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Business English Tuition

You don't need perfect English to be an effective communicator but you do need the ability to express your ideas clearly, choose appropriate language, understand the people around you and respond confidently.

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That's why our work starts with your goals and your real-world situations.

Instead of following a standard course, we'll identify where better communication will make the biggest difference and build your sessions around those priorities.

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Personalised

Every session is tailored to your level, profession, goals and communication challenges.

 

Practical

We work with realistic situations, vocabulary and conversations you can use immediately.

 

Business-focused

You benefit from coaching informed by more than 25 years of real business experience.

 

Confidence-building

You'll practise communicating—not simply study English—so that using the language becomes more natural.

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What Clients Say​​

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Real progress. Real career situations.

 

 

 

 

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"He is an amazing teacher, his approach is unique as well as very useful, especially when you need to gain confidence by using the English language. He has excellent materials, a lot of patience and a positive attitude. Thanks teacher!" Aykut, Turkey

"I really recommend Charles if you would like to develop your English knowledge. I always had trouble to find a tutor because I can speak English but I would like to be confident also if I speak with a native. He prepares a lot of tasks for each lesson and all of them are quite challenging for me from one to one and that's why I like the lessons very much". Maria, Hungary

"Charles was exceptionally well-prepared and focused on the things I required and needed. I highly recommend him for his advanced techniques and thorough preparation". Alaa, UAE

Who is this program for?

My clients are typically business professionals who are already at the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) A2 (upper beginner) to C1 (Advanced) level. Clients come from many locations, backgrounds and functions and I have helped business owners and entrepreneurs as well as professionals drawn from IT, project management, legal, finance, HR, marketing, operations and general management. Learners are frequently motivated by needing to communicate more frequently, deliver speeches and presentations, facilitate online and offline meetings, work and manage remote teams or write in English.  

Integrating English learning with business skills and mentoring

By some estimates at least 2 billion people across the globe speak English. More than two thirds of employees with international jobs communicate regularly in English. Over 50% of all multi-national organisations have mandated English as the corporate lingua-franca.

 

While English is key to business communication, moves by companies to implement corporate language policies can cause non-native speakers to feel self-conscious, lacking in confidence and sometimes even disqualified from opportunities and career advancement.

 

My approach builds English language skills and confidence by role playing real-life scenarios, introducing materials that are relevant to the issues and challenges of every day work such as facilitating international meetings, the importance of culture in negotiations, handling difficult conversations, building resilience in individuals and teams and the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. 

Session Structure

Sessions are normally hour long,  1-2-1 and focus on speaking, listening and reading skills. We sometimes review and edit a piece of your written material such as a presentation draft, email or report. Depending on needs, the session may include a short grammar activity, some vocabulary revision or new vocabulary and a pronunciation exercise. Most of the session is spent on the topic and may include a role play, viewing or listening to related video or audio material, working through vocabulary and expressions and a topic-related discussion. 

Setting Goals and Measuring Progress 

As with all learning it’s important to identify clear learning goals and to track progress towards their achievement. I use a battery of quick, low cost or free language assessment tools. 

 

As a starting point I encourage my clients to take a short (30 mins) online 4 skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) assessment. This is used as a placement test to determine skills, such as speaking, that require focus. This online test measures against the CEFR levels from which we agree a broad learning goal, such as moving from B2 (upper intermediate) to C1 (advanced) and the required actions and estimated timeframe to achieve this level. 

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Where there is a need to increase vocabulary we set the baseline using a free, online vocabulary assessment.  

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We periodically measure progress by using an online progress test. This short test (15 mins) measures progress against the 6 CEFR levels.

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Ultimately the objective of your learning is to improve your confidence in using English in work and social contexts. We measure progress through a short self-assessment that looks at how confident you feel in various situations compared to your starting point.   

 

At the end of each program some learners may decide to take a proctored or un-proctored, online, 4 skills test to assess overall competency.

Discussion Topics

I have prepared learning materials based on both business and non-business topics. Popular business topics include;

 

  • Advertising and Marketing

  • AI and Machine Learning

  • Business travel

  • Difficult conversations

  • Time Management

  • Dealing with anger

  • Leadership and Management

  • Strategy and Planning

  • Perfectionism or Excellence?

  • The four-day work week

  • Emotional intelligence

  • Diversity and Inclusion

  • Meeting Facilitation

  • Embedding ESG within organisations

  • Unconscious Bias in the workplace

  • Maintaining Work Life Balance

  • Influencing and persuasion

  • A day in the office

  • Seeing things from a different perspective

  • Business Ethics

  • Public speaking

  • Managing remote teams

  • Future of work

  • Dealing with change

  • The New Normal

  • Building trust-based relationships

  • Working from home

  • Establishing resilience in the workplace

  • Cultural aspects of negotiation

 

My sessions are designed to provide English improvement alongside general business knowledge and skills development. Sessions frequently include articles from the media sources such as Reuters, the Economist, Financial Times, New York Times, The New Yorker, The Conversation, The Guardian, Forbes, Harvard Business Review and audio and video material by Simon Sinek, Dan Ariely, Daniel Goleman, John Kotter, Daniel Pink, Laura Morgan Roberts, Amy Edmonson, Seth Godin amongst many others.

 

Learning Material Customisation

Where required I can integrate client materials into each session. In the past I have added corporate policy documentation, annual reports and brochures, proprietary research, recruitment videos, presentation materials and other client-originated content to my sessions.

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