Business by Janice

I had a meeting the other day with one of our most important clients and the HR manager said something which has had me thinking ever since…

This company invest a lot of money in language training and work with several providers - they have to,  one provider wouldn’t be able to satisfy all their needs. We were talking about the usual… the ojectives of the client, the individual objectives of the students, how different students are motivated in different ways etc., when she casually commented that in general, there doesn’t seem to be a particularly high degree of satisfaction with any of their providers.

WHAT?!!

Now I didn’t take this personally (I’m too resilient for that), but it’s been niggling at me for the last few days. What can we (or any language provider) do to address this sensation that probably many clients have. Is it to do with us, is it to do with the set up in the companies or is it to do the individual students?

In essence I really feel that the companies hold the key and that it often comes back to how seriously they take their language learning programme.

Many teachers having first gone autonomo, then decide to set up (or fall into) their own agency. It seems a relatively easy way to make a living. But at the same time there are lots of academy owners who consciously take the decision NOT  to work with companies for the following reasons:

• Many companies want the the best teachers at the lowest price
• Many companies won’t pay for cancelled classes
• Many students cancel over half of their classes
• Teachers become demotivated and drop classes…

And the list goes on (covered in other posts). There really is something that is a BIG challenge in corporate.

Yet when there is a situation that is not ideal, isn’t this the perfect opportunity to look for new solutions?

Is this a case for specific methodologies? But specific methodologies don’t suit every learner or every circumstance.

Do we need to be more flexible? But can we be more flexible and run a profitable business? Can we be more flexible and at the same time provide our teachers with a stable  income?

And whose satisfaction are we actually talking about? The students’ or the HR Manager’s? Perhaps the perception of the HR department is not totally accurate. I use the word “accurate” but using what criteria?

All very interesting stuff. As you can see I’m in quite a reflective mood…

Perhaps we should be talking to our clients and students a lot more and asking them the most important question of all… WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Teachers should be the first to be asking this question in class, and I really think they don’t ask it often enough. (Perhaps they’re scared of receiving honest feedback). But it also needs to come down from the top - What do our clients want? Perhaps they don’t know what they want, they only know what they DON’T WANT. If that’s the case then as professionals we can advise them and possibly together come up with new ideas for their training needs.  Thinking out of the box is often what’s needed.

In order for Spain to prosper in international markets it’s imperative that employees improve their level of English. But this is not happening fast enough or efficiently enough. At some stage, if it’s not already happened in some cases, this will directly impact on the bottom line of a company.

But are companies prepared to do what it takes to rectify this?

LEARNING A LANGUAGE TAKES TIME AND COMMITTMENT

And committment is NOT demonstrated by the following behaviours from companies:

• Insisting that students with several levels are put into the same group due simply to budgetary constraints. If companies have a limited  budget they should select those employees who need English the most. Otherwise they  are throwing your money away.  As reputable schools we  should challenge clients who try to mix too many levels in a group

• Providing English classes to employees simply as a perk. They will not possess the necessary motivation to make any reasonable progress.

• Allowing cancellations of classes. If students can cancel a class they will, as they bow to the pressure of their work. Too many cancellations means progress is slowed down and objectives are not met. Teachers are often not paid when a class is cancelled, if too many classes are cancelled teachers will drop the class as they begin to suffer economically.

• Insisting that a class is covered immediately even when the school is saying that they can’t find a suitable teacher. Companies run the risk of receiving a sub standard teacher .

• Choosing a provider on price alone. Schools who employ bad teachers pay them badly which allows them to give their classes at a cheap price. You get what you pay for and again, companies are throwing your money away.

• Not being flexible on the times of classes. Clients will get the BEST teachers if the class timetable is arranged in blocks of more than 2 hours and  classes are allowed at off-peak times.

Now, more than any time, is the time to be seriously looking at return on investment. Those companies who are wise enough not to completely eradicate language training from their budgets when their future performance depends on how well an employee can negotiate in English, should be doing all they can to ensure that they make it easy for us to give them a quality service.

