and adjust their practice in learning feedback loops.
Example of PPF sequence in Agile RPG
| Background for negotiation role play: opening statement and diagnostic question practice. Let’s take a negotiation role play between a B2B buyer and seller with a specific proficiency focus on – Making an opening statement and – Using diagnostic questioning techniques like mirroring and labeling to better understand the opening statement and needs of their conversation partner. The main practice would be using information gathering skills of mirroring and labeling to make this stage of the negotiation sound more like a natural conversation and less like an interrogation. Before the roleplay, the buyer and seller teams prepare an opening statement about their goals for the negotiation and more details about these goals, anticipating questions from the other side for more details. Perform – 1 or 2 people from each team would then meet and present their opening statement (e.g., 3 minutes) Feedback – The other role then asks indirect diagnostic questions using mirror and labeling skills (e.g., 3 mins). Prepare – Sharing reflections on their own performance, their partners, and teammates’, the learners can prepare for the next sequence to perform it slightly differently with the goal of improving their skill fluency and effectiveness (e.g., 3 mins). |
Gamification to enhance learning motivation, performance and learning
The RPG in A-RPG stands for Role Play Gamification. To add some performance pressure, or stakes, to the practice, I embed the PPF sequences into a gamified system of tracking team performances across the several week course with points and prizes. In this way, I usually set up this PPF sequence in the middle ¾ of a 1.5- or 2-hr class. At the beginning of the class, learners prepare a whiteboard with notes about their opening statement and award points to the teams that most clearly visually represent their ideas. This public viewing of their work and the points they might get encourages them to organize their ideas more clearly before the performance as a kind of rehearsal. And in the last part of the class, after the agile role play, I ask the learners to vote for 1 person from another team (e.g., of the 3 role play partners they had, who had the clearest opening statement? Who used mirroring or labeling most naturally?) and then count up the votes and assign them to the teams’ point counts for the day. This gamification point system places some accountability and pressure on the teams to perform: there are stakes involved and accountability to classmates to put some effort into the practice. Learning and skill development only occurs from effortful practice. This team-centered approach also encourages motivating and collaborative learning which can greatly increase the learning potential compared to an individual learning alone.
Evaluating different LCT for optimal skill development
The following table sets up a comparison of different methods for professional English development, or LCT. Because mentoring and 1-on-1 coaching tend to be seen as the most effective because of their personalization, I compared it with different group class methods to highlight the learning principles that are associated–or not associated–with each type. Of course, each mentor, coach or teacher will vary in their expertise in the specific skill area or even as a teacher, but the Y (yes), N (no), and ? (maybe) evaluations are based on typical approaches to teaching that I have observed in more than 25 years of EFL training in commercial, corporate, and public education contexts in Taipei, Taiwan.
| Training program Strengths | Agile RPG | Mentoring | 1-on-1 Coaching | Business English course | Skill workshop or short course |
| 1-on-1 or group class | group | 1-on-1 | 1-on-1 | group | group |
| Teacher with field expertise | ? | Y | ? | ? | ? |
| Highly personalized feedback | ? | Y | Y | N | ? |
| Individual focused | N | Y | Y | N | N |
| Communication goal-oriented | Y | Y | Y | N | ? |
| Interactive competence | Y | Y | Y | ? | Y |
| Influence competence | Y | ? | ? | N | ? |
| Linguistic competence | Y | N | Y | Y | ? |
| Strategic competence | Y | N | ? | ? | ? |
| STM → LTM | Y | N | N | N | N |
| Structured learning | Y | N | Y | Y | Y |
| Role play or simulation | Y | N | ? | ? | ? |
| Role play with stakes | Y | N | N | N | ? |
| Pre-performance rehearsal | Y | N | ? | ? | N |
| Repeated practice | Y | N | ? | N | N |
| Feedback learning loops | Y | N | N | N | N |
| Spaced learning and review testing | Y | N | ? | N | N |
| Timely feedback | Y | ? | ? | N | N |
| Immediately use feedback | Y | N | ? | N | ? |
| Collaborative learning | Y | N | N | ? | Y |
| Learning pressure | Y | N | N | N | ? |
And now what do you do?
Now you understand the components of LCT and the scientific principles behind effective learning, you can see that no one approach to LCT is ideal. They have their strengths and weaknesses. But if you want to maximize your learning potential, you need a learning environment that covers as many of the training program strengths as possible in order to optimize the input, output and motivational aspects of language and communication development.
So, do you still want to improve your professional English skills? Do your research when looking for a mentor, coach or professional English course, and ask for as many of the above qualities as possible to optimize your LC skill development. After all, that is the point of finding a trainer: to make your skill development as efficient as possible. And also to get you that career promotion sooner rather than later.
References
Boller, S., & Fletcher, L. (2020). Design Thinking for Training and Development: Creating Learning Journeys That Get Results. American Society for Training and Development.
