The coordinating team of the project, Language for work – Tools for professional development (LfW), held a supplementary expert meeting in stormy Graz on 14th and 15th June 2018. The meeting’s primary objectives were
1. finalising the conceptual framework of the project’s main products: the compendium of practice examples of how to support work-related language development and the inventory of practitioner competences, and
2. setting parameters for final workshop 23rd and 24th October.
A deeper analysis of the examples of practice collected at the project’s 2017 network meeting led us to fine-tune our treatment of this material.
These examples of practice will then be clustered in settings, characterised by the actors involved, and their roles. The example above could be allocated to a setting involving:
- Language teacher
- Language provider
- Coach (paid or volunteer)
- Local government
- Employer and other workplace actors ( instructor)
- Learner (job-seeking migrant/refugee)
The next step will be to describe the specific competences required by the language practitioners (in this case teacher, provider, coach) in order to cooperate successfully with the other actors and promote the L2 development of the learner.
The dissemination of the project’s products, Quick guide, compendium and inventory of competences will be at the heart of the final workshop. Interest in this event seems lively: to date, over 40 applications have been received, with almost all member states sending a representative. In addition, a number of LfW network members have applied to attend the event on a self-funding basis. We aim to design an interactive workshop, that will allow participants ample opportunity to review and discuss the project’s products in relation to work-related language development for migrants and ethnic minorities in their own various countries.
Graz before the storm on 12 June 2018
- ECML project website "Language for work - Tools for professional development" (2016-2019):
English - French
The project team:
Matilde Grünhage-Monetti (coordinator, Germany),
Alexander Braddell (United Kingdom), Christophe Portefin (France), Kerstin Sjösvärd (Sweden)