Say the outcome, not just the task
A vague instruction leaves the worker to guess your standard. "Tidy the living room" could mean anything from moving cushions back into place to clearing every surface; "put the cushions back on the sofa and stack the magazines on the side table" leaves nothing to guess. The extra ten seconds of phrasing saves a round of correction later.
This matters most for instructions that involve a preference rather than an obvious task: how strong to make coffee, how much salt in a dish, which order to run errands in. Where the household has a standard, state it as part of the instruction rather than assuming it is obvious.
- Name the specific result you want, not just the general task.
- State preferences explicitly (strength, order, quantity) rather than assuming they are shared.
Break a task into its steps
When a task has several parts, give them as an ordered sequence rather than one long instruction. Say the first step, let it happen, then move to the next, especially early in a new task or when language is still a barrier. Bundling five things into one sentence increases the odds that the middle steps get lost.
This is different from the routine walkthrough covered elsewhere on this site: it is the technique for any single instruction at the point it is needed, whether that is a first-time task, an unusual one-off request, or a change to something she already does.
Demonstrate, then confirm understanding
Where the task allows it, show the first attempt rather than only describing it. A short demonstration of how you fold laundry a particular way, or where an item belongs, communicates something that a spoken description alone often cannot, and it works regardless of the language spoken at home.
Close the instruction by asking her to repeat it back in her own words or walk through the first step herself. This is not about testing her; it is a quick check that surfaces a misunderstanding immediately, while it costs nothing to correct, rather than after the task is already done wrong.