Conversational English is INADEQUATE to become a global professional.

We students expect to become excellent professionals once graduated, but not

everyone knows about the actual experiences that come when finally putting at practice
what we learned in the classroom.
When we talk about a business, we refer to an organization or enterprising entity
engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities. Every business has a team
behind of it, a team that works towards the accomplishment of the business’ objectives.
And a manager is the person in charge of leading that team throughout the process.
It would appear like is an easy duty, but being a manager is a task that requires a
complete list of capacities, competencies and knowledge to truly be a good, useful and
efficient leader.
With that said, I’d like to introduce you the four management functions:
1. Planning: To reach a business’ objectives it is imperative to create a plan, which
involves allocating employee resources and delegating responsibilities, as well as
setting realistic timelines and standards for completion, for this to be possible is
necessary to have complete knowledge of the company’s characteristics,
capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. There’s also a checking progress that must
be constantly followed by managers in order to make small adjustments if
necessary. Also, the planning function is divided in three types:

a. Strategic: It is the way managers determine their vision, objectives and goals for the
future of the company. The process includes establishing a concrete sequence in
which the steps to achieve those objectives are going to be followed in a long term
timeline.
b. Tactical: This is a type of planning that divides a strategic long term plan into
smaller and more distinct short term plans. The benefits of this type of plan is to
turn strategies into actions that ultimately support a company or team in reaching its
goals, also it promotes organization-wide involvement and can boost employee
engagement.
c. Operational: It is what happens when a team or department draws from a company-
wide strategic plan and puts it under a microscope, it maps out department budgets
and goals to propel the success of the strategic plan with specific, team-based
activities for the next 1 or 3 years.

2. Organizing: This function is about organizing resources and employees. A manager

with organizational skills can help to ensure a company or departmental unit runs
smoothly. From stablishing internal processes and structures to knowing which
employees or teams are best suited for specific tasks, keeping everyone and
everything organized throughout daily operations.
 3. Leading: Being a leader is maybe the trickiest part of being a manager, it requires a
lot of communicational and social skills to achieve the many goals this duty calls
for, like for example:
a. Interactions and negotiations: A manager must be communicative, persuasive
and confident with his ideas, commands and arguments. All those competencies
are necessary to correctly guide and organize a team, and to convince skeptical
leaders.
b. Engage team members: It is very important to make subordinates feel attached
and compromised to achieve the organizational goals, and by the relation the
employees are going to stablish with the manager is a very influential part of it.
c. Communication: Humans are not computers; we are not machines that proceed
to do any kind of task just by some commands and instructions. That would be a
stressful situation, something that definitely would affect negatively
subordinates efficiency. Employees need a more human treat, and a constitutive
way of communication is the best way to accomplish this goal for three main
reasons: 1. It helps to create understandable meanings to everyone. 2. It helps to
be more persuasive throughout focusing more on how we say things than in
what we say. And 3. It covers all the complexities of a human and healthy
communication.

4. Controlling: This is the face to ensure if all the above functions are working as
expected. A manager must monitor employee performance, quality of work and the
efficiency of completed projects.

Once defined these very important functions, we understand that to communicate

efficiently with others, our English must be more than conversational. To become global
professionals, we must practice very hard and let ourselves be exposed to various
situations, accents and vocabularies in order to develop a native-like speaking.
To reach this goal a lot of practice is needed. I mean: TRAINING. When mastering
any kind of skill, training is necessary, being constant, focused and true to your goal of
becoming a better English speaker in this case, is key.
There are a lot of ways to train yourself, the most important part of it is to organize it
correctly, but how to do this? Well:
1. Vision: Having a vision of your goal is the first step, the one that’s going to propel
you to begin with your training. It is the vision of the ultimate goal you’re trying to
reach.
2. Isolated elements: It is about dividing your training in isolated features that, as a
whole, shape the ability you want to train and ultimately master.
 3. Drills: Those isolated features you just defined are going to be trained individually
with drills you are going to concrete. This way you can train those isolated elements
until you finally become better.
Anyway, training is no joke, it could be a nonstop task, since I feel that everyone
learns something new every day, there´s always a new level to overcome, a new obstacle to
surpass. Training also will put constancy and discipline to the test, so, the willing and the
actual struggle everyone puts on their trainings is actually visible. I don’t think endeavor is
something that could ever be hidden or faked.
Moving on, let’s talk about some tips I’d like to share in order to improve the
vocabulary and pronunciation:
1. Shadowing: It is a tip professor Luis Reyes gave us, and I find it really useful and
entertaining to do. Shadowing is when you listen to a native English speaker talk,
and repeat phrase after phrase, trying to sound and modulate just like the person you
are listening too. This exercise is perfect to improve pronunciation, vocabulary and
confidence when speaking English.
2. Reading: Reading books, magazines, news, subtitles, etc. Really helped me to
improve my vocabulary and grammar. At first is very difficult to go smoothly
through the words, but as you keep practicing and learning, it becomes something
natural and ordinary.
3. Watching TV shows in English without subtitles: This helps a lot to train your
hearing of the language. The different accents, intonations and rates of the people
talking in there are the best option to get accustomed to the language when you are
not in an environment where English is frequently spoked. As reading and
shadowing, it is hard at the beginning, so it requires a great discipline and an even
greater constancy.

To conclude this presentation, I’d like to highlight one last thing about becoming a global
professional: enhancing our knowledge and vocabulary in the business world is key. So I
recommend you to make sure of circling yourself of lots of business videos, books and
news to correctly and efficiently enhance your englilsh towards the