If we can communicate well, we can exchange ideas, influence people, negotiate when we need to and provide valuable ideas and feedback. Our ideas are conveyed better, are less ambiguous and we can speak to a relevant audience with self-confidence and credibility. With English being the most spoken language in today’s world, the importance of being able to communicate well in it is inevitable and cannot be understated. The better your communication skills, your fluency, pronunciation and accent, the greater success you can achieve in lectures, seminars and networking.
Meet Nareman, a master’s student in Bioinformatics from the Tel-Aviv University who talks about why she decided to improve her English at Say What English Training.
As a public speaker of [important] subject matters, why do you think it is important for you to have clear spoken English for lectures, seminars and networking?
As a master’s student, I have a lot of lectures and seminars in English, but I don’t have enough courage and self-confidence to speak out loud, ask questions or express my opinion. This situation makes me feel stupid and embarrassed. On the other hand, feeling this way has pushed me into making the right decision, and I decided to improve my English to overcome these barriers.
Do you think it is a necessity to speak proper [correct] English to convey your message and be taken seriously as a public speaker?
I think it’s very important to speak proper English, because speaking an international language correctly can give us a lot of new opportunities and make others take us seriously.
With cross-border business communication mostly conducted in English, is having good and clear English a useful tool to reach more people around the world?
As I mentioned, I think having fluent and clear English can create a lot of opportunities, give us a lot of self-confidence and enable us to connect with anyone.
As a public speaker with ESL (English as Second/Third Language), what are some of the challenges you have faced when writing a lecture/speech?
Arabic is my first language. As an Israeli citizen, Hebrew is my second language and English is my third language. I face many challenges when I try to speak English. Sometimes I try to translate from Arabic to English, while other times I try to translate from Hebrew to English. As you might expect every language has different grammar rules and this makes the task of writing [in English] difficult.
Do you think that some important messages are not conveyed because they are not communicated correctly in English? The “lost in translation” effect?
Absolutely. When people don’t understand us and we don’t speak clearly, they even stop listening to us.
Do you think that speaking English well will help you communicate with people from countries all over the world, not just English-speaking ones? If so, in what ways?
Sure. Speaking English properly will help me communicate with people from all over the world. First, English is the third most spoken language in the world. Furthermore, it is the official language of science, and all the articles are published in English. Many companies around the world interview people in English to make sure their employees can communicate with everyone.
