 In this topic, we are going to discuss about another component of pre-departure training and this component is language. How much training is given regarding the language which is the language of the host country. Interestingly, although it is seemingly obvious that language training would be important, it is something which is given low priority. When people are sent on international assignments, it appears and ideally it seems that people should be given language training but what happens in real is that language training is actually given a low priority. Why that happens, let's discuss that. Number one reason about this is the role of English as language of the business world. You know that up till the last century, Britain ruled a large part of the world because they had colonies all over the world. Pakistan and India were also their colony. Australia, Canada, America, all of these countries, they were their colonies. So business also developed and industrialization also took place during this era. So businesses developed under the umbrella of the British rule and therefore we can see that mostly English is considered to be the business language of the world. This is something which is changing rapidly now because of the Chinese economy having a big proportion in the world's overall economy. But still, you see that Chinese people also have an inclination towards learning the English language. So English is a major language of the business and that is why because multinationals, mostly they come from English speaking world so they have this kind of attitude that language training is not required. Everybody is supposed to speak English and anybody who cannot speak English, it's okay. It's up to their disadvantage. We don't have to do anything about that. Language training is found to be directly related to an M&E's ethnocentricism. You remember what ethnocentricism is, I'm not going to repeat it, but a company which is ethnocentric will not provide language training whereas if it is less ethnocentric they will go for language training because they realize that people, they have got different standpoints they come from different cultures. So this basically reflects arrogance from the English speaking expatriates because of the reasons that I've just discussed. However, there are many benefits of knowing the language of the host country. Ability to speak a foreign language can improve the expatriates' effectiveness. Obviously, if you talk to people in the language of the host country, then you can be more effective. How can effectiveness be improved? It can improve your negotiating skills. It can also improve a manager's access to information regarding host country's economy, government and the market. So people who would be providing this information to that expatriate manager, they would be belonging to the country which is the host country. So if that person is able to speak their language, people would be giving more information to them because they will be able to feel comfortable talking in their own language. It's also possible they feel comfortable because of the emotional aspect and also because of the actual aspect whether they are able to convey in the English language or not or in the language of the parent country national or not. So nonetheless, language training is something which can improve the effectiveness of the manager. Degree of fluency which is required, it depends on the level and nature of the position. If the level of position is higher up in the organization, it means that the person, the manager is going to be interacting with people who will be well educated and well literate and therefore it would not be required for that person to be knowing the language of the host country nationals. Whereas if a person is an operations manager who is actually dealing with the laborers or the first line managers, it is possible that they are less literate and they do not have the skill of English language as the top level executives they would have. So it depends on the level and it also depends on the nature of the position if there is high level of interaction and also the nature of position is important because if you are a sales manager for example then your nature of position, your nature of job is such that you would be interacting with people. So a nature of position and then also the amount of interaction which is also dependent on the nature of position. So these two aspects they are interlinked with each other. It is also important to give language training to people who are on the expatriate assignments because you need to create a knowledge of the corporate language. So corporate language is something which is the corporate jargon how things are communicated in that particular organization. It may well be still English or it may well be the language which is of that parent country but the corporate language of every organization is different. That is the tested knowledge that you need to learn how to communicate in that particular organization. So people who learn the corporate language who have the knowledge of the corporate language that would facilitate reporting and other company communication and therefore expatriates they can become language nodes in the way that they are able to communicate between the host country nationals and the parent the headquarter nationals by creating a link between by creating a language link. So they actually transfer the language of the corporate headquarters to the host country nationals and they transfer the host country nationals language to the corporate headquarters. So they become language nodes as well. So they also become a part of this becomes a part of training itself. So that is basically the role of language and how language training should be done in different particular aspects and situations when a person is being sent on an international assignment.