English is the most widely-spoken language in the world. About 1.5 billion people around the world speak English, and more than 1 billion speak it as a secondary language. English is the language of international business, education, science, and diplomacy. It brings people together who need to communicate with each other.
We offer training that enables you to communicate effectively in English when interacting with colleagues, associates and clients.
All of our lessons are live and interactive, taught by expert English instructors.
We offer individual lessons or small groups of a maximum of four students.
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We have compact 10-week programs as well as ongoing, continuous lessons geared toward our clients' needs. Choose the style that works best for you. Talk to us and let us help you.
Book a free 30-minute strategy session with Elizabeth or Erika.
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English Communication Skills for Medical Professionals
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The goal of this 10-week program is to help you to communicate more effectively and easily when interacting with native English speakers including patients, clients, investors and colleagues.
The standard program outlined below focuses on vocabulary, pronunciation, listening skills and on developing communication strategies. It is flexible and will be adapted to suit individual client needs.
You will find this program particularly useful in:
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Increasing your vocabulary range, especially of idioms and expressions used frequently by
native speakers.
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Improving your pronunciation and use of correct intonation patterns when speaking.
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Boosting your listening skills and your capacity to distinguish the important elements of the conversation.
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Learning terminology and phrases to ask for clarification and to check understanding.
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The 10-week program includes:
Increasing Vocabulary
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Phrasal verbs: What are they and why are they important in communication with native speakers? Examples include: “I will get back to you on that” or “Can you run through the agenda with me?”
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Idiomatic expressions and phrases.such as “She has no call to be upset; I had no say in the matter”
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Confusing or ambiguous language such as “Can we push the meeting back to next Tuesday?” or “The fire alarm went off and the lights came on.”
Improving Intelligibility
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Pronunciation errors do not always hinder communication but incorrect intonation or word stress can totally confuse a native speaker. In this part of the program, you will focus on aspects of intonation and word stress that may cause difficulties when speaking with native English speakers, as well as on pronunciation issues.
Boosting Listening skills
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The focus will be on approaches to improve your existing listening skills so that you recognize the nature of conversations and avoid communication breakdowns. For instance, some conversations require that you grasp the exact details of what is being said whereas others require that you ´get the gist´.
Developing communication strategies
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In the process of improving your English language skills, there will be times when you do not fully understand or feel that you may have missed an important detail. You will learn simple strategies and terminology that will help to slow down the conversation and to ask for repetition or clarification. Useful phrases include: “Would you mind repeating that? Can I just check with you that I understood correctly? Do you mind if I recap on a few details?”
Creating clear presentations and strategies for responding to questions can be included as alternatives to some of the above.
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English Communication Skills for Professionals
This program is designed to help you develop your communication skills in English. Some features of the 10-week program include (but are not limited to) vocabulary, storytelling, small talk, pronunciation, presentation skills, the language of meetings, and listening strategies.
The program is flexible and can be adapted to the client's individual needs.
This course will be especially useful if you:
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are interested in bolstering your vocabulary skills.
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interact frequently with native English speakers and need help understanding them.
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want to improve your pronunciation in order to speak more clearly
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would like to hone your presentation skills. This can be for giving oral reports, speaking up in meetings, or for more formal presentations..
Listed below are some of the elements that comprise the 10-week program.​
Vocabulary
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Idiomatic and colloquial expressions used at work
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Examples: Let's get down to the nitty gritty (to get down to the basics of an issue).
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Let's table that topic for now (stop talking about the topic).
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Phrasal verbs, for example 'to hit it off with someone' or 'to come across' (something, as + adjective)
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Storytelling
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Talking about your experiences with colleagues. Describing an issue at work. Explaining something to your boss. Storytelling helps you to become more personable and develop rapport with your coworkers.
Everyday English
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Small talk - skills and expressions to communicate better with coworkers, supervisors, and clients
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You most certainly can talk about your job and your career sector, but do you know how to start a casual conversation with someone? Do you know how to show interest when someone is talking to you?
Improving Intelligibility
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Clear pronunciation using Prosody Pyramids for sentence-level stress. Make it easy for others to understand you. In spoken English, we break up sentences into chunks of language, called thought groups. When you know how to work with thought groups, you will have the correct pronunciation and word stress so that others will be able to follow what you are saying more easily.
Presentation Skills
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Knowing how to hold the interest of the audience in an engaging way is a part of this presentation training. We cover best practices, such as developing rapport with your audience, including humor to lighten up the atmosphere, and creating a balance between providing information and holding the audience's attention.
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The presentation training also includes practice in pronunciation, word stress, and sentence-level stress to help you speak clearly and intelligibly.
Listening Skills
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The Listening Skills training includes strategies to help understand native-English speakers better and avoid communication breakdown. This part of the program will support you in gaining more confidence in meetings and negotiations.
*All lessons are 60 minutes.
Coaching
A few examples of past projects include:
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Preparing for job interviews
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Writing cover letters and applications
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Creating content for presentations
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Editing reports
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Preparing academic papers and dissertations
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Developing written communication skills
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Improving public speaking, including pronunciation and intonation
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English for Specific Purposes: Developing vocabulary, listening and speaking skills specific to a particular field or profession.
Contact us today and let us know how we can help!
*All lessons are 60 minutes.
Do you need help preparing for an important presentation or interview, editing a slideshow, drafting a report, or writing a dissertation? Would you like to focus on a particular communication skill, using material that relates directly to your specific field? Just let us know what you need and we will provide one-on-one customized support.
Our coaching services are available to help you develop your specific professional communication needs. If you have a task, project, or communication skill that you would like assistance with, this service is designed for you. We will start by meeting with you one-on-one to learn about your specific needs, and then create a custom plan to help you meet your goals.