Can you get that, please?

The phone rings at work and you have to answer it. How does it make you feel?

This question comes up a lot in our workshops with home and international nurses, particularly in sessions focused on healthcare communication skills and training for internationally diverse NHS teams.

Answering the phone in a workplace that is often noisy and busy can be stressful for anybody. But if you’re working in a second or third language, receiving phone calls can be particularly challenging. This is a common issue discussed in communication training for NHS staff and when supporting internationally educated healthcare professionals.

Let’s begin with the technical issues – an unclear line, buzzing or crackling, and just being unable to hear the speaker clearly. All of these can make it harder for the L2 listener (whose first language isn’t English) to pick out key words and focus on the conversation.

Interjecting the call with “Sorry, I didn’t get that” or “Sorry, I just lost you” or even “You’re really faint, can you speak up please?” can feel difficult in a professional setting. This highlights the importance of how to communicate clearly with colleagues who speak English as an additional language and the need for clear communication in multilingual teams.

The lack of visual clues can make phone calls even more stressful — those facial expressions or gestures that help you understand a conversation just aren’t there.

But on top of that, there are many more factors to consider. Phone calls are often stressful because of their unpredictability. Not knowing when a call will happen or what it will be about means the receiver may feel unprepared.

If that person is already engrossed in another task, the incoming call requires an immediate shift in focus. For L2 colleagues, this may also mean switching into another language under pressure. Many calls require instant responses, so the receiver must react quickly in a second language — something frequently explored in communication challenges in multicultural workplaces and effective communication in multilingual teams.

The environment the call takes place in can also affect understanding. Background chatter, pagers, loudspeaker announcements, and machinery can all reduce clarity and focus. In these conditions, it becomes even harder to contribute confidently to the conversation. This is why improving communication in multilingual healthcare teams is such an important focus in healthcare education and workplace training.

And finally, there is the emotional impact. Many L2 speakers experience high levels of anxiety, as well as possible embarrassment or even fear before answering the phone. These experiences are often at the heart of communication breakdowns with non-native speakers.

So if English is your first language and you work in a culturally and linguistically diverse environment, be aware of this. Understanding the pressure that surrounds phone conversations can help you become a more empathetic communicator and support inclusive communication in practice.