Language Coaching

Have you tried everything in your efforts to improve your English?

Have you tried the exhausting multi-week classes, often led by untrained instructors or non-native speakers only interested in standardized test preparation? Have you suffered through awkward silences and halted conversations with classmates who are as shy and confused as you?

What about downloading the apps, giving them an honest try, only to find yourself dreading their endless notifications and reminders?

Maybe you’ve gone to a local language exchange, or intentionally put yourself in a professional situation that required you to speak English, but couldn’t seem to get yourself to speak up?

Do you have personal language-related goals that seem daunting, or you’re not sure how to approach? Or, could you use help tailoring your language-learning goals to fit your personal or professional interests?

 

Have you tried a language coach?

Unlike these other language-learning tools, working with a language coach is an individualized, goal-oriented approach that adapts to the language-learner’s needs, interests, and strengths in order to achieve tangible results.

Working in collaboration on an individualized curriculum that suits your needs, language coaching can help you reach your professional, social, and personal language-learning goals and, ultimately, lead to real-world, concrete changes in your life.

Contact Me for a Free 1/2 Hour Call

You Might Benefit from Language Coaching if:

  • You’ve tried other language-learning tools, but experienced limited success with private academies, phone apps, and local language exchanges.

  • You’re preoccupied by language-related future opportunities for professional advancement and growing competition in your field.

  • You’ve developed or improved comprehension, but can’t seem to turn that into spoken interaction.

  • You’ve already got a handle on English but could use advanced guidance in deepening your knowledge of a particular topic and how it’s talked about in English.

  • You want to finally read and enjoy a particular novel, binge watch a director’s films and really understand them for the first time, or begin practicing your art in a new language.

My Three-Pronged Approach:

  • An understanding of and facility with the mechanics of any language are vital to its use; grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, etc., remain an integral component of language coaching. However, I put emphasis on your consistent use and engagement of the language rather than grammar and rules.

  • We work together to shape the language-learning experience around your goals, interests, and timelines.

    As a coach, I can help with:

    • Defining, setting, tracking, and achieving language-learning goals that can make a real difference in your life.

    • Addressing struggles with time-management, motivation, accountability, and building better language-learning habits.

    • Developing communication strategies and cultivating language-related skills specific to your personal and financial goals.

    • Preparing for important moments or events in which you’ll need to use English.

    • Building self-confidence and crafting an English that allows you to express not only your thoughts, but your personality.

  • Perhaps the most fruitful — and unruly — opportunities for language learning arise through direct, guided cultural engagement, as film, television, literature, music, and more become powerful and accessible language-learning tools that not only strengthen our facility with the English language, but also deepen our understanding of the cultural and historical contexts that contribute so profoundly to the dynamism of American English. 

    And it’s more fun!

    One waymy approach is different, and why coaching is useful in ways that other language-learning tools are not, is thatI use the American cultural production you love – and already learn from – to help guide our work, and to keep things interesting. Thisholistic approach utilizes cultural depth and nuanceto produce a richer and more enriching language-learning experience for you.

Goals and Coaching Plans:

Each of our language-learning goals are as unique as we are. To honor the high level of complexity and customization each goal requires, I approach goals both in terms of duration and level of engagement. That way, we can make sure we work toward your goals over the appropriate amount of time and with the most useful tools available.

  • In terms of duration, some goals are better suited to short-term language coaching, like a month of companion reading the novel you’ve always wanted to read or practicing conversational English for a professional networking event.

Other goals may require more time, like three months of coaching in anticipation of giving a professional workshop, or six months developing and refining a professional article or piece of creative writing.

While following the same general model and pedagogical approach, longer goals – those of 6 months or more – have their own unique challenges which must be taken on a case-by-case basis.

  • In terms of level of engagement, what I offer is a very general 3-tiered pricing model, with each tier adding to our set of language-learning tools.

In the “basic” plan, we focus on the essentials of regular, one-on-one meetings and collaboratively working toward your goal.

The “advanced-access” plan adds to the essentials by extending my availability through the voice messaging app Voxer, making it fast and easy for us to communicate when you need, and additional scheduled access through Zoom.

Finally, in addition to what both the basic and all-access plans provide, the “feedback” plan provides regular, consistent, and constructive written feedback that helps you track your progress over time and helps us move efficiently toward your goals.

Of course, our goals must be realistic – both in terms of the language-learner’s level of English and the amount of time and energy they can devote to the process – and achievable in order to see the concrete results we strive for.

Sometimes, it might take working toward more achievable goals on the way to larger ones. As your coach, we work together to set, work toward, and achieve your language-learning goals according to a schedule that works for you.

No matter your goal, my approach is flexible and comprehensive enough to help you achieve it. If you have a goal in mind, contact me to set up a free ½ hour information call/meeting.

Let’s Work Together

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