Welcome to the Language for work community

Many European countries require that migrants applying for permanent residence and/or citizenship pass formal language and knowledge of society tests, yet little is known about the effect of these requirements on those subjected to them.
The IMPECT project, anchored at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, is investigating the effect of such requirements on low-literate adult migrants.
Teachers’ opinions and experiences are a valuable source of information for the project.
The project invites you to complete its survey. This will take only a few moments.
The questionnaire is available in English, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish, French and Greek.
Your response will be handled confidentially and not in any ways linked to your identity.
The project thanks you for your response!
You will find the survey here:

https://www.survey-xact.no/LinkCollector?key=DUFJKZGWUJ9N

The University of Geneva is advertising for a position of Associate or Assistant professor in the domain of adult education. The title of the position is Individual trajectories in adult education (Formation des adultes, individus et trajectoires).
The position focuses on individual and personal dimensions of adult education. It is dedicated to the understanding of educational needs in adult life and how these needs can be experienced by individuals or addressed by institutional or societal responses. A focus on vulnerable conditions of adult life is expected, including for instance unemployment, migration, low skilled qualifications, discrimination, transitions, etc. The position is expected to be filled by 1st August 2019.
The deadline for applications is 14th May 2017. Additional information is available in the attached description and on the following website: https://jobs.unige.ch. Applications are only possible electronically, on the same web page.
For further information and queries, please contact Professor Laurent Filliettaz at Laurent.Filliettaz@unige.ch
Download pdf

Cette conférence vise à faire découvrir les rôles des chercheur-e-s en sciences du langage qui travaillent sur des projets (analyse des besoins, traitement des données, mise en place d’outils, vulgarisation de la recherche) directement appliqués dans des institutions privées (entreprises, etc.) ou publiques (hôpitaux, etc.).
Plus d'information

19, 20 October 2017 Organised by SHARENL and University of Amsterdam Employment is changing dramatically. With the push of a button, we can have services delivered to our exact location and the number of gig workers is substantial and rising. What does the new world of work mean to us? Academics, policymakers, business leaders and platform workers will come together to experience the future of work and find ways to shape it. Future of work manifesto The outcome of the conference will be a Future of Work Manifesto encapsulating the main topics discussed and conclusions reached during debates and creative sessions. More information

Conference on work-related language learning for adult immigrants at Høgskolen i Innlandet, Campus Hamar, Norway, 28-29 March 2017

Keynote speakers include:
Dr. Fernanda Minuz (Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Center): Changing Routes, Changing Needs: Perspectives on Migration and Language Teaching in Europe
Dr. Terrence Wiley (Center for Applied Linguistics): The Changing Scene of Immigration: Implications for Policy and Practice Affecting LESLLA Learners
Dr. Heide Wrigley (Literacywork International) Chin Up: Hopeful Trends in Times of Uncertainty LESLLA is currently accepting proposals for concurrent sessions. Proposals due March 3rd, 2017.​
Learn more here and here

Skills Matter,  Further Results from the Survey of Adult Skills. OECD Skills Studies. ISSN: 2307-8731 (online); ISSN: 2307-8723 (print).
'Reports results from the 24 countries and regions that participated in the first round of the survey in 2011-12 (first published in OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills) and from the nine additional countries that participated in the second round in 2014-15 (Chile, Greece, Indonesia [Jakarta], Israel, Lithuania, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovenia and Turkey). It describes adults’ proficiency in the three information-processing skills assessed, and examines how skills proficiency is related to labour market and social outcomes.' Available in English and French. Pages 95–118, ‘How skills are used in the workplace’, examine ‘the use of information-processing skills at work and in everyday life, and the relationship between the use of skills and wages, job satisfaction and economy-wide productivity. It also explores the factors associated with greater or lesser use of these skills in the workplace, including proficiency, the characteristics of workers and the features of their jobs.’ (This chapter is available in pdf format from our resource centre.)

The Swedish Agency for Governement Employers have published a web based support for supervisors for newly arrived trainees, based on material from "YA-delegation handledarutbildning". It is free for anybody to use, no need of log in or password. For more information, see links:
http://www.arbetsgivarverket.se/in-english/
https://www.arbetsgivarverket.se/jobba-statligt/praktik-i-staten/du-som-ar-arbetsgivare/handledarstod/

This conference is the final event of the LLP KA2 project 'Network for Social and Market Inclusion through Language Education - SMILE', involving 20 organisations from Spain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey. The Conference will address issues related to the promotion of linguistic diversity and the learning of less widely used and taught languages in various educational, social and economic sectors on a European level. For further details see agenda. To attend, please contact Daiva Malinauskiene,Host of the Conference, SIH director
SOROS INTERNATIONAL HOUSE – SIH
Vilnius, Lithuania

OECD (2016), Recruiting immigrant workers: The Netherlands 2016. Paris: OECD Publishing.
'This review examines labour migration to the Netherlands, assessing how it contributes to the strategic development of sectors and employment in regions. It explores the determinants for retaining high-skilled migrants and for the integration of international graduates into the Dutch labour market.'
Read report online (free)

OECD (2016), Working Together: Skills and Labour Market Integration of Immigrants and their Children in Sweden. Paris: OECD Publishing. First in a new series on the skills and labour market integration of migrants and their children. 'With 16% of its population born abroad, Sweden has one of the larger immigrant populations among the European OECD countries. This report looks at the challenges of integrating migrants and their families into the Swedish labour market.'
Read report online (free)
OECD press release

