Welcome to the Language for work community

Dear members of the Language for Work Network
Before the Xmas festivities and the end of the year we would like to send you our best wishes alongside a short update of the LfW activities of 2021, and a preview of the planned events of 2022.
In particular we would like to draw your attention to the Metropolis Conference in Berlin, 4-9 September 2022.
The LfW team has already participated in two conferences in the past in den Haag and in Copenhagen and plans to participate in the upcoming one.
Under the title of “Changing migration, migration in change” the 25th International Metropolis Conference will bring together experts, policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and business leaders sharing multiple perspectives, insights and evidence concerning migration, integration, inclusion, and diversity.
The goal is to facilitate knowledge exchange on how such processes can be made resilient and future-proof, including a focus on labour market, and to consider the conditions that will ensure fair migration (https://www.imcb22.com).
We have already made contacts with our member institution the Fachstelle Berufsbezogenes Deutsch (Rita Leinecke) and proposed to contribute to one of the central themes of the conference “Conditions for fair migration” through insights gained by our work on work-related L2 learning. Our draft proposal seems to have been positively viewed by the conference organizers.
The ECML is ready to support our initiative and will finance one expert from abroad to participate in the conference. But we are thinking bigger and would like to offer not only one contribution but let as many of the Network members present own initiatives and approaches giving voice to different perspectives from different countries.
In order to finance the participation of colleagues from outside Germany, our Irish colleagues have suggested that interested colleagues who would like to participate apply promptly for an Erasmus+ mobility grant at their national agency.
For information on the application procedure for the Erasmus+ mobility grant, please consult the website of your national agency.
We can support your application with a description of the draft program of the event financed by the ECML including the intended contribution of the LfW Network at the conference. Please inform us, if you intend to participate in the conference and would like to present a contribution at the conference by 15 January 2022. We would like to add that we have to negotiate our contributions with the organizers.

Looking back to a very busy 2021
On February 5 Matilde and Alex were invited by Paula Mattila, the former representative of Finland on the ECML governing board, to present our network and its contributions to work-related L2 development at a national conference in Finland: AMMATILLINEN KOULUTUS - KIELELLÄ ON VÄLIÄ! VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING – LANGUAGE MATTERS! Minna Suni was among the organizers and one of the key speakers at the event which attracted more than 300 participants from all over Finland. Our workshop with 25 colleagues presented workplaces as language learning spaces where the employee's language learning is supported in practical work situations. We could discuss the challenges of L2 learning faced by employees with immigrant backgrounds with the participants and presents them practical solutions.

In 2021 we could carry out two workshops foreseen in 2020, but postponed because of the pandemic:

TaC Ireland: online event: September 30, October 1 2021 Alex, Kerstin and Matilde (on invitation by the host organization) carried out a TaC workshop for Ireland. The online event was hosted by the University of Limerick and Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board. 30 professionals from adult education and university participated in the event, which had been prepared and was carried out in close cooperation with our LfW members Deirdre Nì Loingsigh and Catherine Martin from the University of Limerick and Tara Robinson Clare Education and Training Board. The focus of the event was on how to support work-related language learning for adult migrants beyond the classroom, directly on the workplace and through work.

TaC Sweden: The only event in presence: October 14 in Sundyberg Christophe, Matilde and Olga as a guest speaker carried out a workshop for 15 teachers of SFI (Swedish as a second language) and social care subjects (VET) of the local municipality, organized by Patricia Lendenius (Vuxenutbildningen/City Council Sundyberg). The focus was on setting up cooperation among these actors. October 15 the team was in Stockholm hosted by the Vård- och omsorgscollege and supported by Kerstin as guest speaker. Olga had brought together 15 teachers and researchers of SFI and VET teachers as well as representatives of employers of social care. While in social care in Stockholm the cooperation between teachers and employers is well established, the colleagues had asked for examples of good practice and strategies to improve the cooperation among SFI and VET teachers.

TaC Slovakia: online event on October 8 and November 26. 18 professionals from Slovakia, the Ukraine and on one day one form Poland and Italy participated in the event conducted by Alex and Matilde and organized and coordinated by Edita Hornáčková Klapicová, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, who managed to attract a representative of the Slovakian employers’ association. Both in Slovakia and the Ukraine there are immigrants working there, there is no official policy and offer to promote L2 learning. The professionals who attended the workshops are mainly university teachers aware of the issue and highly engaged. Many of them teach their country language to international students who intend to remain in the country and work there. Form the workshop they expected inputs and discuss strategies how to setup coherent and sustainable development work-related L2 provision.

Feedback was very positive. The teams reacted flexibly to the different needs and situations drawing on the great variety of LfW resources and approaches. The interactive format of the events enabled participants to relate the inputs to own situation and triggered networking with the view of developing coherent and sustainable support for LfW in own situation and becoming a hub of development and innovation in own country.

Looking forwards to 2022 Two more online TaC events are foreseen for 2022 for Slovenia and Slovakia. Both are still to be planned.
If you are interested in participating as a guest in one of the events, we hope we can offer a few places in the TaC workshops 2022.

