English for Managers: How to Master Business English in 2023

It’s no secret that the English language comes with excellent career benefits. According to one study, learning English increases a person’s salary by an average of 18% per year. Better yet, if you completely master the language, this rises to 30%! 

If you are studying to become a manager in an English-speaking workplace, then you should be working towards highly advanced language skills. After all, you don’t just need to be able to participate in workplace conversations. You need to speak fluently enough to be in control! 

Why you need to master business English before taking a management position

So you know quite a lot of professional English, perhaps even enough to work in an English speaking office. If you want to lead a team, completely mastering the language is still essential. 

1. Communication is everything as a manager

Effective communication skills are the most important to learn to become a good manager. This is true in any language. 

You must learn how to settle conflicts, how to give encouraging feedback, and how to motivate your team while also being sensitive to their problems. It’s very difficult to achieve all of this in a second language.

You need to have complete command of English so you can be precise in your communication. It’s much easier to communicate effectively in English if you invest time in gaining fluency. 

2. Writing in English is very difficult

Even native English speakers regularly make mistakes with sentence structure and spelling when writing in English. You might be very good at making yourself understood when speaking English, yet still need practice with your written skills. After all, it is one of the hardest aspects to perfect in any second language. 

Since so much business communication takes place over email, you need to have great written English skills to succeed as a manager. If there are mistakes in your business letters to customers, for example, it is likely that you will be taken less seriously. 

3. If you want to keep advancing, you’ll need high-level business English skills

If you are already successful enough to consider becoming a manager, you are probably highly motivated and career-focused. You don’t want your lack of English skills to hold you back later on in your professional journey. 

Even if you know enough English to get by, advanced skills may be essential for your next step. Study now, and you’ll be in a much better position when you need those language skills! 

4. The world of work is increasingly international 

When a company grows, it usually develops business internationally. For better or worse, English is the language of international business communication. 

Having great English communication skills will make you much more useful in a successful international company. 

5. Good pronunciation makes a great first impression

If you are in a managerial position, chances are that you will be one of the first people that new clients and business partners meet. Your first impression is really important and will have a direct impact on business. 

If your English is intermediate, then you might still have a strong accent to native speakers. You don’t want clients to be thinking about your accent, you want them to think about what you’re actually saying. It’s important to master English pronunciation to make the first impression you deserve.

Important management English vocabulary

You can’t master business English just by memorizing a few phrases. However, these terms will be useful if you’re just starting your learning journey. 

Team-building 

We consider team-building essential for a successful working environment.

“Team-building” is a phrase you’ll often hear in corporate offices, especially those with HQs in the United States. It refers to fun activities which employees do together in order to develop friendlier working relationships.

Sometimes, “team-building” activities are as simple as going to a bar after work, but it is becoming common for companies to pay for employees to enjoy more unusual “team-building” sessions, like paintball, go-carting or even team camping! 

Quarter

We’ve achieved all of our targets for this quarter. 

In business, a “quarter” refers to a three month quarter of the financial year. The first quarter is from January to March, the second quarter is from April to June, and so on. You might also see these shortened to “Q1,” “Q2,” “Q3,” and “Q4.” 

Senior management team

The senior management team will decide on this issue at the next meeting. 

Most larger companies have a senior management team. This is the group of people in a workplace with the most responsibility. It is usually made up of the bosses of every department, and the CEO. Usually, senior management teams have meetings to discuss important issues that will affect the whole company. You might see this shortened to “SMT.”

Monitor

Could you monitor the performance of the mobile app please?

In the workplace, the word “monitor” is used more often than in standard English conversation. It means “to watch” or to “keep track of.” If you are a manager, you might be asked to “monitor” an employee — to make sure that they are working effectively.

Keep an eye on

Keep an eye on our long-term customers, they are the best ones.

“To keep an eye on” is an informal way of saying “to keep track of”. It suggests that you’re not going to fully concentrate on monitoring something or someone, but will keep its progress in mind.

Self-development

I want to read a book on decision-making for self-development. 

“Self-development” refers to training that you initiate yourself with the aim of improving as a professional. It might be related directly to your job,a or just helpful for your career in general. Lots of larger companies have a “self-development budget” to pay for employees to gain training that’s relevant to their roles. 

Multinational corporation

One day, I will be the CEO of a multinational corporation. 

A “multinational corporation” is a large company that produces goods or services within more than one country. Most very famous companies are multinational corporations! This is sometimes shortened to “multinationals.”

