What level of English do my employees need?

Samantha Ball
Three business people stood together in a corridor smiling at eaching and talking
Reading time: 3 minutes

Whether you're hiring new talent or upskilling your current team, understanding the level of English proficiency required for specific roles is crucial. In today's global business environment, effective communication is key to success, and that's where the Global Scale of English (GSE) comes into play.

How to evaluate your employee's skills
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Understanding the Global Scale of English (GSE)

The GSE is a simple, yet powerful tool designed to assess reading, writing, listening and speaking skills with precision and accuracy. Backed by extensive research and development, the GSE provides HR managers with a reliable standard for measuring English proficiency across the globe. This standardized scale enables employers to set clear benchmarks for specific roles, gain insights into employee skills and foster professional growth through personalized learning pathways.

The development and validation of the GSE involved input from language experts and was supported by in-depth research, ensuring its relevance and applicability in the corporate world. By fast-tracking progress and building confidence, the GSE is an invaluable asset for any organization looking to optimize language skills within their workforce.

Determining the right level of English with GSE Job Profiles

When it comes to determining the appropriate level of English proficiency for your employees, GSE Job Profiles are an essential resource. This tool maps English skills to over 1300 roles, helping you to:

  • Set English proficiency requirements tailored to specific job roles.
  • Benchmark candidates to ensure you hire the best-fit talent.
  • Identify skills gaps for targeted language upskilling initiatives.

With the GSE Job Profiles, you can confidently establish the English proficiency needed for your organization's success.

How to check your employees' English skills

Assessing the English proficiency of your employees is a critical step in managing your team's skillset. Using a test like Versant by ɫèAV, you can measure individual proficiency levels with ease and accuracy. Versant by ɫèAV tests are designed to provide detailed insights into an individual's language abilities, enabling you to make informed decisions about hiring and training.

Understanding English proficiency scores

To effectively interpret the results of English proficiency tests, it's essential to be familiar with general adult descriptors. These descriptors offer a framework for understanding the different levels of proficiency, helping you align scores with the communication needs of your organization.

The following table breaks down the GSE levels:

GSE Score
GSE Level
You can...
GSE 10-19 Starter You can use and understand a small number of words and phrases related to the workplace.​ For example, you can greet customers and introduce yourself.
GSE 20-29 Beginner You can ask and answer simple questions, write short sentences and share simple workplace information. For example, you can follow simple instructions to carry out a work-related task. 
GSE 30-39 Pre-intermediate You can talk about everyday workplace topics and understand the main information in conversations. For example, you can make simple work-related calls.
GSE 40-49 Intermediate You can share your opinions, explain your reasoning and write longer texts, such as short business reports. You can also write a CV/resume.
GSE 50-59 High-intermediate You can lead and participate in conversations and give presentations on familiar and unfamiliar topics, and write documents expressing opinion or fact, such as project reports and articles.​
GSE 60-69 Pre-Advanced You're beginning to speak more fluently about a broad range of work-related topics and share your detailed ideas and explanations in professional written communications.​ For example, you can talk about your professional background.
GSE 70-79 Advanced You can speak fluently in personal, professional and academic contexts and understand unfamiliar topics, even colloquialisms. For example, you can use motivational language to encourage other employees.
GSE 80-90 Expert You can talk spontaneously, fluently and precisely, read and write documents with ease and understand spoken English in all contexts, including leading technical discussions and complex negotations.

Improving your employees' English skills with Mondly by ɫèAV

Once you've assessed proficiency levels, the next step is to enhance your employees' English skills. is a leading language learning platform that offers interactive courses tailored to meet diverse learning needs. Your team can improve their language abilities at their own pace, building confidence and enhancing their overall communication skills.

Learn more and get in touch

Ready to optimize your team's English proficiency? Explore our GSE Job Profiles and discover how the GSE, Versant by ɫèAV and Mondly by ɫèAV can transform your organization's communication capabilities. Together, we can develop a strategy to elevate your workforce and ensure your company's success in the global market.

Read our posts 'Target employees’ English language upskilling with the GSE Job Profiles' and 'Craft the perfect job description: Ensure your candidates have the right English proficiency' to learn more about GSE Job Profiles can help your organization.

Explore our GSE Job Profiles demo

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  • A teacher leaning on a table where students are working on various activities

    6 tips for planning your first English classes

    By Nicole Kyriacou

    You are nervous, yet excited. You want to appear relaxed and fun, but still be taken seriously. Most of all, you are keen to make an excellent first impression.

    With all that in mind - planning your first English classes of the year can be a daunting experience.

    Here are six things to consider when planning your first classes:

    1. Set clear aims

    Whether you are teaching young learners, teenagers or adults, it’s important you discuss the aims and objectives of the course from day one. You’ll need to learn more about your students' needs to do this. Why are they learning English? Do they want to prepare for an official exam? What activities do they enjoy? What things do they need to improve the most?

    The way you do this will depend on the age of your learners. For example, with adults and teens, you could get them to interview each other and write a report about what they found out. With younger children, do a survey they can complete using smiley faces.

    2. Find out students’ interests

    Although you should understand your students' needs and why they want to learn English - to help make your classes relevant and engaging - you should also discover what they enjoy doing outside of class.

    To do this, get students to write mini bios you can stick around the classroom. Or have them prepare presentations where they share something they are passionate about with the rest of the class - using coursebooks. As a class, go through the contents page, vote on which topics students find most interesting, and start with those.

    3. Break the ice

    You want your first class to be fun so that students are motivated, and associate English language learning with something they can enjoy. Ice-breakers can also be an excellent way to get to know each other and learn about your students' current level of English.

    Activities where students have to ask each other questions work well.

    4. Provide a comfortable environment

    Young learners and teenagers tend to be shy at the start of a course - especially if they don’t know each other. Develop a rapport and break down boundaries by including team-building activities in your first class.ÌýYour aim is to have all the students feeling more comfortable with each other before the end of the lesson so that there are no awkward silences in future lessons.

    5. Manage expectations

    Managing expectations is an essential part of a teacher's job. Make sure in the first class you are clear about what you expect from your students and what they can expect from you.

    Have students brainstorm the rules for the class and then make a big poster or ‘class contract’ which all students have to sign. Display the poster on the wall so you can always refer to it if someone misbehaves.

    Try to keep the rules as positive as possible. Instead of writing: 'Don’t speak your first language', write: 'Try to always speak English and ask if you don’t know a word'. If you are feeling really brave, you can even get your students to devise a list of rules for you which you can display on the wall next to theirs.

    6. Make it challenging

    It’s great making your first lesson fun - but there’s nothing more motivating than leaving a new class and feeling like you’ve made a good decision and you are going to learn lots (and you aren’t wasting your time or money). This is especially important for adult learners.

    So, as well as getting to know each other and finding out their needs, teach them something new. This could be 10 new pieces of vocabulary, how to structure a letter or report, or a list of resources they can use at home to practice their English.