Timothy O' Flaherty

Welcome to our first interview of 2025! In this edition, Viktoryia Zelianko speaks with Timothy O’Flaherty who shares insights into the evolving landscape of Business English training, the role of AI, and his passion for mentoring. Read on to learn from his wealth of expertise and experience!

Bio

Timothy O’Flaherty is a business communication skills trainer, and the founder of Interlanguage Lab, based in Warsaw, Poland. He has over a decade of experience delivering courses to corporate clients in various industries in areas such as presentation, negotiation, and intercultural communication skills training. He has a Cambridge CELTA and the Trinity Cert IBET.

Link to website: interlanguagelab.pl

1. You’ve been living and teaching in Poland for the last ten years, what is the Business English teaching scene like there? Is it in high demand? Do companies come to you with similar needs?

English was already important when I started teaching here, but certain industries that require English, IT in particular, have grown since then. One common situation I come across: an experienced, knowledgeable employee, who maybe occasionally up until now had to sit in on meetings or write emails in English, gets promoted to manage an international project. Now they need to facilitate virtual meetings, give presentations, negotiate deadlines, and manage conflict, all while handling the day-to-day stuff. They realize that, in some sense, they’re the face of their company – that others have high expectations of them– and it’s overwhelming. That’s where I come in to help – I love working with clients like that!

2. In your opinion, what is the most important business communication skill we, as trainers, should help our learners with today? What would be a good way to teach it from your experience?

Conflict resolution and mediation, without a doubt. When working together on a team, it’s just a matter of time before conflict breaks out and needs to be resolved; otherwise, it will affect your team’s performance, not to mention your quality of life. Despite conflict being universal, how it’s perceived as well as resolved differs among cultures. Right now, if you’re working in English, you’re most likely working interculturally, which increases the chances of miscommunication leading to conflict. That’s where we come in, to help bridge the gap. How to do that? Teach clients active listening skills, ways of sharing information and feedback more effectively – to get both sides to move from positions (what they want) to interests (why they want it), to find a way forward. Critical incidents, role plays and simulations can all be helpful for training these skills.

3. As a foreigner living and working with locals, how do you take advantage of this in your lessons? Can you give some examples?

Mostly through stories about coming to Poland, learning their language and assimilating to their culture. As a native New Yorker, I’m a natural flaneur, French for “city stroller” or “people watcher,” so I can’t help but pick up little things as I go about my day. Most of these would be untranslatable (and in some cases, unpublishable!). But to give you an example, it could be an overheard conversation on the Metro that made me realize how different the word order in Polish is from English – when my learners complain about English word order, I show them how it goes both ways. Or about a time when I was able to file some important

documents in the immigration office right before Christmas thanks to a good combination of investigative inquiry and polite persistence. I use it to make a point.

4.  How proficient are you in Polish now? What has helped you most master this Slavic language?

I have a C1 certificate. My first two years were spent studying the language formally, almost half of that intensively, in class with language-learning materials. After that, I mostly relied on having conversations with friends, roommates and cab drivers; reading whatever I could get my hands on – newspapers, magazines, books; and listening to the radio and podcasts. After racking up more than 4,000-5,000 hours of language study and use in about four-to- five-years’ time, I started to feel quite comfortable using the language. Of course, being fluent doesn’t equal being perfect! In fact, I would say I don’t feel as confident speaking

Polish these days because I don’t have as much time to practice, now that I’m more focused on running my business.

5. AI for a BE trainer - friend or foe? How do you feel about this technology and your profession?

When I first entered the language teaching profession, the big debate was whether we should be using published materials or chucking them aside. But I think that creates a false dichotomy. To me, teaching, like acting, is more art than science – it’s not what we do (or don’t do) in the classroom that matters, but why and how we do (or don’t do) it. And I think that same line of thought also applies to AI’s place in language teaching. Managers I work with often tell me that they use AI either to minimize time spent on rote work or to inform the idea-generation and decision-making processes. However, they still use their imagination

and creativity as well as consult with others throughout that process. Why should it be any different for us as language teachers?

6. You have a CELTA, a Cert IBET, and years of experience. What are you doing to continue to grow professionally? Do you have favourite formats?

About a year ago, we started a monthly teachers’ meetup here in Warsaw where we get together in person to discuss issues, share advice, and run teacher-training workshops. And I’m happy to say that it’s still running strong! I’m at a point in my career where I’d also like to get more involved in mentoring – both on the giving and receiving end – so I’m on the lookout for those opportunities. And I’m currently developing a course for training clients in negotiation skills that will be certified by Distance Cert IBET. I’ve been interested in materials and course design for some time now, so merging that with the vitally important but sorely underappreciated area of negotiation will be very useful for my work with corporate clients, who often seem to believe that it’s not negotiating if there are no sums involved.

7. What was the last BESIG event you attended? What were your main takeaways?

I went to the annual BESIG conference in Malta last November. Compared to my previous conference in Gdansk, Poland, in 2022, AI loomed large on the agenda. I learned how AI can be used as part of an iterative needs-analysis process in order to write materials and build courses (Evan Frendo); and also, how it can be integrated into a critical-thinking process in order to improve communication on teams (Ian McMaster). Apart from AI, I particularly liked the talks that utilized case studies to demonstrate potential solutions to common issues, such as improving email writing for intercultural communication scenarios (Alexandra Covell) and adapting your teaching approach to different 1-2-1 client profiles (Rachel Appleby). I even got some useful advice for how to improve my digital marketing (Catherine Aygen).

Hint: it has everything and nothing to do with the word “digital.”


Questions by Viktoryia Zelianko