Line manager

My line manager approved my vacation time. 

Every employee at a company has a “line manager.” This is the person who manages them day-to-day in a more hands-on way than their boss. If you have a problem with a task at work, you usually go to your “line manager” first to talk it through.  

Career ladder

He’s working his way up the career ladder very quickly!

The “Career ladder” is a series of imaginary steps in someone’s path to professional success. The “career ladder” is not the same as a career plan. It describes workplace progress in general, rather than to a set path which employees try to follow. 

Corporate training 

We’re at a corporate training day on Monday, so I can’t make the meeting. 

“Corporate training” is any extra professional lessons that a big company asks employees to do. It often takes the form of a spot

course, but it might be as simple as watching educational videos. 

For a larger selection of terms, check out 30 of the most useful Business English phrases and idioms. 

How to master business English for managers in 5 steps

Here at Preply, many of our students are learning English to advance in their careers. That means we have some great insights into how to master the necessary vocabulary and language skills as quickly as possible. 

1. Follow the news about your industry

Whatever industry you work in, there are almost certainly specialist magazines and newspapers you can read to stay up-to-date on the latest developments. If your English skills are good enough to read these already, it will be very useful to do so! 

If your English skills aren’t advanced enough yet, you could try: 

• Reading articles about your industry on Linkedin. These are usually shorter and clearer than normal articles. 

• Following leading experts in your industry on Twitter. You can read their insights in very short sentences. 

• Reading your own company’s materials in English. 

Whichever source you use, make a note of any new words that keep coming up. Chances are, these words are specialist vocabulary for your field, and will come up a lot in the workplace. 

2. Make the most of free resources 

There are plenty of free materials for learning Business English online, some better than others. Here are just a few that we think are worth your time: 

• The British Council’s Business English hub.

  This is a small but ucorporeatwseful database of podcasts and exercises to help you learn English for management purposes. They even offer an online course, which is free to access for the first six weeks. 

• Business English pod

  This is a huge free database of podcasts to develop your English for Management vocabulary. They also offer written texts and quizzes for a small fee. 

• Bizpod

  This is a highly popular YouTube channel with a large selection of videos on learning English for Business. 

• Upper Intermediate English: Business

  A free online course being offered by the Universitat Politècnica de València.

An English course designed specifically for business English learners can help you learn essential vocabulary quickly. These are structured programs, and business English courses for managers,  that usually focus on office vocabulary and language used in formal situations.

Here are some popular online options:

• Preply Business empowers business clients to achieve their linguistic goals by offering a tailor-made service that addresses students’ needs. This is achieved through 1-on-1 corporate language lessons with certified online tutors who customize classes to each learner’s interests, industry, skill level, and learning preferences. Preply Business provides its learners maximum flexibility as they can schedule sessions anytime and anywhere.

• Market Leader Extra

  is a course developed by The Financial times, one of the world’s leading Business English newspapers. It is an online textbook with examples and explanations. Some students find it more useful to work with a tutor.

• Business English course on Udemy

  is an affordable course with good reviews from its students. It is not very intensive, but will be useful if you just need to pick up a little extra vocabulary.  

• Business English: Management and Leadership

  This business English course on Coursera is backed by Arizona State University. According to its student survey, 67% of users saw a clear benefit in their career — yes, please!

4. Watch television shows about workplaces and business 

A less serious tip here! If you are learning English because you’re very motivated to succeed at work, then you are probably already concentrating for much of the day. Perhaps you need some ways to learn which can also be part of your leisure time! 

Try watching some television shows about office life. Even if they are unrealistic and silly, you will learn some relevant vocabulary from the characters’ environment. You could also try watching one of the many reality TV shows about entrepreneurship to see real people discussing their business ideas. 

• The Office (a comedy with UK and US versions) 

• Parks and Recreation (a comedy)

• Small Business Revolution (a reality TV show) 

• Billion Dollar Buyer (a reality TV show) 

• Shark Tank (a reality TV show) 

5. Get a one-on-one tutor

You hold a lot of responsibility at work. You don’t have a lot of free time. It’s worth investing in the most efficient learning method for getting the skills you need: a one-on-one personal tutor. 

Even the best non-personalized online course will make you learn a few things which are not relevant to you. General business courses will talk about professional life in general, but the drawbacks of this are obvious — every career is very different.

With a personal tutor, you can discuss exactly the skills you need so that every second of your time is spent on something you’ll find useful. You can talk through vocabulary relevant to your industry, read publications from your own company and even ask for help with business writing tasks, like your emails.

