English Language Education in the Workplace: Lessons from Two Workplaces
Article by Hannah Dahl Slechta, Instructor, Shenandoah Initiative for Adult Education (SHINE)
The Shenandoah Initiative for Adult Education has partnered with two local employers, Augusta Health hospital and Virginia Panel Corporation, to pilot English language education programs for their employees. After one year, we have seen clear benefits to both employers and employees. For instance, Augusta Health normally experiences annual turnover around 30% in laundry and environmental services (cleaning), but has seen 100% retention this year among employees who came through the program. Virginia Panel has noted that communication with employees has become easier. From the employee side, these programs open up job opportunities that may not otherwise have been available and also improve confidence and communication skills both in and out of work. Through sharing my experiences and insights from teaching these programs, I hope to inspire others to try similar collaborations.
Augusta Health
The Augusta Health program is designed as a ten-week program for new hires in laundry and environmental services at the hospital. The two-hour class is held at the end of the day shift and beginning of the afternoon shift so that employees from both shifts can attend without making a special trip. Attendance and completion of milestone assessments is a condition of employment for applicants to the program. The class covers basic present tense English grammar with a heavy emphasis on questions, locations, and schedules alongside specialized hospital vocabulary and regulations (HIPAA protocols, IV pole, fitted sheet, disinfectant, etc.).
Virginia Panel
Employees at Virginia Panel spend most of their time assembling wires, cable assemblies, and electronic connectors of varying complexity. The classes meet twice a week for one hour during employees’ lunch break. Attendance is entirely optional and the classes are offered as an employment perk, meaning that students attend when able, but sometimes miss class due to a heavy workload. We eventually split the students into advanced and beginner groups once interest was high enough to fill two classes.
Challenges
Workplace classes can present different challenges from other classes. First, the employer is an additional stakeholder who adds a layer of complication to planning and curriculum development. As the one funding the course, they have the final say in goals and milestones. For instance, the class at the hospital teaches HIPAA regulations, fire safety, and some basic tech literacy in addition to ESL. Additionally, there may be pressure to get students to a certain level of competency on a deadline if it is a requirement of their employment. These classes also require significant curriculum development. Although some class time can rely on ready-made materials, workplace-specific materials will likely need to be developed by the instructor.
Successes and Lessons
We have learned many lessons over the past year that will hopefully help other programs thinking about starting similar workplace classes:
The employees at both workplaces are paid (either their full wage or a reduced rate) for the time they spend in class. This has led to significantly more buy-in and long-term consistency than when we have attempted similar programs for which employees were not paid.
The classes are at or near the workplace and class times are chosen such that employees from different shifts can conveniently attend.
If there are enough employees to hold two classes, grouping them by level makes an enormous difference.
As the instructor, I toured both workplaces before starting the classes. This is crucial to my ability to tailor the curriculum to the employees’ daily conversational needs. I attempt to use workplace vocabulary and scenarios in class as much as possible. While there is well-earned skepticism about the use of AI in education, this is an ideal use case for a large language model to quickly and easily create tailored worksheets, dialogues, and flashcards. Any time I would usually use a pre-made worksheet to practice a certain grammar topic, I have an LLM create a worksheet in which all the sentences are relevant to the specific workplace and level.
For instance, I may prompt, “Create a worksheet at CEFR level A2 for ESL students to circle don’t or doesn’t. Make all sentences relevant to cleaning staff at a hospital.”
The resulting exercises may look like this:
The bathroom on the third floor (don’t / doesn’t) have toilet paper.
Classroom time is limited and students may have vastly different educational backgrounds, so it is important to consider if the students are required to listen, speak, read, or write more for their job and focus on this method of communication. For instance, listening and speaking are most important for my students, so I do relatively few writing or reading comprehension tasks. I focus on listening comprehension, dialogues, spoken communicative exercises, and spoken information gap activities.
These activities have worked well for me:
- Brainstorm workplace sentences as a group using a new grammar concept or vocabulary item. This is both the simplest and most popular thing I do. After introducing and practicing a new concept, students brainstorm how they might use it at work. I write the sentences on the board and guide students to correct major errors. There is enormous student engagement because the students are motivated to get help with real communication issues they encounter every day.
- Mix and mingle bingo: This is my favorite way to practice questions. I make a grid with things like “has a brother” or “is from Honduras” in each square and question stems like “Do you ...” and “Are you …” at the top of the page. The students must walk around asking their classmates “Do you have a brother?” or “Are you from Honduras?” until they complete a line for bingo.
- Information gap activities: For example, I create a sample weekly work schedule. One student has the complete schedule and the other student is missing some days. They need to ask the other student questions like “What time do I work on Tuesday?” or “Where do I work on the 15th?” to complete their copy.