Learning a new language for your job creates new opportunities
Shannon Carlin works for the Parks Canada Agency in Calgary. She took one-on-one French classes at the Berlitz Learning Center in Calgary, primarily to further her career but there have been other benefits.
“The further I go along, the more confident it makes me as a person.”
Q. What were your language learning goals when you started learning French?
A. My end goal is that I would like to take the standardized testing. I am the only English unilingual member of my team. I’m hoping this will open up some different opportunities for me, and help me in my career.
Q. How has learning a new language helped in your professional life?
A. I seem to be progressing well. I am able to have conversations (and) my comprehension is quite good. My colleagues and I do a lot of instant messaging texts. They can send their messages in French, and I am able to answer their questions in French.
I mentored about 25 people last year, and out of the 25, six or seven are bilingual and French is their first language. Their emails are often in French. I am still working on being able to respond to their technical questions in French but I can read and understand most of their emails so I feel this is huge progress.
Q. How would you describe your experience with the Calgary Berlitz Learning Centre?
A. I’ve had three great teachers.
I have a coworker and I was telling her how much I like this course because it is in person. I had another optional group to choose from (non-Berlitz) and I don’t know if that suited me as well because the learning would have been by Skype. If I don’t understand something (with Berlitz), I can say “hang on, hang on, I need you to explain this differently to me,” and they’re really good about it.
They’re super accommodating; I really am enjoying that part of it.
Q. How has language learning helped you as a person?
A. I think the further I go along, the more confident it makes me as a person.
If you’re ready to invest in yourself with a new language, contact Berlitz to get started at Berlitz.com.
