Improve English skills of a colleague [closed]

Question

I have a colleague (non-native speaker) who joined recently.

Ours is an IT firm where we need to communicate on a regular basis with folks around the globe.

His technical skills are pretty decent, but when it comes to communication it is miserable. Mainly he has an issue with verbs.

e.g.

I run the scripts yesterday

Even though I can understand what he is saying at a high level, I think this reflects poorly on my team and the firm. Also when he grows in his role, I think he will end up embarassing himself in front of a larger crowd.

How can I get him to improve?

Answer 1

How can I get him to improve?

You are not setting a good example yourself (assuming the quality of your communication with him is similar to your question/comments here).

Being a native English speaker, your word choices and stylistic choices are not really the best either - including improper verb usage of your own (see this sentence - His technical skills are pretty decent, but when it comes to communication it is miserable).

Why am I saying this? There are two reasons.

1. You aren't perfect with English either (or are being intentionally quite ironic, in which case bravo!)
2. If you still understand your coworker, why do you care?

This does reflect poorly on you (to me, at least) because you are asking a question and critiquing someone else's English and communication skills, while doing so relatively poorly. This context is completely different than a non-native English speaker effectively communicating but using a few wrong word choices...

I think this reflects poorly on my team and the firm. Also when he grows in his role, I think he will end up embarassing himself in front of a larger crowd.

My experience in working with non-native English speakers for a US based company (with those in Germany and India specifically) is no one cares as long as communication is effective. It becomes a problem when there is miscommunication about project work or other things.

Simply using an incorrect verb when the meaning is completely clear is a totally trivial problem.

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So what should you actually do? My experience working with people in this situation gives me the following insight:

• Most non-native speakers are very self-conscious of their spoken/written English
• Most also want to learn but often don't even know when they are making those mistakes

I would suggest asking in an appropriate context (ie you actually know the person, if you don't have a level of interaction outside purely business, don't do this) "hey your English is pretty good, but you used run a bit awkwardly here, normally as native speakers we would use ran instead" and see where that goes - it will likely either be a "meh" or "oh, thanks! feel free to let me know in the future!" response.

Realistically though, unless this is actually affecting your ability to work (which it sounds like it's not) this is not something a manager will even consider an issue.

Answer 2

How would you feel if you were to discover that one of your colleagues, who has less experience than you in the stuff you're getting paid to do had decided you had a flaw that reflected badly on the department (perhaps your fashion sense, or your fitness level, or your ability to play golf) and was going to fix you? I think you would feel offended. I know I would in that circumstance.

If a coworker wants to ask you for informal tutoring on a topic only slightly related to work, such as grammar choices (no-one but a pedant would claim not to know what is meant by "I run the scripts yesterday", and many rural people in North America say things like "I seen him yesterday" and everyone understands it) then by all means help. If a manager takes you aside and says "I'd love to be able to send X on sales calls, but his language skills are not great, can you help him?" then by all means get X to agree to it and start coaching. But if you're just sitting at your desk, grinding your teeth every time X demonstrates that he speaks a slightly different dialect of English than you do, stop it. You are setting yourself up for a fall. People don't like to be told they are inadequate and they generally don't like unsolicited "help" that comes in the form of criticism.

Feel free to continue to model good communication skills, choosing the correct words yourself, using the higher-status dialect you know well, and mentally translating for those who use a different one. Perhaps you might once say to a manager "should I take the lead in talking during Monday's meeting with the French team? I think I speak a little more understandably than X." If the manager agrees, you can do the talking and X may learn from that. But if the manager replies with something like "Nonsense, X knows the technical material better than anyone else" then never mention it again.

(And if this isn't an issue of a native speaker with a different dialect than you, but rather someone speaking their second language at a less-than-native fluency, for heavens sake sit down and shut up. People speaking their second language know they could be more fluent, and people hiring bilingual employees have decided an accent or other language imperfections are a price they're willing to pay.)