BEST PRACTICES IN WORKPLACE LANGUAGE TRAINING

Introduction

As a result of these developments in the field, the ESP IS created a Worldwide Best Practices Initiative for Workplace Language Training in 1995, introduced and chaired by Anne Lomperis. The Best Practices group included workplace language trainers representing countries and regions from around the world as well as different models of program providers (e.g., internal corporate model, educational institution/agency, private consultant or private consultant group, private or franchised language service or school, non-governmental organization).

In 1998, TESOL established the Task Force on Standards for Workplace Language Training and the following members of the task force were appointed: Chairs, Margaret van Naerssen and Kay Westerfield; and members, Joan Friedenberg, Anne Lomperis, William Martin.

The Task Force developed an international set of Best Practices in Workplace Language Training with input from workplace ESP specialists and representatives of key organizations in the field of human resources training and development from around the world. In 2000 the Task Force submitted to TESOL a document, Guidelines for Workplace Language Trainers.

Contributors to this extensive process of developing an international set of best practices represented the TESOL ESP IS, regional TESOL affiliates too numerous to mention, and the ESP and Business English SIGs (Special Interest Groups) of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL).

We wish to thank all our colleagues around the world who contributed to this effort.

These Best Practices in Workplace Language Training were introduced and distributed at multiple TESOL conferences and at other conferences and workshops around the world. Posting this list of Best Practices (from the Task Force document) on the TESOL ESP IS website will make the Best Practices more widely available to ESP practitioners worldwide.

Contact information for former Task Force members:

Chairs: Kay Westerfield (kwesterf@oregon.uoregon.edu), Margaret van Naerssen (mvnaerss@sas.upenn.edu)

Other Task Force members: Joan Friedenberg, (jfrieden@siu.edu), Anne Lomperis (lomperis@erols.com), William Martin (wmmartin@sas.upenn.edu)

BEST PRACTICES IN WORKPLACE LANGUAGE TRAINING

Section I: Develop an Effective, Current, Strategic Plan

• Best Practice 1: Articulate mission and values.
• Best Practice 2: Identify internal strengths and weakness.
• Best Practice 3: Analyze external opportunities and threats.
• Best Practice 4: Set goals and create development and marketing strategies.

Section II: Conduct Effective Marketing

• Best Practice 1: Understand the target market.
• Best Practice 2: Educate the target market.
• Best Practice 3: Develop effective, appropriate marketing materials and techniques.
• Best Practice 4: Maintain a positive public image.

Section III: Contact the Client to Assess the Client Organization's Needs

• Best Practice 1: Use information from the market analysis when planning an approach to a potential client about conducting training.
• Best Practice 2: Choose appropriate techniques for gathering information for an organizational needs assessment.
• Best Practice 3: Gather information about the potential client's organizational needs.
• Best Practice 4: Gather preliminary information about the potential client' s language needs.
• Best Practice 5: Gather preliminary background information concerning employees of the client organization.
• Best Practice 6: Gather information about organizational factors affecting the delivery of a training program.
• Best Practice 7: Gather information about the linkage between training and organizational development within the potential client organization.
• Best Practice 8: Gather information about how training is evaluated by the potential client.
• Best Practice 9: Decide how much effort and how many resources to invest in the needs assessment process.
• Best Practice 10: Make a presentation to the potential client about what the provider has discovered about the client's needs and about what the provider can do to help address those needs
• Best Practice 11: Begin to address organizational issues that can affect any eventual contract.

Section IV: Determine Program Design and Negotiate Contract

• Best Practice 1: Establish a relationship of mutual support for the exchange of ideas and information with the client organization.
• Best Practice 2: Determine, in conjunction with the client, the program scope, the participants who need training, whether the training should be on worker time, and how to motivate attendance.
• Best Practice 3: Determine, in conjunction with the client, the mode of instruction, in terms of class size and groupings and instructional technology to be used.
• Best Practice 4: Determine, in conjunction with the client, the program time frames, including length and frequency of training sessions and cycles, and the training schedules.
• Best Practice 5: Determine, in conjunction with the client, the physical arrangements for training, taking into consideration location, the availability of resources, and security.
• Best Practice 6: Determine, in conjunction with the client, the instructional staffing needs to deliver the training.
• Best Practice 7: Determine, along with other stakeholders, whether an advisory committee is needed and assist in its establishment.
• Best Practice 8: Accept reasonable conditions imposed by the client organization.
• Best Practice 9: Prepare and submit an effective proposal.
• Best Practice 10: Negotiate a contract successfully by discussing the proposal with the client organization and by modifying the proposal as needed.
• Best Practice 11: Use creative strategies to resolve outstanding issues.

