2 Lawyers, 2 Different Ways to Teach English

Prior to a student starting lessons, BLT spends a lot of time planning every student’s individual curriculum. The reasons we individualize every student’s curriculum are:
•Every student has a different starting level in the second language they are learning.
•Every student has a different role to play in their company. Even if 2 students are sales managers, their companies are certainly different which might make a difference in how we teach a second language to 2 people who are both sales managers.
•Every student has different interests and curiosities so we find topics and articles to discuss that are the most interesting to each student’s preferences.

Improving the second language skills of lawyers provide good examples of how we change a curriculum to meet the needs of the student and best benefit the company. We have successfully improved the English communication skills of 2 Italian lawyers; an in-house lawyer for an international fashion company, and a patent lawyer who has half of his clients living in native English-speaking countries.

Fashion Company In-house Corporate Lawyer

Our fashion company student corporate lawyer began taking lessons with us as a high intermediate level English communicator. Most of his job responsibilities involved reviewing contracts written in English. Naturally, using a translator would not be effective because legal documents usually follow many strict rules that are based on written laws and court cases. About half of this student’s lessons were focused on dramatically increasing the student’s genuine understanding of English legal phrases and sentences. The other half of the lessons were focused on elevating the lawyer’s English communication skills to allow him to easily use English to develop relationships with colleagues and other lawyers throughout the world while representing his company.

Food Company Legal Affairs Manager

A southern Italian food company’s Legal Affairs Manager began taking lessons with BLT as a low advanced level English communicator. Our principal goal was to elevate her English communication skills to almost the same persuasive level she has when speaking her native Italian language.

That goal has been accomplished through once-a-week lessons that are focused on idiomatic expression improvement through readings and discussions of almost every aspect of daily life in the UK and the U.S. Topics that have been covered include food, sports, art, cinema, theater, fashion, politics, history and other areas of UK and U.S. lifestyle. The Legal Affairs Manager student is now able to communicate in English with an extremely high level of competence in being persuasive and developing personal relationships.

Naturally, there is some common approach used for Italian workers involved in similar jobs, but BLT’s success is taking the time and making the effort to identify the key needs of every individual student in using a second language to effectively help their company compete in the global economy. Just like every student’s second language starting skills are different, so are each student’s needs and expectations which warrant BLT working very hard to make sure that every student reaches her or his potential in successfully representing their employer.