Your professional success through written communication does not depend on your command of language alone. Language Proficiency and Writing Skills are separate inputs to communicative effectiveness.

Simply stated, your Communicative Effectiveness through writing is the combined result of (a) your Language Proficiency plus (b) your Writing Skills.

Below, we shall examine each of these "boxes" in greater detail. We shall then look at how this might apply in practice. In so doing, you should recognise how Professional Writing Skills can improve your real working performance quickly and effectively.

A: English Language Proficiency

ABC distinguishes 8 levels of Language Proficiency. We arrange these on a scale (right), from "1.Beginner" to "8.Proficient."

We are concerned with English in Business and Administration (not literature, not academic English). Native speakers are not all proficient in this language. At the top is an educated and experienced manager (not an English language teacher).

To advance one level on this scale means at least a year of study. So, if you are at "4. Intermediate" and you want to progress to "6. Advanced", you need at least 2 years.

B: Professional Writing Skills

ABC distinguishes 7 levels in Writing Skills, from "1.Beginner" to "7.Expert.".

Native speakers of English may of course be at: "1.Beginner" on this scale. Indeed, many are.

Writing Skills are much easier to learn, and can be put into practice immediately. So the TIME required to advance on this scale is much less. You can expect to progress by 2 or even 3 levels in one short course of ABC Professional Writing Skills.

C: Communicative Effectiveness

Your success in written communication at work is the combined result of (a) your language ability, and (b) your professional writing skills.

ABC distinguishes 7 levels of communicative effectiveness in written English. A native speaker is unlikely to reach 4.Intermediate without mastering basic business writing skills.

Because it is so much quicker and easier to learn Business Writing Skills, ABC is your best route to rapid increase in communicative effectiveness at work.

An Example...

As an example, let us consider someone who works in an international company or organisation, uses email regularly at work, has a good command of English, but has little or no training in business writing skills. Sound familiar?

Here's how such a person (you perhaps?) might come out on the ABC scales:

So, the question is this: how can this person improve his/her communicative effectiveness?

The answer depends on how much TIME you have. Communicative effectiveness through writing is a mix of language and writing skills. But it takes much longer to develop your English language proficiency than it does to improve your business writing skills.

The chart below is a realistic outcome from the short training course in ABC Professional Writing:

In this example, we can see the individual has improved in communicative effectiveness from Lower Intermediate to Higher Intermediate. There may also be improvement in English language, but the rapid advance is due to improved Professional Writing Skills.