However, there are benefits to learning from a course. It’s great to have exercises you can work on at your own pace. It is also useful to have some structure when you are starting out. That’s why we created Preply Learning plans, a set of English courses with exercises and explanations developed by experts. If you do choose 1-to-1 English lessons with Preply, you get the best of both options.  Preply’s Learning plans feature courses for Business English which you can work through with a tutor and adapt to your own needs. Take a single lesson to gain access to the whole set for free! 

When learning business English in a traditional classroom, you share the teacher’s expertise with many others. In a 1-to-1 tutoring session, their attention is all yours. Any questions or doubts you have will be corrected right away, and you can learn at your own pace. You also do not have the option to accidentally tune out!

Learning English for business with Preply is so effective that many companies trust us to train whole teams. If your business would love this, speak to your boss about Preply Business corporate English training.

Have a tutor? Focus on polishing your business management English with these tricks

Choosing to perfect your English skills with a Preply tutor is an extremely smart business decision. Here are a few tips and tricks to get the absolute most out of your experience. 

Make some notes

If it’s your first lesson with a tutor, part of the time will be spent coming up with an effective learning plan. To plan effectively, you must give your tutor a clear picture of your role and responsibilities, the company you work for and the areas of English speaking you most want to focus on. Spend a few minutes making some notes on each of these areas. You could consider: 

• What resources can I show my tutor so they get a clear idea of my professional environment and responsibilities? (Company website, LinkedIn pages, my CV)

• What situations do I most struggle with at work? (Writing emails, making presentations, business phone calls)

• Are there any words or phrases that come up all the time at work? Is there any thought I want to be able to express in a more natural way? 

Remember, you can always message your tutor on Preply. If there’s anything you want to focus on — if you want to role-play a sales phone call, for instance — message them as soon as possible so they can plan your lesson ahead. 

Read and write your work emails with your tutor

One really helpful exercise is to read and draft work emails with your tutor (in a separate document so that your clients’ and colleagues’ privacy is not at risk, of course!). This way, you’re learning English, ensuring your business communication is perfect, and getting work done, all at the same time! 

Your tutor will be able to give you some phrases that come up often in business communication. They will also catch any common difficulties you have with grammar and spelling. 

Read your company’s own materials together

Every large company publishes written materials these days. This can include the text on the website, newsletters and blog posts. Try reading these through some of these with your tutor to check that you understand them perfectly.

It might not be the most interesting topic for a lesson, but it will catch any essential vocabulary used at your own company that you might have missed. Any new words will stick in your memory very easily since you have learned them in such a useful context. 

Prepare negotiations and presentations together with your tutor

If you’re a manager, you almost certainly have a ton of presentations to give. Your tutor can be a great help when it comes to planning these. Come to a lesson with bullet points of what you need to say or even a first draft, and you can write the presentation together. 

Your tutor can help you rephrase your points to sound natural and professional. They will also give you pronunciation tips on any words that you are not speaking clearly. This way, you can be sure your language skills are perfect at times when they really matter. 

Roleplay difficult work situations 

There are times when managers need to be extremely sensitive in their communication. When giving a job interview for example, or when talking seriously to an employee about disappointing performance. It’s important to find exactly the right words for these conversations. It makes sense to practice them ahead of time. 

Your tutor can guide you through sensitive ways to phrase what you need to say so that you do not accidentally cause extra stress to your employees, or seem rude to a client. A tutor can help you get a message across in the most effective way possible. 

Be flexible in your approach

Usually we advise new students to book a regular slot with a tutor and stick to it. But you are a very busy business professional, and that might not always be realistic for you. 

Can’t make a lesson any more? Cancel it for free up to four hours beforehand. Have an unexpected free evening? Schedule another. Any learning targets you set yourself should be flexible: your professional work comes first, and any business English tutor will understand that.

For most students, a routine helps them meet their learning targets, but for time-stretched business professionals, the flexibility of Preply can be a great help. Schedule lessons at times when you learn best — even super early or super late — and take them in a place that suits you. Learn while on the train, or your balcony, or even your bed.

Conclusion

It goes without saying that it’s very difficult to lead a team in a second language. If you’re learning English to manage a team, then you must be a truly dedicated professional. 

By putting these tips into practice – working with a personal tutor and focussing on vocabulary relevant to your own career – you will see concrete results in the fastest time possible.