Perhaps the first question an organisation called Opportunities Through English should ask is an awkward one.
Do we actually need to learn English anymore?
With AI, instant translation and increasingly sophisticated technology, it’s a perfectly reasonable question.
If I’m travelling and simply need to ask directions, understand a menu or speak to a taxi driver, voice translation may soon do almost everything I need.
So perhaps I don’t need to learn English at all.
But if I want to study at an overseas university because the course I want isn’t available in my own country, that’s very different. I may need a particular level of English simply to gain admission — and enough confidence and ability to participate once I get there.
If I work in a hotel, I might only need sufficient English to communicate effectively with international guests.
If I work for an international company, I may need English for emails, meetings or conversations with colleagues and customers. And increasingly, English may be the common language of an organisation where almost nobody actually speaks it as their first language.
These are completely different needs.
Yet we have a tendency to begin with: How can we teach this person English?
Perhaps we should start somewhere else. What does this person actually want or need to do?
English isn’t the outcome.
I’ve spent a substantial part of my working life involved in English-language education. One thing I’ve become increasingly convinced of is that, for most people, English isn’t really the objective.
The objective is what English might allow them to do. Study. Work. Travel. Build a career. Communicate with colleagues. Make friends. Live somewhere new. Access information. Do business internationally.
English is the means. The opportunity is the point. Once we understand the opportunity, we can ask a much more useful question: What English does this person actually need?
The answer may be very different from becoming “fluent”. That thinking is at the heart of Opportunities Through English.
Buying a course isn’t buying an outcome
There is another uncomfortable truth about language learning. Outcomes don’t always meet expectations.
We have sometimes made learning a language sound rather easier and more predictable than it really is. Choose the right course. Follow the programme. Study for a few months. Become fluent.
Some people do seem to learn languages almost effortlessly. They absorb vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar remarkably quickly. For many others, it’s a much longer and more challenging journey.
Progress isn’t linear. Personality, culture, confidence, motivation, time and opportunity to practise all matter. Different people respond to very different ways of learning. And the learner has a role in this too.
Buying an English course is not the same as buying an English outcome. That doesn’t absolve providers of responsibility. Quite the opposite. Providers need to be clear about what they can provide, what the learner needs to contribute and what a realistic definition of success looks like.
What does success look like?
I’ve seen learners achieve things I would never have predicted. I remember a particularly shy student who had hardly spoken or practised English with other people. Much of what he knew had been acquired through self-study.
He joined a Cambridge Advanced exam preparation class and turned out to be the strongest student in it. His spoken English and accent were remarkable. He subsequently achieved an A.
Then there was another learner who had studied for around six years. Her English remained heavily accented and she still made some quite basic grammatical mistakes. But she could communicate effectively. She had achieved what she wanted to achieve — and was enormously proud of it.
Which of those two learners was more successful? I’m not sure that’s even the right question. Both had found their own version of success.
I’ve also experienced the enormous satisfaction a teacher can get from helping someone develop over successive courses — young learners and much older ones, fast learners and slow ones, confident people and people initially frightened to speak.
Seeing someone become able — and willing — to communicate in another language can be extraordinarily rewarding. That human connection still matters.
Technology changes the question
AI and translation technology will undoubtedly remove some of the reasons we previously needed to learn languages. I don’t see that as a threat.
If technology allows somebody to communicate effectively without spending hundreds of hours learning English they don’t otherwise need, why shouldn’t they use it?
Technology can also make language learning dramatically better: more personalised practice, immediate feedback, access to authentic material and learning focused on the particular skills somebody actually needs.
So perhaps the interesting question isn’t: Will technology replace English learning?
It’s: How does technology change what we need to learn, why we learn it and how we go about it?
Why Opportunities Through English?
There is a deliberate paradox at the heart of OTE: We believe passionately in the opportunities English can create. We just don’t believe that learning more English is always the answer.
I don’t particularly want OTE to become another “thought leadership platform”. There is quite enough thought leadership in the world already. I’d rather it became something simpler: A trusted professional voice.
Somewhere for practical information, informed opinions, useful conversations, interesting people and organisations worth knowing. We won’t have all the answers. Sometimes we’ll question accepted wisdom.
Sometimes we’ll change our minds. And I particularly want to hear from people whose experience is different from mine. Because the starting point should always be the opportunity. What are you trying to achieve?
Then: What English do you actually need?
And only then: What’s the best way to get you there?
That is what Opportunities Through English is about
