Language for work projects

Language for Work project: Developing migrants’ language competences at work (2012-2015)

This ECML four-year project created a European learning network for professionals supporting work‐related L2 learning for adult migrants and ethnic minorities.

The team

The international project team consisted of:

Matilde Grünhage-Monetti, coordinator, former researcher at the Deutsches Institut für Erwachsenenbildung/Leibniz-Zentrum für Lebenslanges Lernen, Germany
Florence Mourlhon-Dallies, second working language documentalist, maître de conférences en Sciences du langage, Laboratoire de recherches (CEDISCOR), Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle, Paris 3, Département de Français Langue étrangère. Professeur des universités in Paris Descartes, Département de Sciences du langage. Laboratoire de recherche: EDA (Education, Discours, Apprentissages), France
Alexander Braddell, website correspondent, director of Oxfordshire Skills Escalator Centre Limited (CIC Ltd), research and training company, United Kingdom
Maria Teresa Hernandez Garcia, mediation link person, Profesora de español para inmigrantes en la Comunidad de Madrid, España, y profesora de Lengua Española en la Facultad de Educación de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

The team was supported in 2013 by Jens Weissenberg, holder of an ECML fellowship and by Moscow State Linguistic University as an associate partner.

Matilde Grünhage-Monetti (coordinator)
Germany

Alexander Braddell
United Kingdom

Florence Mourlhon-Dallies
France

María Teresa Hernández García
Spain

Events

Central events directly supported by ECML:

Four team meetings (one in each year of the project)
Two network meetings respectively in 2012 and 2013, each with 16 attendees from ECML member states funded by ECML, plus self-funded attendees.
Final workshop on 24th and 25th June 2015, attended by 43 participants from 32 countries
Promotional activities & materials such as development and translation of a flyer, contributions to conferences, etc.

The events for the public attracted experts from across Europe with different functions: civil servants, publishers, training providers, trade unions, researchers, skill agency representatives, etc. This diversity of expertise and perspectives advanced the network and the website.

Outcomes

The main outcomes of the project were:

the Language for work Network to enable learning providers, teachers, employers, policy makers, researchers, trade unions etc. to share expertise and resources in order to benefit from diversity; to inform policy and practice and develop more effective local responses
the network website which includes:
- theoretical/analytical resources
- practical resources
- contact database of professionals, to support active networking

Furthermore, the project promoted the issue of work-related L2 and the Language for work network through numerous publications and contributions to conferences, training events, seminars, etc.

International recognition

In the course of the project, Language for work began to be recognised as an international specialists’ pool as the numerous invitations to conferences, workshops and publication demonstrate:

Download the flyer in English or in French

This is a project of the European Centre for Modern Languages within its Learning through languages programme (2012-2015).

Go to the project working pages (for registered users only)