Chartered Institute
of Linguists

Rasha Alajouz on Coaching

 

 

Making A Difference To The Lives & Careers of  Linguists Through Coaching

Coaching is a tremendously more empowering experience than training, advising, mentoring, or counseling. As linguists, mastering the art of understanding language, reading their emotions, engaging in discussions, and identifying cultural barriers requires patience and practice.

But how is this possible, and can linguists improve their skills and benefit from coaching? To know more, read on!

What is coaching?

The opportunity to spend time analyzing the patterns that emerge in what we and others say and hear, and to gain so much knowledge in the process, is a great privilege. Coaching, as a technique for self-empowerment, is more linked to language than we realize. In coaching, the coach aims to improve personal or group performance through facilitation and skill.

A person can substantially improve their ability to reconnect with themselves, their values, and their purpose in life with the assistance of coaching.

Coaching provides tools to cope with stress and emotions related to your job and helps you develop abilities to come up with other goals to achieve what you want. It can also help optimize your performance. It doesn't necessarily help you only with your issues; it can also polish what you already have. And there’s so much more.

More thoughts on the word “Coach”

When you hear the word "coach," people typically picture a man standing on a sports field training players. Most people think of basketball coaches, football coaches, and Rugby coaches.

There are tons of meanings to the word “coach.” It could mean you’re traveling by coach, riding a carriage, or riding a railroad car. However, this blog is about understanding the thoughts of making careers and lives better for linguists through coaching.

Who is a good coach?

Assume you are a coachman who’s driving a passenger. What do you do for a living?

Passengers are driven to their destinations by a coachman, and as a coachman, your obligation is to get the passenger from point A to point B.

In a larger sense, coachees can chart their course, but as a coach, we do our best to ask the right questions; they're the ones who have to figure out where they want to go and where they want to be in life.

How can it make a difference in linguists' careers and lives?

While language permeates most facets of daily life, coaching's main objective is to support clients in changing their ways of doing, thinking, and being for the better. More than our language makes up who we are, language exposes us to new realms of possible feelings, meanings, and behaviors. Therefore, linguistic alterations may indicate and result in the precise improvements that coaches want to see in their coachees.

Coachees can identify and change self-constricting metaphors, assumptions, and autobiographical stories that infiltrate their spoken and written language. Although mainly of a non-empirical sort, the role of language in coaching is acknowledged.

Last words of wisdom…

Coaching works best when you put the other person's needs first, partner with them, and let them lead the way.

 

Rasha Alajouz, FCIL CL is a solution-focused mentor and coach. She is a culture-bridging entrepreneur, a CIOL Fellow, Chartered Linguist and Member of CIOL Council and a motivational author.

For more see rashaalajouz.com or contact Rasha at rajouz@rashaalajouz.com

 

Views expressed on CIOL Voices are those of the writer and may not represent those of the wider membership or CIOL.