Vocational foreign language education is gaining popularity.

In the globalizing world, knowing a foreign language is of great importance, bringing diversity in terms of competitive advantage and job opportunities in the increasingly internationalized business world. Within this framework, it is stated that many individuals from sectors such as healthcare, law, and maritime show interest in professional foreign language education.
Globalization is making knowing a foreign language increasingly important, while educators emphasize the significant contributions of professional foreign language education at the vocational level. In the business world, which is increasingly becoming international, individuals from various professional groups are turning to vocational foreign language education for reasons such as gaining a competitive advantage in competition, continuing their careers abroad, establishing foreign partnerships, and increasing collaborations. Elif Alphan, who is a manager at a language school in Istanbul Beşiktaş, provided information about educational processes. Alphan stated that professional foreign language education offers significant benefits to individuals and highlighted the recent trend of interest from various sectors.

“English language requirement in all sectors”
Elif Alphan, the manager of the language school, mentioned that plans are made according to the sectors of the trainees, and personalized programs are created for individuals after assessments of their foreign language skills. Alphan stated, “Recently, the volume of trade abroad has increased significantly, leading to a growing need for language skills among people. English is at the forefront, followed by Russian. Languages like Italian and Spanish are also popular at the moment. Currently, the healthcare sector is predominantly in the spotlight, as individuals who want to continue their professional lives abroad are generally in the healthcare sector. In addition, there is an English language need in all sectors, such as sales, marketing, maritime English, and legal English. In the context of professional English, we call it entirely professional English because the education we provide is entirely tailored to the sector’s needs. Sometimes, in order to take quick action even towards departments, we advance in a curriculum system where we prioritize the words we need. Our process is planned individually. We first determine the infrastructure for English for a person who comes. We create a special program according to their needs and goals. If they say ‘I need to reach this point within 3 months,’ we create a program for them accordingly. We are involved in a process where we have been immersed in general English from elementary school to university. In order to go beyond this, we need to clearly define our own goals. Do I want to use it academically, in my professional life, or do I just need everyday English? Individuals can easily enter a learning process as long as they can break their own prejudices. In the format of the education we provide here, there is absolutely no format like starting all grammar topics together from scratch and continuing.”

“You need to be professional, you need to globalize”
Adil Sakçalı, a lawyer and a trainee at AcademicIST who received language education for the legal field at the school, said, “I came here upon the recommendation of my friend. I had clients from abroad, there were questions I needed to answer instantly, documents they sent, contracts. I couldn’t respond quickly. That’s why I realized that I needed to learn English. When I talked to my friend, he was very good at English, I sent him my documents, when I asked him where he learned, he recommended this institution to me. You need to be more professional, you need to globalize. I deal with private law, trade has also globalized, people in Turkey are doing business with people from all over the world. English is used as a common language. When you don’t know, it is not possible to help your clients and achieve success for professional satisfaction. All of our teachers who have dealt with me here were very knowledgeable about legal language. I recommend it to everyone.”

“The trainings must be providing great benefits to the people attending”
Nebi Karamahmutoğlu, who stated that he studied English language teaching and came to the school to improve himself, said, “As someone who studied English language teaching, there is something like this nowadays; job opportunities are a bit limited for new graduates, employers are looking for more experience. That’s why, even though I have just finished my first year, I’m here to observe teachers, gain experience, and enrich my CV. What I observed is that there is language education tailored to professions, for example, for maritime professionals, they are working with an expert. This certainly must be providing great benefits to the people attending these trainings.”