Why coaching in a second language can work well

13 hours ago

5 min read

Many of my clients speak English as a second language, and a lot of them are Italian. I coach them in English because many people find it easier to change how they speak and act in their second language than in their first.

Your first language holds your history

Your first language is the one you grew up in, so it's connected to your family, your school, your friends and your first jobs. It's where you were told off, praised, compared with other people or ignored.

Your first language carries a lot of emotional baggage. The words you use to disagree, to ask for something or to say how you feel are attached to old experiences, so you react to the words as well as to the situation. That's why the same pattern can appear with a partner, a friend or a colleague: you go quiet, or you say "it's fine" when it isn't.

This can happen in any situation: telling a family member you disagree, saying how you feel to a partner, speaking up in a meeting, or just talking to people you don't know well. The feelings can come up before you've decided what to say.

Most people learned their second language later, at school, at work, by travelling or from films and music. It has fewer of those memories attached to it. When you speak it, there is less pressure from the past, and that gives you room to try a different way of speaking.

What the research says

There is research that supports this, usually called the foreign-language effect. In 2014, Albert Costa and colleagues gave people a moral dilemma: would you push one man off a bridge to stop a train and save five other people? People who read and answered in a foreign language were about twice as likely to say yes as people who used their first language. The researchers explained this by saying that a foreign language creates less emotional reaction, so people are less ruled by their first instinct. When the dilemma was less emotional (only flipping a switch), language made no difference.

In 2012, Boaz Keysar and colleagues tested decisions about risk. In their first language, people changed their choice depending on how the same options were described, as a gain or as a loss. In a foreign language, this effect disappeared. People were also more willing to accept bets that were good bets, because they were less afraid of losing.

This is what I see in my coaching. If a second language lowers the emotional reaction to a moral choice, it makes sense that it also lowers the reaction when you have to disagree with your boss or say how you feel. That distance gives my clients room to try a different way of speaking.

What I see with my clients

I see this most clearly with my Italian clients, and I think it applies to anyone working in a second language. When they speak English, I often notice three things.

They are clearer.

They use shorter more direct sentences and say what they mean. In their first language, many of them add extra words, apologise a lot or soften the message until it gets lost. Or to put it another way in Italian they use the passive voice whereas in English they use the active voice making their communication more concise and accountable.

They are more confident.

Someone who stays quiet in their first language will sometimes disagree with someone in English, calmly and politely. This can be at work, with friends or in a more personal situation.

They are more open with people. It's easier for them to say "I'm not sure", "I need help" or "that hurt me", and to show some warmth. They are more willing to be vulnerable and to talk about how they feel.

Some of these clients lost confidence because of their family, their school or an early job. In English they can speak in a way they always could, but never felt safe doing.

Client examples

One client, who I'll call Anna, never disagreed with her manager in Italian. In a coaching session in English, we practised three short sentences: what she thought, why, and what she suggested instead. A few weeks later she said them in a meeting. Her manager asked a question and they agreed to test her idea. Anna said the biggest surprise was that nothing bad happened.

Another client, who we'll call Carlo, agreed that during our coaching sessions in English he feels less judged because I create a "safe space", so he is more able to open up and express himself, and he doesn't worry about language mistakes either. This then helps him speak English more confidently at work.

What clients notice when they look at people

Speaking a second language takes more attention, so clients stay in the present moment more. They look at the people they are talking to. They see who is smiling, who is nodding and who is listening.

Often what they see is positive. People are listening, people are interested, and sometimes people agree. This doesn't match the story they have told themselves for years, such as "I'm bad at speaking up", "nobody is interested in what I think" or "people will judge me".

I don't have to tell them they communicate well, because they can see it for themselves, from real people, in real time. Sometimes the reaction is neutral or negative, and that is useful too. We look at what actually happened, and it is usually less bad than what they expected.

In your first language, your attention often goes to the past ("what happened last time?"). In your second language, it goes more to the people in front of you.

Why not work in your first language?

People often recommend seeing a psychologist who speaks your native language, and for therapy that makes sense. Deep emotional work is usually easier in the language you feel in. But I think coaching works differently, at least in my experience. In coaching, we are not trying to go back through the past. We are trying to practise new skills and see what happens. For that, the distance from your first language can help.

This only works if your English is good enough. If you don't have the words to say what you mean, you can't express yourself properly, and you will probably spend all your energy on the language. In that case, you are overthinking the grammar and not looking at the people or at what you want to say.

Using it in your first language

I want my clients to be able to speak with the same confidence in their first language.

The main tool I use is an evidence log. After each real conversation, the client writes down three things: what they did, what they expected to happen, and what actually happened. It can be short, just a few lines. After a few weeks, the log shows a pattern. They said what they thought, people listened, and the bad result they expected didn't come.

The log is the proof that "I can't do this" is an old habit and not a fact. When a client is about to have a difficult conversation in Italian, we read the log first. Then we practise the same things in Italian: saying what you think directly, looking at the people you're talking to and taking the time to speak. The Italian conversations go into the log too, so the evidence keeps growing in both languages.