You Don’t Have an English Problem. You Have a Confidence Gap.
If you’ve ever taken an English course, hired a tutor, or watched YouTube videos to improve your communication at work – and you still feel stuck – I want to tell you something important: your English is not the problem.
Over the course of my over 5,000-hour coaching practice, I’ve come across professionals like senior product designers, staff software engineers, data analysts, product managers, and people managers whose first language isn’t English and would tell me, “Joyce, I need to improve my English.”
However, within the first 20 minutes of our first conversation, something else comes up.
It becomes apparent that they’re not struggling with grammar. They know the rules—and learning it in a formal academic setting means they know the rules often, very well. They’re not struggling with vocabulary either. Because they take more time to read, listen, and watch English media with the intention to learn, their vocabulary is often advanced.
What they’re really struggling with is this: the moment they open their mouth in a meeting, a voice inside them shuts them down. It says, “Wait, is this the right word? Will they understand my accent? Do I sound smart enough?”
So they hold back, filter themselves and let the moment pass.
Sound familiar?
The Myth of the English Problem
Here’s what I’ve learned from working with technical leaders, and people managers across top companies in tech and consulting in Chicago and across the world: the key to executive presence and clear communication isn’t perfect English.
This shifts the problem—and opportunity—from purely a language problem to one that tackles confidence, mindset, and identity.
This is something that no English course will ever teach you.
What Coaching Actually Reveals
A year ago, I had a client from Brazil who was assigned by his employer, a global electronics company, to oversee their U.S. manufacturing plant as a lead engineer.
Back in Brazil, his peers respected his calm authority and technical excellence. Here in the U.S., he found himself going quiet in meetings with American executives. When he mustered the courage to speak, he’d second-guess himself mid-sentence not because he was unsure of his opinion. It was more because he didn’t know how his view would land.
He approached me wanting to work on his English as he aimed for a promotion and help his family assimilate in the U.S. We worked together for three months—hardly tackling grammar. We focused more on learning American workplace jargons and idioms, and adapting his communication style to the culture. Not wanting to change his accent, we practiced vocal drills to improve his leadership presence and verbal clarity. Most of all, we worked on the inner game—reconnecting with his natural leadership strengths and taking on a mindset that renewed his self-confidence.
By the end of our work together, he already felt comfortable communicating with his leaders and peers. He had conveyed his desire to be promoted, which his manager supported.
My client appreciated my openness to customize our sessions until he got to a state where he achieved confidence, clarity, and fluency.
The Real Gap
If you’re reading this and you’re still thinking that you need to fix your English, I want to gently push back on that.
Just like my client, it helps to ask yourself: In your first language, are you articulate? Are you confident? Do you have strong ideas and the words to express them?
If your answer is yes, then the gap may be more than just your English. It goes more than just about translating your thoughts in your native language to English, but also of how you bring yourself into every conversation, meeting, and presentation. This is what I call the confidence gap, which can show up in the following ways:
Vocabulary anxiety – you know what you want to say but freeze searching for the “right” English word, losing your train of thought entirely.
Accent self-consciousness – you’re so focused on how you sound that you stop focusing on what you’re saying.
Cultural blind spots – you don’t always know the unwritten rules of American workplace communication, i.e. when to speak up, when to push back, and how to read the room.
Identity filtering – you’ve spent so long translating yourself for other people that you’ve lost touch with how naturally authoritative you actually are.
I invite you to take a pause now: What confidence gap most hinders you?
What Actually Closes the Gap
At The Leadership Voice Studio™ in Chicago, I help my clients convey their knowledge and expertise in English so they can more effectively influence their peers and stakeholders in their American workplace. Learning plans are customized for every client, which can include any combination of the following:
Vocabulary expansion through familiarization with local idioms, industry jargons, and regional phrases and terms that are not commonly found in text books.
Pronunciation clarity and accent confidence using vocal drills that addresses to my client’s specific gaps, as well as a coaching approach that gets deeper into the fears and limiting beliefs.
Cultural intelligence by reflecting on lived experiences, as well as grounding our lessons on real-world scenarios through role plays and simulations that mirror actual meetings, presentations, and difficult conversations you face at work.
Inner work involving identity that bring deep and lasting transformation not only to how my clients communicate, but also in how they show up, relate with others, and lead.
If you’ve spent years trying to “fix your English,” maybe it’s time to ask a different question: What if your English was never the biggest obstacle?
The real work might be in learning to trust the voice that you already have. This is the work I do every day with some of the brightest and most talented American-born and imigrant professionals across corporate America who want to lear with greater clarity, confidence, and influence.
If that sounds like where you are today, I’d love to have that conversation.
Start With One Conversation
Ready to Close Your Confidence Gap?
If this resonates with you, I’d like to invite you to book a $100 trial session with me – in person at The Loop, Chicago (just across Willis Tower or Sears Tower for the locals) or virtually worldwide.
In 60 minutes, we’ll get specific about what’s really holding back your communication. You’ll leave clear about your improvement areas—and whether working together is the right next step. The $100 is credited toward any coaching program.
