What is Neurolanguage Coaching and how does it work?
What happens in a language coaching conversation? What is Neurolanguage Coaching? Why would you choose language coaching over more traditional language lessons or private tutoring?
If you’ve never experienced coaching, the idea of it can sound a bit fluffy or vague. On top of this, there are people calling themselves “coaches” without any qualification at all – because unlike regulated industries like accounting or medicine, anyone can legally call themselves a “coach”.
For better or worse, “coaching” is an extremely broad term and that can cause a lot of confusion.
Let me try to answer a few of the most common questions I receive about language coaching, from the point of view of a certified Neurolanguage Coach (that’s me – Hedvig).
How do you get started with language coaching?
Typically, the learner (the person seeking coaching) reaches out to me with a question and maybe they’re wondering how to work with me. They book a free discovery call, where we chat for 15-20 minutes about what their challenges are right now and how I might be able to help them.
For some learners, their main challenge is fluency: Being able to find the right words at the right time (and in the right language!). For others, they might feel like they’ve stopped making progress, even though they still make embarrassing mistakes or worry about their pronunciation. They are usually a bit too advanced to join a group language class, and that’s why they’ve reached out to me for something more focused and customised to their specific needs.
We know that every brain and body are different, so I take that into account by allowing some flexibility in my coaching packages. While a 35-day intensive programme and weekly calls might work for some brains, others feel more at ease with a longer programme and fortnightly calls, allowing more time to practise and implement anything new in-between sessions.
Then there’s the goal setting call. This is where Neurolanguage Coaching® helps create a nice structure to set you up for success: The 3 Ms (a.k.a. the 3 “Musts”) of Neurolanguage Coaching are Motivation, Mechanics, and Mastery.
What are the 3 Musts of Neurolanguage Coaching®?
We go through all 3 Ms during the Goal Setting call, which typically lasts 50-75 minutes.
Motivation is about your bigger ‘why’: What will greater language skills give you? This could be “to be the best version of myself in English”; “to gain a competitive advantage at work”; “to have a good connection and relationship with my English-speaking niblings as they grow up”. As you can see from these examples, your motivation will depend on your needs, your personality and the contexts in which you need to use your language skills. Here I look for something that visibly lights you up, where I can see that this statement energises you so I can remind you of this later. This motivational statement can be helpful going forwards, when there’s a risk you might fall back into unhelpful learning habits or get lost in less important details. Reminding you of your bigger ‘why’ then can help re-focus to get you back on track.
Mechanics is about assessing your current language level, identifying areas to work on, and then prioritising these into a clear, straightforward plan. We have a short diagnostic conversation to assess your competence in the language: This might seem a lot like any typical “get to know each other” conversation, but it’s been designed in a way that we can assess your language competence: Things like how you form different kinds of sentences, how words change form in different contexts, your ability to understand meaning and make yourself understood, and pronunciation. (Formally, we would call these the 4 areas of grammar: Syntax, morphology, semantics, and phonology. But my job is not to teach you fancy words you’ll never need again – it’s to help you communicate more clearly and effectively with the kinds of people you associate with – so unless those people are linguists, you do not need to worry about these terms).
Mastery is about specifying your goals around what you want to be able to do in the language: What specific situations do you / will you find yourself in, and what language skills will you need to feel a sense of mastery in those situations? We break these scenarios down into their tiniest component parts: For example, if you want to be able to run a meeting without fumbling with your words or getting cold sweats over a mistake, then let’s look at all the mini-skills you need to build to get there… This might include small-talk before the meeting starts, introducing the purpose of the meeting, handling any transitions to a different topic, presenting your work, responding to different kinds of questions, etc. You might say we are painting a much clearer picture of what mastery means to you, so you can more easily see the path ahead – between your current skill level and the level you want to get to.
We then have a Motivational statement, and 2 lists of goals or areas to work on: One list is of Mechanical (grammar-based) goals, and the other list consists of Mastery goals. To finish off our Goal Setting call, all that’s left to do is to choose which of these goals we will focus on first, and how you want to work towards these goals. Here we discuss different kinds of activities we can do together – such as practising / role playing a specific type of conversation, reviewing a grammar point using brain-friendly and textbook-free learning techniques, or agreeing on any activities you might do in-between sessions to help consolidate your learning.
When it comes to working on a specific language area (mechanical or mastery), the next question will go into greater detail on what we do during our ongoing sessions.
How is a language coaching conversation different from a language class, a “normal” conversation, or even a work meeting?
The truth is that to the learner (the person being coached), language coaching feels a lot like all 3 of these… Sometimes, it feels like a normal conversation where we’re just talking about a particular topic. I ask you questions, you might ask me some questions, and we might exchange stories.
Sometimes, it’s more like a meeting (we have an agenda / plan for each call).
Yes, of course sometimes it’s also a little bit like a language class… But the approach is generally light on learning materials, and heavy on conversation!
But as a coach, I’m doing a bunch of things “behind the scenes”, like…
Trying to identify any unspoken blocks, mindsets or assumptions
Trying to help you make associations between what you know and any new information… for brain-friendly, lasting learning
And of course, much more like listening to understand, assessing any gaps in your language knowledge (which we might review later), and keeping an eye on the time.
What makes the coaching approach to language learning so powerful?
There are many reasons why I prefer language coaching over teaching. When I first received my TEFL certification (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), I wanted to combine this with my personal experiences being in therapy and to call this language coaching. I loved the idea of helping somebody not only to learn the “nuts and bolts” of a language, but to simultaneously help them to become better learners and give them the tools to continue learning effectively, long after our work together ended.
I honestly thought I’d invented something new, until of course, I searched online and found that “Language Coaching” was already a well-established concept. That’s when I discovered Neurolanguage Coaching, which actually introduced the 3rd element I didn’t even know I needed: Neuroscience, applied to language teaching methods in a way that was uncomplicated, surprisingly simple, and yet so incredibly underrated. Most of the basic principles we follow in Neurolanguage Coaching are easy to understand, and easy to see how they can be used in practical ways to boost your learning and your fluency. However, the hard part is staying consistent with a new approach to learning, because you'll need to un-learn a lot of unhelpful learning habits from childhood and adolescence. And of course, that's where a language coach can really help you stay committed to your learning in a brain-friendly, efficient, long-lasting and fun way.
Ready to overcome whatever is stopping you from speaking English with clarity, confidence and certainty? Let’s have a chat: Book a discovery call.