Language coaching

From the beginning of the twenty first century, the term language coaching started to become used more and more in the field of language teaching and language learning.

Theoretically, language coaching encompasses the teaching and training of foreign languages but incorporates principles, models and competences from the field of life coaching. These principles, competences and models may originate from coaching organisations themselves such as the International Coach Federation in the USA or from particular coaching models or practices such as GROW.

Thus, the whole process behind life coaching, such as goal setting, action and strategy setting, reviewing goals and really getting coachees to focus on personal development and accomplish feats step by step is then transported into the language learning process.

The development of language coaching in the language teaching world is on the rise and more and more language teachers appear to be calling themselves language coaches. It is often difficult to distinguish between unqualified language teachers, qualified language teachers, language teachers with a specialization such as ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and now language coaches. It is also not clear if so called language coaches have any coaching qualifications or experience as life coaches.

Neurolanguage Coaching

In 2012, Rachel Marie Paling from Efficient Language Coaching™ defined Neurolanguage Coaching as follows:

“Neurolanguage Coaching™ is the efficient and fast transfer of language knowledge and skills from the Language Coach to the Language Coachee with sustainable effects facilitated by brain-based coaching and coaching principles and neuroscience.” © 2012 Rachel M. Paling

Paling wrote an article to distinguish the differences between language coaching and language teaching in 2013, and this was echoed in the article by Dimitris Zeppos in a table demonstrating the principal differences between language teaching and language coaching:

In the last two years, Paling has clarified and clearly delineated the field of Language Coaching and Neurolanguage Coaching and created a Language Coaching Certification for already qualified language teachers to enhance their expertise with coaching training and with the knowledge of neuroscience and how the brain likes to learn. A study regarding the profile of such neurolanguage coaches in the world has recently been conducted by Dimitris Zeppos.