By Ronald Doherty

English is the dominant Internet and business language so making cash online (or offline) often involves English writing. More importantly perhaps, is the fact that everyday, but life-changing documents, resumes job applications, essays, term papers, business plans, loan and rental applications, and sales letters, are often written in English.

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How often has your next career or business initiative relied on the English writing in a document?

How often has the reader chosen someone else’s document instead of yours?

How often have subtle messages in the writing, often sub-conscious, swung a life-changing decision against you? Often, you will not be told the real reason.

English is a very complex and forgiving spoken language, but a demanding and unforgiving language in its written form. When people are talking, there is usually enough contextual and other information to work out the meaning. So, if the words are spoken in the wrong order, or wrong words, or incorrect grammar used, the listener can usually work out what the speaker really means. In conversational english, you can get away with a lot.

However, written English is not so forgiving and, once you hit the enter key, it’s too late. You cannot get your business submission, resume, proposal, or assignment back. It has to be right before submission.

Readers of written English, both online and offline, form very quick judgments about the written English used in critical documents. Micro- second judgements are formed when reading life-changing written documents like resumes, business letters, loan and tenancy applications, proposals, grant submissions, assignments, term papers, business emails and other forms of written communication. The writing in documents can be judged very harshly.

One of the problems is, where English is a second language, people tend to think in their first language and then translate into English. Often the translation process is done subconsciously using the grammar and other rules of their primary language. The results tend to jumble the grammar and syntax so their English writing becomes stilted and awkward. The writing loses its ‘flow’ and, in turn, confuses or irritates the reader.

This means, very often, the long hours, effort, and hard work and preparation put into the document begin to unravel at the last hurdle – writing the document in English. The written communication does not adequately reflect the character of the writer.

I used to work in a multi-cultural call centre in Australia and saw this happening a lot. Friends and colleagues would come to me for advice about writing their resumes, covering letters and various other written documents. Their writing was stilted, repetitive and difficult to read. I would work through the document, leave their ideas and concepts intact, but improve the flow and readability of the document so that the reader could more easily and quickly move through the written information.

Remember, the reader is the one that makes the final decision.

I am a writer and provided the service for nothing and in my spare time. They were friends and colleagues who just wanted to get an interview, find a better position, and move forward in life. I have the skills, love writing, and had a well paid job. I could afford to help people. Finding someone who will do that and charge nothing is a rarity.

However, why rely on the favours of others when software is available, an online English writing tool that makes English writing easy. English writing software can give your writing the professional edge that makes the difference between being read or left for dead.

About The Author

Ronald Doherty is a writer with a background in corporate change management and special projects, and now writes on business building and personal development. For more information on English writing please visit his site.

By Kelly Blackwell

When you are getting serious about landing a teaching job abroad you need to consider how you are going to do it. Are you going to register with a international teaching job fair organiser like Search-Associates? Are you going to register with The International Educator (TIE) and get international teaching job alerts emailed to you daily? Are you going to trawl the internet for vacancies?

Whichever strategy or combination of strategies you choose to implement you will need to write an effective cover letter that sells you as the ideal candidate.

A great cover letter draws the recruiter in and leads them through your information and inspires them to look at your resume. It introduces you, outlines your experience and states why you are the best candidate for their position.

When writing your cover letter keep these suggestions in mind and you will increase the effectiveness of your letter:

Differentiate

While most recruiters are clued up enough to know that you are probably applying to more than just their international school, it is not good practice to make it obvious. When you write your cover letter you should include a sentence or two about why you want to teach at their school. Reasons you may include are; you have experience in the curricula offered, your children have experience in the curricula offered, you like teaching in small (big, single sex, co-ed) schools, or you have heard positive things about the school from other international teachers.

When you are differentiating you letter, address it to the recruiter if you can find their name on the website or from the advertisement and include the name of the school and location. These small, easy to implement ideas are the key to making each recruiter feel special and show them that you are interested in a job at ‘their’ school.

Be Selective and Adjust Accordingly

If you are job hunting as a teaching couple you need to have a couple of cover letters, or have paragraphs that you can cut and paste to make sure it is targeted. As a teaching couple you will ideally want to get a job at a school that has vacancies in your main teaching subjects. However, you may not be so lucky.

Teaching couples should lead with the strongest candidate and emphasise the experience and flexibility of the other teacher. For example, if you are a teaching couple with secondary maths and an elementary generalist you can apply for schools with openings in either of these areas. For an international school with a vacancy in the elementary school you would outline this person’s experience first and then you would discuss the maths teacher’s experience both in maths, in leadership, in extra curricula activities, etc. And vice versa if you find a school that has a maths vacancy.

Often school recruiters will do some ‘creative shuffling’ if they find a teaching couple they think will suit the school especially well.

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Short is Best

Keep your cover letter short; leave it to the other sections of your application pack to detail your education, experience and philosophy. The function of the cover letter is to provide a brief introduction of yourself and enough information to motivate the international school recruiter to read your resume.

If you have heard of the PowerPoint rule of 6 points per slide, 6 words per point then you will find this rule easy to understand and work with:

3-4 paragraphs, 2-3 sentences per paragraph.

If you are submitting your application by email, it needs to be even shorter because we have a lower tolerance for reading on a computer screen.

Here are just three ideas for making your cover letter more effective. Even if you have a cover letter already prepared, dig it out and check that it meets these criteria, you may be surprised at how more likely a recruiter is to read your resume if you follow these suggestions.

About the Author

There Are Over 4000 International Schools Worldwide, Get The Insider Secrets To Landing A Teaching Job Abroad Today! Get your free copy of Kelly’s free report, Escape the RatRace – TeachOverseas available exclusively from TeachOverseas.info