Is your training just checking a box?
You run the training. People complete it. And still nobody comes out of it able to deliver results overseas. We hear this constantly from companies in Japan trying to build global talent.
In meetings they listen. In negotiations they give way. They can speak English now, but not well enough to hold their own with overseas units, customers and suppliers. The cost shows up in the budget. The result never shows up anywhere.
The problem is not how much training you run. It is how the training is designed.
Then there is the question executives keep coming back to: AI. With translation and live captions on every device, is there any point investing in English at all? The paper answers that head-on. AI translates words. It cannot read what the other side values, and it will never tell you how your own words landed.
The paper works through the five reasons English training fails, redefines what “English ability” actually means in business, and sets out the six conditions training has to meet to produce a result. None of this comes down to trying harder. It is a question of design, and every part of it is backed by research in second language acquisition, project-based learning, deliberate practice and the neuroscience of language.