Working in an english work environment as a non-native speaker

Transcript

Working in an english work environment as a non-native speaker

[00:00:00] Alexander: You are listening to the Effective Statistician podcast. The weekly podcast with Alexander Schacht and Benjamin Piske designed to help you reach your potential lead great science and serve patients while having a great [00:00:15] work life balance.

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[00:01:30] Welcome to another episode of The Effective Statistician. Today I want to talk about being a non-native English speaker, and as you probably can get from my accent. I am also a non-native speaker. I [00:01:45] learned English at school, university and mostly by working in an international environment, and that’s where I learned so much about being an English speaker.

[00:01:56] To be honest, I had never very good grades in English at [00:02:00] school, so it is really about learning it on the job, so. How can you improve your fluency and expression? First, consume high quality English content, like reading book, blog articles. [00:02:15] What really helped me was podcasts. I listened to podcasts about leadership, business, and online marketing.

[00:02:21] You can listen to through crime podcasts or whatsoever. All these kind of different things will help you with your English watch, [00:02:30] Ted Talks. Or YouTube videos, movies, or series in original text that will help you to become better, mimic native speakers. Repeat phrases from native speakers [00:02:45] that will help you to improve your pronunciation, your intonation, and you can also pick up phrases like reigning cats and dogs, or.

[00:02:58] Touch base or [00:03:00] whatsoever, all these kind of native speaker phrases that will help you to more sound like, uh, maybe not sound like a native speaker, at least become a little bit more closer to it. For [00:03:15] technical terms, yeah, use them more consciously and make sure you understand them. They’re used in real world discussions.

[00:03:25] Speaking is one thing. Writing is another thing. Yeah. [00:03:30] Write regularly. Start to write, for example, a block or LinkedIn articles. Yeah. Or even if you do your daily journaling in English can help with writing. And here of course, [00:03:45] there’s some kind of AI or other tools that can help you with that. I have a tool called Pro Writing Aid, and it’s on my, I also have an extension in my Chrome browser.

[00:03:59] And through [00:04:00] that, everything is corrected really good. If you wanna improve, read your writing out loud. I hope you don’t sit in a cubicle, but even there, you can do it if you’re not speaking really loud. This will help identify unnatural [00:04:15] phrasing and it improve clarity. You can also practice with native speakers giant online community like Toastmasters or meetup groups.

[00:04:25] Or other language exchange platforms where you [00:04:30] can improve your speaking. You can also record yourself speaking. Yeah, just use your phone or anything like this and listen back to it to identify areas where you can improve. A very [00:04:45] effective technique is just speaking. Not so fast, slow down many non-native speakers.

[00:04:52] Rush to sound fluent. Don’t do it. Speaking slowly, improves clarity and confidence. [00:05:00] And I’m UD speaking that fast here on the podcast. You can also much better pronunciate if you speak a little bit slowly and really if you’re talking too fast, non-native speakers [00:05:15] wanna understand. Do them a favor and just talk a little bit more slowly.

[00:05:20] And here’s a couple of other things that is more with your mindset. It is much more important that you communicate effectively what you want [00:05:30] to communicate than to have perfect English. Even native speakers don’t speak perfect English, probably in your mother tongue. You don’t speak your mother tongue completely.

[00:05:43] Without any kind of [00:05:45] accent or without any arrows. At least in German, there’s a lot of things that German native speakers speak in German that is not completely correct. So don’t be upset about any arrows. [00:06:00] Reframe your mindset. Your goal is to communicate your ideas clearly, not to have flawless grammar.

[00:06:09] By the way, the more you make mistakes, the more you will become better. [00:06:15] You are usually not measured on your English grammar. You are measured on what kind of impact you have. And don’t mix up fluency with intelligence. [00:06:30] Your ideas matter. These matter much more than your accent or your perfect phrasing.