What: Multiplier event for Erasmus+ project (NED, DE, UK) piloting coaching approach to support language development for low-literate migrants. Project includes workplace coaching pilots.
For more information download event flyer
Language: English
When: 11:00 – 4:00 Friday 17 June 2016
Where: Fusion Centre, South & City College, Birmingham, UK
Cost: Free

The conference will bring together researchers, policymakers and practitioners to discuss phenomena arising in increasingly international and multicultural social and health care work.
Key note speakers from Finland and other Nordic Countries, including Director Jaakko Kiander(Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company), Government Counsellor Olli Sorainen (Ministry of Employment and the Economy), Project Manager Kerstin Sjösvärd (Stockholm Gerontology Research Center), Professor Emeritus Sverre O. Lie (Norway) and Professor Pirkko Pitkänen(University of Tampere).
Panel discussions and workshops will provide forums to discuss international recruitment practices, recognition and updating the qualifications of overseas-trained professionals, enhancing relevant language training and other issues topical for the globalizing social and health care sector.
The main working language in the conference will be Finnish. The presentations of the Scandinavian key note speakers will be in English with Finnish translation. For details

On behalf of the Faculty of German Philology of the University of Münster, we are happy to invite you to our one-day symposium on coaching for autonomous literacy and language learning.
The context for this symposium is the Erasmus+ project, Autonomous Literacy Learners – Sustainable Results (ALL-SR).
The language of the symposium will be English, with some contributions in German.
Why ‘coaching for autonomous literacy and language learning’?
Personal learning strategies play a key role in effective literacy and language learning, both within and beyond the classroom. Many adults, however, lack these strategies. This greatly reduces the impact of formal instruction. It also limits their ability to take advantage of learning opportunities outside of the classroom – crucial to sustain and extend classroom learning. The question, then, is this: How, practically speaking, can we best help these adults to develop more effective literacy and language learning strategies? In other words, how can we help them to become more effective self-directed learners? Coaching may offer a way forward. Certainly the core goal of coaching is to help people become more effective self-directed learners. Coaching has proved powerfully effective in many contexts. What potential does it hold in the field of adult literacy and language learning?
This symposium explores that question with reference to diverse pilots in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
When and where?
The symposium will take place on Friday 18 March 2016, from 10am to 5pm at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität, Schlossplatz 34, VSH 19
The symposium is free of charge, but places are limited.
See the programme and register here

Programme « Sociétés plurielles » Séminaire 11 septembre 2015, 10h-13h Inalco, Les Salons, 2 rue de Lille, Paris 75007
Coordination : Marie Veniard et Florence Mourlhon-Dallies
Le séminaire présentera les premiers résultats d’une recherche sur les mots-clés des discours (médiatiques et institutionnels) sur l’immigration dans différents pays européens, à savoir la France, l’Allemagne, la Grande-Bretagne et l’Italie. Il s’agit de mots tels que intégration, diversité, communauté et multiculturel et de leurs équivalents dans les autres langues. Ces mots sont familiers à tous les chercheurs de Sociétés Plurielles.
Ce sont des mots très abstraits, ce qui rend leur sens vague et autorise les ambiguïtés. Par ailleurs, ce vocabulaire est en partie commun à différentes langues européennes : on dit intégration, integration, Integration en français, anglais et allemand respectivement, sans que cela préjuge d’une stricte équivalence entre ces termes. Que devient le sens de l’adjectif Multikulturel quand, prononcé par la chancelière allemande qui annonce l’échec de la société muticulturelle en Allemagne, il est importé dans le contexte de la Grande-Bretagne ? Le sens est-il exactement identique ?
Ces mots présentent les apparences de la transparence mais leur sens est nécessairement conditionné par leur usage et des déterminations socio-historiques.
Notre objectif est d’étudier une série de mots-clés traitant de la migration dans différentes langues afin de mettre au jour leur sens réel en usage, et non une abstraction de sens produite par un dictionnaire. A long terme, nous envisageons la mise en place d’un Fonds électronique des mots-clés de la migration. Dans un premier temps, des « définitions en discours » seront intégrées au site web de Sociétés Plurielles fin 2015.
Programme : “Multicultural, community and their equivalents in French, Italian and German. A discursive analysis” par Andreas BLAETTE (University of Duisburg-Essen), Melani SCHROETER (University of Reading), Charlotte TAYLOR (University of Sussex), Marie VENIARD (MCF, Paris Descartes, EDA, membre de Sociétés Plurielles).
« Immigré/migrant, Intégration/inclusion » dans les discours institutionnels en français, en anglais et en allemand, par Florence MOURLHON-DALLIES (Pr, Paris Descartes, EDA, membre de Sociétés Plurielles et projet Language for Work, ECML). Le cas des glossaires institutionnels.
Les interventions se tiendront en français et en anglais.

Filliettaz, L. & Billett, S. (Eds.) (2015). Francophone perspectives of learning through work: Conceptions, traditions and practices. Dordrecht: Springer. ISBN 978-3319186696 The concept of workplaces as sites for learning has long been emphasised in the Francophone world, which has developed distinct traditions and conceptions of associations between work and learning (e.g. ergonomics and professional didactics). Yet these Francophone conceptions and the practices supporting them are little known in the Anglophone world, which is the dominant medium for scientific and educational discussion. This book seeks to address this problem with Francophone accounts from France, Switzerland and Canada that make these traditions accessible through examples of their applications to work-related learning.

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319186689#aboutBook