Ep. 219: Improving Your OFS English Skills

Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 219 improving your OFS English skills. So I want to share this email from Danielle that I got because I know a bunch of you are having this issue too. So here's what she says. I've had my OFS for 10 months and it's great. However, I need a little advice. Sometimes grammar or wording can be an issue. So just so you know, still for me, on occasion some of my best people have occasional grammar or wording mistakes. I'll continue. She says. Some of her tasks include writing social posts, newsletter drafts, and email drafts. We've tried using Grammarly and even had an AI Jasper subscription, but I've noticed it still misses many simple errors. I want to keep my OFS for a long time and want to invest in her English abilities in writing in particular. What kind of solutions have you have worked for you and your team? So first I asked my team how to improve English and they gave me nothing. Like they didn't have anything to talk about except for tools and processes. But so I remember many, many years ago asking them to read the newspaper in English. And yeah, this was a long time ago, right? Or to watch watch TV in English rather than subtitled in Filipino or dubbed in Filipino. Whether or not they did that I don't know. But I do know that their English has improved over the years. So having said that, I don't really have any great advice for like, oh, here's how you can improve their English, but here's what they said to me about things that have worked for them. So number one, they talked about using Grammarly. They said it's a good tool for checking spelling and grammar. Our team uses it regularly. When I asked them about it, both of them said, oh yeah, Grammarly is a really great thing. Another thing that I've done is I've edited their work and let them know what's wrong with their writing. On occasion, however, number one, I don't like doing this and I've done it a lot. And number two, I've figured out that it creates a bottleneck for me when I become the pinch point in getting something done. And then also it lets them be dependent on me for creating good work. They know that I'm going to edit it, so why should they make it great in the first place if it's just going to come to me and I'm going to find a problem with it? Anyway, so instead of me editing stuff all the time, I changed our process. I know my team can do better. At least I knew. I knew my team could do better. I knew that they could. That when something comes to me, it should be perfect or really, really dang close to being perfect. So here's what I did to help improve English Number one. Before something comes to me, it should go through at least two pairs of eyes, the writer and an editor. And they're checking for grammar and spelling and content to make sure it's consistent and correct. Then I adjusted deadlines so that the writer has time to write it, let it sit for a second, and then go back and reread it and make sure that they're okay with it and that it's pretty dang good. And one of the things they told me was that just giving them more time really helped improve. Like they would notice their own mistakes and correct them, which then helped them improve their English in their future writing. So just giving time to read and edit your own work can be a big deal. Then they run it through Grammarly and make sure that Grammarly gives them no problems. Then they pass it off to an editor to make sure it's perfect. And then it's going to come to me. So for. For Danielle, who and for probably most of you who you don't have multiple people to work on this, this process will be hard to implement. But just giving them time to write it, let it sit for a day, then come back and read it again and edit it. Your edit, have them edit it before it comes to you, will be a big deal. I think it's acceptable for you to read and point out mistakes. Just don't correct it. Make it their job to fix it. Often what I'll do is I'll say there's a spelling mistake in this and that's it. That's all I'll say. I don't point out where it is or there's a sentence that doesn't make sense here. And then I want them to reread it and figure it out. That way, hopefully they're careful with it when they go back and edit it the second time. I wish I had a much better answer for you. I don't. One of the things you can do, though, is there are lots of improve your English courses online. I've never done this, but there are lots of improve your English courses online. You could buy one for them, or you could ask them to read English. Like, read things specific to your industry that are in English and pay them to do this. Just read. I just want you to read. Because the more you read, the more you understand English grammar and spelling and vocabulary and how proper English is in your culture. It.