Section V: Identify and Arrange Program Administration and Staffing

• Best Practice 1: Determine the staffing needs and administrative structure of the program.
• Best Practice 2: Recruit and select needed staff.
• Best Practice 3: Provide appropriate and effective staff support and development.

Section VI: Conduct an Instructional Needs Assessment

• Best Practice 1: Involve the client's staff in the needs assessment process.
• Best Practice 2: Identify and involve the potential participants in the needs assessment process.
• Best Practice 3: Involve the provider's own program staff in the needs assessment process.
• Best Practice 4: Identify the approaches and strategies for the needs assessment.
• Best Practice 5: Develop the rationale or framework for both the data collection and the data analysis which then lead to determining the general workplace themes, tasks, functions, skills and levels of workplace English training needed.
• Best Practice 6: Work with the client and representatives of the target learner populations to prioritize and select learner needs and translate them into initial objectives.
• Best Practice 7: Identify the types of additional training desirable or necessary to support the original scope identified in the program design or to go beyond the scope.
• Best Practice 8: Prepare and submit a report on needs assessment findings and recommendations.

Section VII: Create an Appropriate Instructional Design/Curriculum

• Best Practice 1: Involve relevant staff (and other stakeholders) as soon as possible in developing instructional design/curriculum.
• Best Practice 2: Translate program goals and instructional needs assessment into performance objectives.
• Best Practice 3: Conduct a Communication Task/Language Analysis for each task or topic area covered in the performance objectives.
• Best Practice 3: Select an appropriate sequencing and structural framework for communication tasks in the instructional design/curriculum.
• Best Practice 4: Consider the learners' work schedules when determining the shape of the instructional design/curriculum.
• Best Practice 5: Consider appropriate underlying principles that guide learning when determining instructional design/curriculum.
• Best Practice 6: Produce a written course document that allows for an emerging curriculum as participant or sponsor needs become clearer or change during implementation.

Section VIII: Select and Develop Appropriate Training Materials

• Best Practice 1: Examine the proposed curriculum for training materials needs.
• Best Practice 2: Work with representatives of the target worksite in the selection, adaptation, and development of appropriate materials.
• Best Practice 3: Identify appropriate existing materials.
• Best Practice 4: Adapt and develop effective materials and revise them during the program, as needed.
• Best Practice 5: Integrate the use of various forms of media, appropriately.

Section IX: Deliver Training

• Best Practice 1: Adjust the curriculum as participant or sponsor/client needs become clearer or change.
• Best Practice 2: Use a variety of language teaching approaches, activities, and instructional technology, which take into consideration the workplace focus, the nature of the training content, as well as cultural and linguistic factors, learning styles and the evolving needs of the trainees.
• Best Practice 3: Use workplace supervisors or other staff appropriately during the training process.
• Best Practice 4: Measure trainee progress during the training cycle and at the end.
• Best Practice 5: Monitor the training by keeping records, observing training, maintaining ongoing communications, making any needed modifications, and providing ongoing staff development.
• Best Practice 6: Accommodate non-pedagogical challenges and factors during training.
• Best Practice 7: Provide end-of-cycle or periodic recognition for successful completion of training cycles by workers and for contributions to the program's success by training staff, trainees, the client/sponsor, or community members.
• Best Practice 8: Plan for the next cycle.

Section X: Evaluate Course(s) and Program and Apply Recommendations

• Best Practice 1: Plan the program evaluation by preparing an appropriate evaluation design which takes into consideration the nature of the workplace and cultural and linguistic factors.
• Best Practice 2: Plan the program evaluation by preparing an appropriate evaluation design, taking into consideration various modes of evaluation, including internal and external reviews and various evaluation models.
• Best Practice 3: Conduct appropriate on-going and final evaluations and uses evaluation results continuously to make necessary programmatic changes.
• Best Practice 4: Report results appropriately.
• Best Practice 5: Apply results appropriately.
• Best Practice 6: Conduct periodic follow-up on those who complete the program; and report the findings, with implications for program development.