Dear colleagues, independently of how to are going to spend the upcoming festivities, we all share the same wish and longing for a bit of peace for this troubled world and good health for everyone.
In this sense, the LfW team wishes you a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Matilde and the LfW team

In 2021, the LfW Training and Consultancy team delivered virtual professional development events to w-r-L2* professionals in Ireland and Slovakia (with participants joining also from the Ukraine, Poland, and Italy), and a face-to-face event in Sweden.
*Work-related second language

In 2020, the LfW Training and Consultancy team delivered three virtual professional development events to w-r-L2* professionals in the Netherlands. Other events planned for Germany, Ireland, and Sweden were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
*Work-related second language

23-24 October 2018, Graz
Final meeting of LfW - Tools for professional development project.
Contemporaneous record of meeting available here, on the padlet board

Presentations

Presente, an Italian app to support migrants
Andrea Ghezzi, Edizioni la Linea
Language: English
Slides

1-2 June 2017, Graz
Two-day development meeting for LfW - Tools for professional development project.
Contemporaneous record of meeting available here, on the padlet board 

Intergovernmental consultations on migration, asylum and refugees: Integration working group meeting - Language and integration
Geneva, 16-17 May 2017
Conference note

Presentations
‘Language for Work: New approaches to work-related language learning’
Alexander Braddell, Language for Work Network
Language: English
View slides

Language, the Sustainable Development Goals, and Vulnerable Populations
New York, 11-12 May 2017
Conference note

‘New initiatives in Europe to support work-related language learning by low-skilled migrants: lessons for policy and practice '
Matilde Grünhage‐Monetti, Language for Work Network
Language: English
View slides

The linguistic integration of adult migrants: lessons from research
Strasbourg, 30 March – 1 April 2016
Conference note

Presentations

‘The fight against exclusion from the labour market begins … at the workplace’
Matilde Grünhage‐Monetti, Deutsches Institut für Erwachsenenbildung ‐ Leibniz‐
Zentrum für Lebenslanges Lernen (DIE), Germany; Anna Svet, Friedrich‐Schiller‐
Universität Jena, Germany
Language: English
View slides

‘The fight against exclusion from the labour market begins … at the workplace’
Matilde Grünhage‐Monetti, Deutsches Institut für Erwachsenenbildung ‐ Leibniz‐
Zentrum für Lebenslanges Lernen (DIE), Germany; Anna Svet, Friedrich‐Schiller‐
Universität Jena, Germany
Language: English
View slides

Using workplace learning to support linguistic integration of adult migrants – lessons
from a decade of work in Sweden
Kerstin Sjösvärd, Stockholm Gerontology Research Center, Stockholm, Sweden
Alexander Braddell, Oxfordshire Skills Escalator Centre CIC Ltd (OSEC), Oxford, United
Kingdom
Language: English
View slides

Apprendre le français sur son lieu de travail: enjeux et résultats
Christophe Portefin, ACCENTONIC, Villemomble, France / INALCO, Paris, France
Language: French
View slides

What do employees have to read, write, speak and listen to at the workplace? A
comparison of communicative requirements
Anke Settelmeyer, Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung, Bonn, Germany
Language: English

Language learning at Finnish workplaces
Minna Suni, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Language: English
View abstract

Graz, 24-25 June 2015

Contemporaneous record available here, on the padlet board
Presentation given at the meeting by Pr. Laurent Filliettaz, Unversity of Geneva
Recognising and sustaining the linguistic demands of the workplace
Contributions from a sociopragmatic perspective
Recognising and sustaining the linguistic demands of the workplace

Presentations

Recognising and sustaining the linguistic demands of the workplace
Laurent Filliettaz, University of Geneva
Language: English
View slides

'Authentic' material for vocational language teaching
Barbara Haider, Die Wiener Volkshochschulen GmbH / Meet the Need project
Language: English, with realia in German
View slides

Les formations langagières dans le domaine du nettoyage/propreté
Florence Mourlhon‐Dallies, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne
Language: French
View slides

Language at work and before: Russian for migrant workers in Russia
Irina Kraeva, Moscow State Linguistic University
Language: English, Russian
View slides

Task-based transfer and testing, based on experiences from workplace language courses in Germany
Andreas Klepp, Germany
Language: English
View slides

Aiming at multipliers at the workplace: a workshop for supervisors in the cleaning business
Rita Leinecke, Fachstelle Berufsbezogenes Deutsch im Förderprogramm Integration durch Qualifizierung (IQ), passage gGmbH
Language: English
View slides

What training to offer to companies in France in 2015?
Christophe Portefin, Accentonic, France
Language: English, French
View slides

Autonomous Literacy Learners - Sustainable Results
ALL-SR project team
Language: English
View poster

January 2014, Donostia
Report in English and French

Graz, 5‐6 Dec 2013

Presentations

Improving Working as Learning: A Conceptual Framework in Action
Professor Lorna Unwin, Institute of Education, University of London / LLAKES Research Centre
Language: English
View slides

Summary in English, French and Spanish 
Full report in English