Unlocking global success: How English for Work transforms your organisation

In today’s interconnected business world, effective communication is the key to unlocking global opportunities. The British Council’s English for Work online course is designed to empower your learners with the language skills they need to excel in an international environment. Let’s explore how this innovative program can transform your organisation’s capabilities and drive success.

The Power of English in the workplace

Before we dive into the course details, consider this: Research has consistently shown a positive correlation between English language proficiency and business success. Companies with employees who have strong English skills tend to perform better in international markets. For instance, studies found that countries with higher average English proficiency levels have demonstrated faster economic growth.

By investing in your team’s language skills, you’re not just improving communication – you’re potentially boosting your company’s global competitiveness and bottom line or your university’s learning and employment outcomes.

English for Work: An English online course designed for business success

Course aims

English for Work goes beyond traditional online language courses. It’s tailored to enhance employability and workplace skills, using the British Council’s proven flipped-learning model. This approach combines flexibility with structure, ensuring that your learners can balance their learning with busy work or study schedules.

Course structure: flexibility meets accountability

The course has three themes comprising six lessons each. Upon completing a theme, the learner is awarded a theme completion badge and certificate endorsed by the British Council. At the end of the course, the learners can also download a British Council-endorsed certificate of attendance that states their level and number of classes attended by them .

The core course has a weekly cadence. Each week a learner completes a lesson which comprises:

This blended flipped-learning approach ensures that learners can apply their learning immediately in their daily work, increasing retention and practical skills.

Beyond the core: Enhancing the learning experience

To maximise learning outcomes, the course offers:

• Four monthly Live25 webinars per month: TED Talk-style sessions on grammar and pronunciation. These webinars are great for learners who want to understand these language topics in more detail.
• Extra Study section: Here learners can practice additional grammar exercises to improve their accuracy and watch fun mini-English lessons by our expert English teachers.

Ensuring a successful rollout: Your roadmap to excellence

Implementing a language program across your organisation can be challenging, but with our proven strategies, you’ll set your learners up for success.

Pre-onboarding: Building excitement and clarity

Start by answering these crucial questions for your learners:

• Why this course? How will it benefit them and the organisation?
• What’s the duration and time commitment?

Onboarding: The critical first steps

Inform your learners the date of onboarding, when they should receive activation and welcome emails from the British Council. This is a critical stage where learners should complete their onboarding quickly and book their first class. The learning manager may need to remind learners who haven’t engaged with the course from the get-go.

Monitor these key metrics closely:

• Onboarding completion rate: understand if everyone has completed their onboarding
• First class booking rate: Number of learners who have booked their first class
• Learners needing additional support

Success strategy: Create a friendly ‘early-bird’ competition for the fastest onboarding and first class booking. Recognise top performers to boost motivation.

During the course: Keeping the momentum

Once the learners are settled in the course, it is important to continue to monitor their progress. You can access data and insight from your dashboard or request your British Council account manager to share this information with you.

Regularly track:

• Class booking rates
• Weekly attendance
• Engagement with online exercises and grades

Success strategy: Create communication to recognise top performers regularly to create a sense of healthy competition.

Support and engagement: The keys to long-term success

Learners have access have a comprehensive support available:

• British Council multilingual support team via live chat, webform, and email
• Regular email communication from British Council to ensure engagement throughout the course
• Your organisation’s internal support channels

Learners also receive regular email communication from us starting with a course welcome email, weekly emails with learning tips and reminders for important events such as an upcoming class or if they fall behind on anything.

In addition, for our premium clients we can also send extra email reminders or post special newsfeed messages for your learners visible to them when they log into the course.

Most importantly, your learners are accountable to you and therefore it is important for you to be in contact with them.

Our account managers can work with you to identify the best way to motivate and engage learners. Moreover, you may have access to more immediate channels of communication such as WhatsApp or your organisation’s social media or intranet which may work well with your learners as they have with our other clients.

These are proven successful messaging strategies that work well in motivating learners:

• Linking the course to learners’ annual development plan
• Reminding learners of benefits of the course
• Sharing study tips • Recognising top performers
• Sharing positive feedback from high performing peers

And remember, if a learner feels stuck, they can always reach out to our support team.

The ROI of English for Work

Investing in your employees’ or learners’ language skills isn’t just about improving communication – it’s about:

• Expanding global business opportunities
• Enhancing team collaboration and productivity
• Boosting employee confidence and job satisfaction
• Improving customer relations in international markets

A leading University reported significant improvement in learners’ test results after implementing English for Work. University faculty also reported improvement in learners’ confidence, communication abilities and performance in their university classes as a result of the course.

Take the next step

Ready to unlock your organisation’s global potential? Contact us today for a personalised consultation on how English for Work can be tailored to your specific business or learning needs. Let’s work together to create a language learning program that drives real results for your organisation.

Remember, in the global marketplace, language isn’t just a skill – it’s your competitive edge. Invest in your team’s English proficiency today, and watch your organisation thrive tomorrow.