European Centre for Modern Languages

Language for work competences

Checklists of competences useful to professionals and others, to support work-related majority language (L2) learning by migrants and ethnic minorities
Overview
Setting 1
Setting 2
Setting 3
Setting 4
General
competences

Setting 2: Learner, L2 teacher, L2 learning provider, Job centre


● Learner
L2 teacher
L2 learning provider
Job centre

The key actors in this setting are the learner, the L2 teacher, the L2 learning provider, and the job centre. 

The learners are mostly job seekers, but they may also be employees wanting to improve their L2 skills to find a better or more secure position. 

The provision is classroom-based, and often structured as a course. 

Work placements may be included, but visits to workplaces of interest to learners are more common. 

Instruction is the predominant mode of support for learning, but with some support for self-directed and autonomous learning – such as encouraging internet research by learners, language observation tasks focused on communication at work or in everyday life outside the classroom; also,  peer-learning and peer-coaching. 

This type of provision is usually initiated by the local labour market administration (municipality, job centre) and aims to integrate migrants into the labour market.

Examples of Setting 2

VIP (Netherlands) 

Project to prepare refugees for work involving employers, trainers and local government in more than 50 municipalities. 
View example