Language Coaching

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Language Coaching

How did come up with the idea of
Language Coaching?

Last year, a colleague from AIESEC and friend of mine, Jorge Montestruque, told me about a job opening. He had been working for a Civil construction French-Brazilian Joint-Venture responsible for executing a part of Peru's National Oil Gas project. They were accountable for building a pier in Pampa Melchorita, a couple of hours away from Lima city. The job opening involved managing and running the Spanish learning program for 8 top expatriate executives, customizing the program to personal needs.


Initially, I thought: Hey, this is Spanish, my native language, so it should be a piece of cake.
To be quite honest, it required me A LOT OF mental effort every time I spoke in class. I discovered I had to plan what I would say in class so that I would provide them with the right amount and quality of information, without either overloading them with info, and just giving very little. Plus, what they learned had to be applicable to their professional life, right from start.


Picture this: 6 French Executives who speak no Spanish and me speaking only in Spanish 100% of time, even when I could have easily spoken to them in French if I wanted to. That would have not helped them learn spanish so I refrained myself from doing so.

So, here we are, 6 executives, all in different ages and with different interests. A ONLY-in-Spanish class and responsible for making them TALK in Spanish, because they needed asap to learn that to negotiate business in Peru.

If I failed, not only would I lose my job, but their whole business would suffer the consequences.

Imagine yourself in that situation, stressed out yet? I honestly felt responsible for ensuring that negotiations worth thousands of dollars would become effective, as they would negotiate in Spanish....


Classes went by, and I discovered that, in certain occassions, even when it was a basic 1 or intermediate 2 class, people got BLOCKED.

They could not speak. They started feeling uncomfortable.

Somehow, something was triggering this blocking. That blocking was interfering with their learning. Big time.

After experiments, looking back into my Berlitz teaching experience, and proper fruitful research in the Coaching and Psychology field, I realized that, no matter what your proficiency level is, when you overcome this blocking, you can speak a foreign language comfortably, fluently, spontaneously, confidently.

Knowing a way to block oneself was a strategy that everybody knew, and somehow not everybody used.
Skillful speakers were the ones who knew how to avoid themselves from entering into a blockage, caused by using their blocking strategy.
Learning how to overcome such blocking was a strategy everybody could learn, and Coaching was the right means to facilitate people learn it.

And this is how to I came to the idea of Language Coaching.

If you feel like reading more, you may go here (sorry, for now it's spanish only).

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lima-Peru/Language-Coach/100462319934