If any HR manager is reading this (hopefully there’ll be quite a few one day!), I would suggest that you take the time to really examine the service you are receiving. Be demanding with your provider so that you ultimately get the results you’re looking for. However, you must play your part fairly and treat your provider as a partner and as a professional. Professional schools will bring up most of the points listed above and they will bring them up for one reason - to ensure your employees learn and achieve their learning objectives which will ultimately benefit the company bottom line.

… a very pertinent question, and if we get down to the nitty gritty we could ask, would I employ a teacher who didn’t have TEFL? (Teaching English as a Foreign Language)

When I interview I’m looking for a teacher who satisfies certain basic criteria:

• they are aware of the importance of setting learning objectives
• they confidently tell me what they think about when planning a class
• they have a reasonable handle on grammar, at least knowing the difference between certain tenses
• they talk about error correction techniques and how they recycle previously taught language
• they take needs analysis for granted
• they are aware of what type of activities motivate different student groups

I’m also looking for people who have excellent communication skills and an assertive personality.

Could a teacher satisfy the listed criteria without having done a TEFL course? It’s quite possible.

However, unless the teacher has an exceptional CV with many years teaching and other professional experience, and their covering letter has really caught my eye, it would be difficult to move to the stage of being invited to interview with our school. Like any skills based qualification, TEFL acts as a sceening device and does indicate to us that the teacher at least knows the basic teaching techniques.

I remember when I first started teaching I did some private classes before doing my CELTA. The before and after was amazing and quite frankly I felt gulity that I had actually charged people for my classes pre CELTA, I knew NOTHING! That’s another reason why I’m sceptical about all the week end and on line courses that have suddenly appeared on the market. How much can you really learn in a week end? And it can’t possibly compare to a full 4 week course. In my interviews I always ask the teacher for their opinon of the course and nine times out of ten I get a strong reaction saying that they found the course extremely challenging.

There’s also the personal development angle. If you’re serious about doing something, shouldn’t you try to do it to the best of your ability?  So if you want to teach and be taken seriously you need to do a TEFL course. Some people may say that the cost is prohibitive, but as mentioned above, there’s a TEFL course to fit every pocket and SOMETHING is better than nothing. At least it demonstrates some commitment.

Here in Madrid as I’ve mentioned in another post, the demand for English is HUGE, which means that there is work for every type of teacher, TEFL or no TEFL. And I think that is a big shame as it’s lowering standards and consequently damaging the reputation of our industry.

So please, if you are thinking of going into teaching, take yourself and our sector seriously and get TEFLed.

Our market is super competitive to say the least.

I’ve often thought how difficult it must be for those people in companies who have the responsibility of choosing a language provider. In fact I was speaking to someone the other day - the personal assistant of the MD of a property company, (in two minds whether to chase that prospect given the current economic climate at the moment and the horror stories we’re hearing about anything remotely connected to construction), and she admitted how nervous she felt about the whole issue. Basically, if the language school she chooses messes up she gets the blame!

So how do clients choose a school when we all “hire native, qualified teachers, have an effective methodology, have a perfect level system with it’s corresponding testing, do regular student evaluations and feedbacks bla, bla, bla?

Ignoring those companies who choose a language provider based on the cheapest price (now there’s food for another post), the more serious ones should be asking about the following:

• the history and experience of the school - what infrastructure does the school have? what other clients does it have? can references be obtained? How has the school developed in recent years?
• the teacher profile - What selection criteria does the school use?
• teaching methodology - what EXACTLY is the method used? how is it effective? how are results obtained and measured?
• administration - does the school have the resources to deal with the client’s demands in this area?

But the most important (and telling) question the client should be asking is: How is your school different to others? And if you can answer this with confidence and integrity then the contract is as good as yours.

Because that’s exactly what clients are looking for - a provider with integrity who will deliver what they say they’re going to deliver, and on the occasions that they don’t, (and we’ve all had teachers who’ve “disappeared” on us), are professional and honest enough to deal with it and provide a solution to the problem.

Yes, we do all “say the same thing” to prospective clients so we have to work on them trusting us. Given that we provide a very similar service, at the end of the day it’s down to whether they like you and TRUST you.

The following link provides more detailed information for companies on how to select a language provider:

http://www.microsoft.com/spain/empresas/formacion/formacion_ingles.mspx