Types of Training

One of your most important decisions will be to decide on how the training will be delivered. Every company is different, and what suits one organisation will not suit the next.

One-to-one or group training?

If you have an individual member of staff who needs to make rapid progress then one-to-one training is the obvious choice. Dependent on the company culture, senior staff may not be comfortable in a mixed group with more junior staff and could prefer one-to-one training.

Group training, however, is necessarily more cost-effective but, if effective learning is to take place, the groups should not be too large: between six and eight is often considered to be a suitable number for business learners. Be sure that groups are broadly organised according to existing ability.

Intensive courses

Experience suggests that intensive courses work best for those business people who will have the immediate opportunity to use the language they are learning in real-life situations; this will often be the case if they are taking on an assignment abroad.

Typically, intensive courses are more useful for managers who already have some knowledge of the language: they can build on their existing capability and then put this into practice during their time in the country where they will be working.

Weekly sessions

A common option is to provide regular weekly sessions. These allow sufficient time between sessions for appropriate self-study, but also generate sufficient momentum to ensure successful outcomes.

Such sessions can be conducted during or outside of working hours; another option is to offer the lunchtime session, where employees commit some of their own time to the learning process. However, training that runs from 17:00 - 18:30 after an eight-hour working day is not usually everyone's favourite option.

If numbers allow, running two group sessions at the same level each week offers the option for staff to attend one or the other depending on work commitments.

Distance or open learning?

This is an option where you have no visible trainer: you work on your own with materials provided either in the form of books and CDs, or via the web. Such courses are usually organised by educational establishments.

Self-study

This should be an important element of any programme that your provider is delivering, whether group or one-to-one, intensive or drip-feed. Supplementing face-to-face contact with the trainer with self-study in the employee's own time is an established methodology for producing effective language learning.