“If I can motivate you to practise outside the classroom, the return on your investment in English is enormous!”

Welcome to episode #021 of The Broughton English Show!

My feature guest today is Sam Gratton from Gratton Communications. Sam is a specialist in business English and business skills. His company, Gratton Communications, teaches business English in dynamic and interactive classes with an emphasis on learning and applying key business skills and recreating typical business scenarios like sales, negotiation, closing deals and public speaking.

With Gratton Communications, you do business in English, and not just learn typical business English. Sam has worked in top multinationals as an executive, so he knows the importance of using English well to do business well.

Check it out!

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Show Notes

• Sam talks about his experience as an investment banker and how he ended up coming to Spain and starting Gratton Communications.
• Sam explains some of the typical mistakes that many language providers make when teaching business English to companies.
• We discuss the needs of English learners who use English in a business environment.
• What is more important when using English in business: speaking English or doing business?
• We chat about a typical fear for many business English learners: conference calls. How can you overcome the fear of conference calls in English?
• We talk about the fact that many Spanish English learners are very hard on themselves with respect to their English level.
• We talk about Ana Botella’s famous Olympic bid speech.
• Which is more important in English, accent or pronunciation?
• Sam gives his best tips on how to tackle and do well in a conference call in English. Relax, take your time and ask them to repeat as often as you need to.
• We talk about the importance of learning motivational skills in order to feel inspired to learn and practise more outside the classroom. It’s not what you do when you’re in the classroom that determines your progress in English, it’s what you do when you’re not in class.
• Sam explains how he maximises his time with his clients so they can get the results they want.
• Sam explains a typical Gratton Communications class and how he gets his clients fully engaged in the class: dynamics and physiology, objectives, competitive elements and progress checking.
• We talk about the physiological elements of learning and how they can influence the psychology of English learners.
• The end goal for Gratton Communications is to get their clients speaking and using English automatically.
• Sam gives his tips on surviving the summer and not losing all the English that you’ve learnt over the course of the year. Take things that you already do in your own language, and do them in English.
• Never avoid speaking English. Take every opportunity to learn and practise English.
• You absolutely need to set learning objectives so you can identify what to learn, why you’re learning it and what you want to achieve from it.

Recommended Resources

• Gratton Communications
• Connect with Sam on LinkedIn