Embedding English in training courses

Last week ETD attended the Australasian Oil and Gas Conference at the Perth Convention Centre. This was a much anticipated event and well-attended event, with an average of 3,500 attendees each day.

http://www.aogexpo.com.au/

ETD spoke to a number of training organisations, many of whom were conducting practical skills courses in safe work practices, apprenticeships and courses specific to the Oil and Gas industry.

A recurrent theme was that many of these companies were training individuals and groups from non-English speaking backgrounds. As an experienced trainer of international groups, I know exactly how hard it is to determine the level of English proficiency of each trainee, and that's after they have passed through entry test appraisals. I asked one of the senior trainers how he appraised the level of English competancy in a group. He said it was based on their interaction, how much they smiled, how much they asked questions etc.

The representatives of some of these groups asked how we would go about helping groups of trainees, for example, large groups of Timorese oil platform workers who needed to become competent in training for 'Working at Heights'.

The answer is embedding. This is the model which is currently favoured by universities, who are endevouring to help international students keep up with required English levels. Put simply, embedding is the process of adding optional language components into existing training curriculum. This 'scaffolding' of relevant information therefore helps trainees to understand course content, while at the same time gaining required English language skills and competency in the target training content.