Bose® Corporation makes high-end sound systems. A multinational company with over 5,000 employees, Bose® has offices and plants in Asia, Europe, Canada, and Central America. The company's international engineers, while well qualified in terms of technical skills, often had limited English communication skills: customers and colleagues had difficulty understanding their speech, which impaired productivity. In addition, the company needed Spanish and Japanese training for its native-English speaking employees who travel to Latin America and Asia or communicate regularly with colleagues or accounts in those regions.

Course applicants represented a cross-section of not just different cultures and native languages, but different departments and specializations, such as engineering, accounting, sales, and Web site development. Each department uses vocabulary and phrases unique to that department's job function. For optimal training results, this job-specific vocabulary needed to be incorporated and prioritized in the language training we provided. Classes often had to be set up at short notice. Course content, schedule, and location all had to be developed and adapted to quickly.

English as a Second Language training:
· Accent reduction
· Presentation skills
· Listening comprehension
· Business and technical writing

Cross-cultural training:
A practical introduction to US culture, helping international newcomers better adapt to and understand local expectations and ways of behavior.

Japanese training:
Group and one-on-one, beginner- through advanced-level courses for engineers and sales teams traveling to Japan or communicating with Japanese colleagues and customers.

Spanish training:
Group and one-on-one, beginner- through advanced-level courses for sales teams traveling to Latin America or communicating with Spanish-speaking colleagues and customers.

Translations:
English-Spanish and Spanish-English translations of internal company documents.