Strange talking
The idea comes from Paweł who said If you wish improve yours English start making meetings in that language. I asked about this idea my team members and they agreed that it might be educational and fun. Since more than 30 working days, during stand-ups and sprints in my team we speak in English. It makes impact on my work which I expected, but it also has unexpected consequences.
In my team we have to obey this two simple new rules:
- we speak only in English during meetings,
- if you don’t understand a interlocutor he has to explain meaning of that sentence in other words.
I have to admit that first few meetings were hard. We had to find a common language. We have a different skill levels in spoken language (and in written too). At the beginning was a lot of sentences: I don’t get it. Could you explain it? , etc. Also, how you can imagine we were a little shy. People were looking at us, because it’s unusual at work to speak in foreign language if you don’t talk with a guest or a customer.
More or less after a week, we accustomed to strange talking meetings. Stand-ups have strict parts like: describe what you are doing right now, talk about progress in task or problems, etc.
The time has come for small summary of this experiment.
Advantages:
- obvious, we are improving our language skills, in spoken and writen language,
- and unexpected, meetings are more focused on theme, because our skills right now don’t allow us talk about everything.
Drawbacks:
- meetings are a little longer – especially on the beginning, when you search common language. Also, from time to time you have to explain some new word of sentence,
- is much, much harder to tell a joke. You might think that it’s not important, but meeting should not be stressful or boring. Small chit chat at the end not related to work it’s good idea.
We have here ambiguous situation: we are more focused on meetings but they are insipid. In other words, meetings are not fun like team members expected. The main question is: do I have to do something with that? Does boring meeting might be a problem?
We are going to proceed strange talking meetings. I suppose that when we achieve some higher level in speaking than stand-up becomes fun. We will see.