[00:06:37] So get rid of this kind of, did I use a perfect word and more think about am I [00:06:45] making myself understood and do I get my idea, my message across? Also, native speakers use an stumble over words or sometimes use org phrasing, so that means you can do the [00:07:00] same. Yeah. The key is that you become more confident.

[00:07:06] Use your own words and people will listen. Practical tip here, pay attention to how native speakers communicate in meetings or casual [00:07:15] conversations. You will notice they don’t always speak in perfect sentences. You probably don’t win your mother tongue. That’s completely fine. Slow down and breathe.

[00:07:27] Speaking slower, makes you sound more [00:07:30] confident and gives your brain time to structure. Don’t rush it. Yeah, take a small pause. People that are confident can make a pause before they speak. I [00:07:45] recently heard that in a podcast from a expert in communication. He’s a lawyer by training and he mentions that making a pause will make you sound more confident, so just make a pause.[00:08:00] 

[00:08:00] Use that pause to think about what you wanna say and how we say it. Next, use simple, clear language. You don’t need to say to exp, expect rectify the erroneous [00:08:15] computation must just say, to fix the mistake quickly, we need to find the best solution. Simple is usually better. If you look for really good authors, their language is often clear.

[00:08:28] Simple, [00:08:30] shorter sentences. Your audience will appreciate clarity over complexity. Stop apologizing for your English. Don’t say sorry for my English, or my English isn’t very good. [00:08:45] This undermines your credibility before you even begin. Don’t do this. Most people don’t care. Replace, sorry for my English with.

[00:08:55] Thank you for your patience. Sometimes you will have high stakes [00:09:00] conversations, like an interview or a presentation. Prepare for that. Rehearse what you want to say. At least the first couple of sentences. You will be more [00:09:15] confident, more calm, and things will become easier. Write down important phrases you wanna say.

[00:09:22] Anticipate questions anyway are good things that you should do. Think of what others might ask [00:09:30] so you can become prepared. Before you go into a meeting. Can you summarize the main findings? Think about what are the next steps for these kind of questions. Be prepared and if you don’t understand something, don’t be afraid to ask.[00:09:45] 

[00:09:45] People ask things all the time. Maybe it just because. They didn’t get it because there was, especially with virtual meetings, the sound was not perfect. Or maybe there was just so much content that you asked, [00:10:00] could you please summarize what are the main points? Yeah. Or you can paraphrase, just to clarify, are you saying ZX, Y, Z?

[00:10:12] I wanna make sure I understood you correctly. [00:10:15] Do you mean X, Y, Z? People use these phrases all the time. Also native speakers, so you can use it for sure as well. Surround yourself with encouraging people. Don’t have others that kind of drag you [00:10:30] down. Engage in conversations with supportive colleagues, with friends who encourage you.

[00:10:36] Maybe there are. Non-native speakers that also want to improve their English, help each other out and avoid [00:10:45] people who make you feel bad about mistakes. Constructive feedback is helpful, negativity isn’t, and in the end, just keep practicing, speak more, write more, use English in [00:11:00] real situations, and you will become more confident.

[00:11:04] Of course you can also have occasion in English speaking countries. Yeah, that will help you. Or maybe you spend some extra time [00:11:15] with your next business trip and improve your English consciously by doing small talk with native speakers. You can also do small talk with native speakers when you have a meeting at the [00:11:30] beginning of a meeting, things like that, or after meet.

[00:11:32] Last, final thought. You are, you being a non-native speaker means you are multilingual. That probably gives you a much broader [00:11:45] perspective to people that only speak English. There are so many native speakers that don’t speak another language. So Singapore says this is actually an advantage, it’s a [00:12:00] strength.

[00:12:00] Not a weakness. So with that, don’t get hung up on being a non-native speaker. Just practice more and you’ll be completely fine.[00:12:15] 

[00:12:16] This show was created in association with PSI, thanks to Reine and her team at VVS. Well, with the show in the background, and thank you for listening. Reach your potential lead great science and serve patients. [00:12:30] Just be an effective [00:12:45] statistician.