How to set language targets for your English programme

How to setup language targets:

For global businesses today, English training isn’t a ‘nice to have’ – it’s an essential component of growth. But simply implementing an English programme isn’t sufficient; organisations need clear language targets to measure the effectiveness and ROI of the investment.

Research shows that setting specific goals significantly improves employees’ performance. That means that your teams’ English can actually improve when you create targets. Moreover, language targets ensure that your workforce learns English that facilitates your strategic business objectives. Everyone benefits on an individual level and as part of the organisation.

Let’s take a look at how you can set successful language targets for your English programme.

Align with your business objectives

The first step in setting language learning objectives is to link them directly to your organisational aims. Many companies have fixed budgets for staff training, and so you need to be able to track and prove the value of your chosen English programme.

Take a look at your business goals for the quarter, year, and your general values. Then, brainstorm targets that align. Try not to be vague, instead use specific numbers and dates to get even closer to your business objectives.

Say that your business goal is to improve client retention and satisfaction. The following are good examples of targets that reflect that goal:

• 10% of the customer service team will speak B1 English by 2026
• The marketing team will create at least two touchpoints per week for customers in English-speaking markets

These language learning goals include details that relate back to the original business objective. They state the teams involved, the desired outcome of the English programme, and then either a date or a target audience. The more concise your target, the more easily you should see where it fits into your larger business strategy.

Create role-specific targets

What your teams are learning English for will vary depending on their position in the company. Your customer service agents may need strong conversational English, while technical staff may focus on writing accurate reports in English. You can therefore segment your language learning goals by role or department to ensure that the right people are receiving the right training.

Concentrate on targets that reflect what is expected of different teams and what the benefits are of those teams achieving particular language targets. For example:

• Customer-facing roles: Individuals will reach B2 conversational English to improve relationship-building with clients.
• Technical roles: Teams will develop advanced written communication in English, including industry-specific terminology to improve internal reporting.
• Leadership roles: Individuals will reach C1 listening skills in English to attend international conferences and presentations.

Tip: Include CEFR levels in your targets as a language benchmark that’s easy to track and guide team members’ progress.

Use tiered timeline milestones

People can quickly feel overwhelmed with long-term targets. It can also be harder for you to monitor the granular process of your English language training if it focuses on long stretches of time. By breaking language targets down into incremental milestones, teams can stay motivated and you can more easily assess and anticipate the effectiveness of the programme.

You could choose to structure your targets by quarter, month or whatever timeframe makes sense to your workflows and team dynamics.

An example is:

• January target: Finance team completes 10 English programme modules.
• February target: Finance team participates in five vendor calls in English.
• March target: Finance team gives a short presentation in English to colleagues.
• April target: Finance team averages B1 English result on their language proficiency tests.

Tiered timeline milestones allow you to evaluate your English language programme in real time, and teams can feel a deeper sense of achievement by completing smaller targets more regularly.

Balance acquisition and application

Successful corporate language learning is about more than knowing how to speak, listen, read, and write. Teams need to be able to apply what they’ve learned in their professional settings. Your targets can frame the ways that teams/individuals use English in their everyday processes at work – that way, you know that your programme investment is paying off in the areas you want.

Language objectives that balance acquisition and application could be:

• Communication team members learn 200 English business terms per month and have to integrate them in external comms.
• Marketing team members produce weekly customer-facing newsletters in English.
• Sales team members take 100 calls per week in English, without follow-up customer complaints or requests to change personnel.

This balance ensures that your language programme adds real value to your business and wider operations.

Include peer and manager feedback

Your targets shouldn’t be measured by just teams’ test scores. You can bring qualitative data into the mix by including peer and manager feedback to inform your targets.

For instance, a manager could assess how well team members perform during a client presentation in English. Or, peers could provide feedback about how well each other delivered information in English during an internal call.

This type of feedback can be gathered informally as conversations or via surveys and feedback forms.

Such feedback not only gives individuals an idea of where they are in their English journey, it tells you if your language learning objectives are realistic, if they’ve been met or if they need adjusting.

Smart targets make smart businesses

Language targets are equally as important as the English programme itself. Without targets, you can’t confirm that your teams are learning well, nor that the programme is a good fit for your business or that it’s giving you a competitive advantage.

The above steps help you carve out smart targets that boost the impact of your English training.

See how structured, impact-driven English training can make your targets tangible. Book a demo with English Online.