A friend of mine recently went to work in a local department store.
She was hoping to find a job that would help pay for her rent, but she quickly realised that her job search would not help her much if she didn’t understand the language of her colleagues.
So she decided to ask the employees in her department how to do their jobs, and she got the results that her friend had been hoping for: the employees were all completely unhelpful.
This is not a joke.
In a survey conducted by the Oxford University Centre for Responsive Leadership, over half of the employees asked how to speak English and half of them asked how they should be speaking English.
It seems that they are completely unfamiliar with how to talk to a person who is not English-speaking.
So, while I understand that my friend is trying to get the best job for her, it seems clear that she is being too hard on herself.
And I’m not alone.
A survey conducted in 2013 by the company that makes the iPhone found that over 80% of respondents were in fact non-native English speakers.
So how do we get these people to change their behaviour?
Here’s how to find out.
How to change the way you talk to non-English speakers
