Cathay,

Thank you for your posting.  You have brought forth all of the reasons
in the community college district in which I work, it is difficult to
find a  workforce employee who wants to provide ESL in the business
sector.  You have the business, which you must warm up to to get the
contract.  You have to have a background in ESL to understand the
curriculum process and you have to have an instructor with a background
in ESL and a lot of patience.  If the contract goes wrong, someone will
be admonished by a dean or vice-president, and no one wants to be in
that position.  That is why at our college, I am such a rare breed, and
it is the reason I work so extensively with the company, provide so much
training and mentoring for the instructor and pay him or her $30 to $40
an hour.  I also pay the instructor extra for any additional course
planning or new materials.  I do not like workforce/workplace ESL, yet I
remind my team that since our reputation is at stake every time we go
into the business community we have to do as great or greater a job than
we do on campus.

Maria



Maria Caratini Prado, M. Ed. TESOL
Program Director, ESL
Arts, Languages and Literature Division
Eastfield College
972-860-7659 office
972-860-8392 fax
mcaratini at dcccd.edu
www.eastfieldcollege.edu 
"Advancing English Education Globally"



>>> Cathay Reta <cathayreta at sbcglobal.net> 7/23/2008 5:28 PM >>>

Hello All,
   
  I would like to comment on what I feel is the biggest issue in
providing workplace literacy training, and it perhaps comes along under
the theme of *managing client expectations.*    I believe that when
we go to a company we must approach them on their terms, in their
culture, and seek to understand them.  Company training is very
different from classroom teaching.
   
  To illustrate, when I first considered offering workplace literacy as
a director from a small CBO, I talked with the local adult school
principal about it. I was told it was a waste of time.  They had tried
it and found it to be 100% failure.  As I probed further, I realized
that what he had tried was to take their standard ESL classes and simply
offer them at a company site.  Each one had a great start and each one
quickly fizzled out.  
   
  I later became a workplace literacy instructor and found success with
it.  As others have described, I set up the program, met with
management, HR and employees and developed the curriculum.  (By the way,
I like to take pictures of the workers doing their jobs and build these
into the workbooks.  The employees love it.)  The key to success was
being able to approach the job as a workplace trainer, not an educator. 
And central to that is understanding that my client is the company, not
the individual employees.  The employees benefit tremendously, but my
client is the company.  Let me quickly add I would not sacrifice the
employees to meet a client*s expectation, and clearly there are times
when you must teach the employer what is not acceptable, but it*s the
underlying attitude that you are serving the employer that is important.

   
  I think the best way to approach it hearkens back to Stephen
Covey*s *7 Habits* in which you seek first to understand, and
then be understood.  I believe that if we approach workplace instruction
from the culture of the workplace, we will learn a lot and from what we
learn, we will even find ways to improve our ESOL instruction in the
traditional classroom.
   
  I don*t think I*ve communicated this well, but let me at least
throw this much out there at this point.  I do agree with Amber's post,
and with others I've read; and I feel this perspective is also important
to interject into the conversation.
   
  Cathay Reta
  Cornerstone Concepts
  6670 Southside Drive
  Los Angeles California   90022
  cathayreta at sbcglobal.net 
  

Amber Gallup <agallup at essentiallanguage.com> wrote:
                    In response to Pat Sawyer's last message -

Several posters have alluded to the challenge of managing the client's
expectations.  It's common to hear questions like that which Pat
mentioned, "How many weeks is this going to take?"  I have found that it
will take much more than one conversation before my clients really begin
to understand  what I'm saying regarding the process and time commitment
of language learning and the goals of the course (which we develop
together as much as possible through the needs analysis process.)  

I have found that the needs analysis itself is useful not only to
identify students' and workplace needs, but also to bring out into the
light of day the stakeholders' expectations....which are often
unrealistic and/or conflicting with other stakeholders' expectations. 
The needs analysis process provides an opportunity to do the very
important work of getting all stakeholders on the same page...it's a
little teachable moment.  If important stakeholders have different ideas
of why we're doing this (say, union and management) and  how it will
impact them....that can deal a death blow to a program!  

I always use an example from a electricans' union for which I once put
together a VESL program when I first began this work:  In the needs
analysis, I did my language task analysis and I interviewed some
workers, the union leaders, the apprentice coordinator, the organizer,
and the contractor (the "big boss").  I felt good that this part of the
needs analysis had been thorough and everybody shared an understanding
of our goals.  Yet, by the end of the semester, the otherwise very
successful class was almost done away with!....why?  Because the
workers' foremen (who were not getting jobs finished on time because
they lost some of their crew for a few hours each week) were angry and
refusing to let their workers leave for the class.  I had neglected to
make them part of the process, and their differing expectations and
needs led to revolt.  We modified the course schedule and luckily
continued on, but I learned some lessons about needs analysis.

Also, I liked Miriam's description of how she did her observations
(language task analysis) BEFORE she interviewed the various
stakeholders.  I'll be using that tip...it's a great idea - because it
gives us more information on which to base our questions to
stakeholders, and as Pat already mentioned, often the management (or HR,
or union leader, etc.) will just say, "I want them to learn English,"
and not be able to go much farther than that.  

Amber

Amber Gallup          Director, Essential Language
  (202) 234-4565
  www.essentiallanguage.com 
   










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Cathay O. Reta
Cornerstone Concepts
6670 Southside Drive
Los Angeles, CA  90022
Ph: 323) 728-4302
cathayreta at sbcglobal.net
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