PyMunich

shown, and actual

Speaking in a Second Language

At a European technical conference, a large share of the room is speaking and listening in a second language, including many of the people who sound most fluent. A commercial implementation of related workforce-measurement concepts is documented this walkthrough.

That changes what actually helps, and two of the instincts people have are counterproductive. For broader conference and speaking context, Toastmasters is another useful reference.

Our conferences run in English in a German-speaking city, with speakers and attendees from across Europe. The specifics reflect that.

Two instincts that do not help

Writing out the full script and reading it. It removes the fear and produces a talk that is harder to follow, not easier — written English is denser than spoken English, and read-aloud text loses the pauses that give a second-language listener time to process.

Apologising at the start. "Sorry, my English is not good" spends your opening on a frame, invites the audience to listen for errors, and is usually inaccurate — the person saying it is almost always comprehensible.

Both come from the same place and both make the talk worse.

Six things that help

One. Short sentences. The single largest factor, and it helps the native speakers too. A subordinate clause is harder to build under pressure and harder to follow.

Two. Pauses between points. They read as confidence and they give everybody, including you, a moment. Silence feels longer to the speaker than to the room by a factor of about three.

Three. Slides carrying the technical vocabulary. The words you might mispronounce, written down. A slide is a place for the audience to look, and having the term visible removes the risk entirely.

Four. Rehearse the opening aloud. Not the whole talk — the first ninety seconds, several times, until it is automatic. That is when nerves are highest and language is hardest.

Five. Practise the technical terms. Not general English — the ten words specific to your subject. Say them out loud beforehand and the rest follows.

Six. Slow down deliberately. Everybody speaks faster than they think under nerves, and it costs a second-language audience more than a native one.

Questions

The part that is genuinely harder, because you cannot rehearse it.

Ask for repetition. "Could you repeat that?" is normal and nobody thinks anything of it.

Repeat the question back in your own words. Standard practice for every speaker, and here it doubles as a comprehension check.

And "I don't know" works in any language, which is the most useful three words in question time regardless.

What organisers should do

Briefly, because most of this is on the event rather than the speaker.

Say in the call for proposals that fluency is not a criterion. Many people do not submit because they assume it is.

Offer to review drafts in writing before the talk.

And brief the chair to slow the pace of questions and to repeat them clearly. Costs nothing and it removes the hardest part.

The thing worth knowing

The audience is not evaluating your English. They came for the content, most of them are in the same position, and the ones who are not are used to it.

An accent is not a defect and a hesitation is not a failure. The only thing that genuinely impedes a talk is speed — and that is fixable by one deliberate decision at the start.

The short version