Conversion of course into SCORM

Background

The PESE project aims to research the labour market in partner countries and establish the type of English skills employers currently require from their employees. This then enables the development of relevant English material to boost employability among the unemployed.

The expectation is that on completion of the project, members of the direct target group (unemployed learners) involved in piloting and those reached through a widespread dissemination strategy will increase their professional English skills and thus boost their employability.

The project will eventually produce an e-course which will obviously benefit those who live in rural areas without access to language schools or face-to-face classes.

The project so far

The project kicked off in November 2020 and work on the IO1 – Handbook Development, began in earnest in January 2021 and was completed in March. The Framework for a curriculum began in April and was completed August 2021. The partners set to work on preparing lesson modules on PowerPoint slides.

The next step of the project was the conversion of the course into SCORM, which will create an engaging e-course with 10 Modules addressing different aspects of the use f English at the workplace.

A simple analogy for SCORM

Whenever you have to plug in a device to your computer, you usually use a USB port, right? That’s a standardised specification that all technical hardware makers abide by, so all of your products work with each other easily. The USB or Universal Serial Bus is a standard that prevents every device having its own proprietary plug. This helps companies to build products that can exist in an ecosystem. The consumer has more choice too (just don’t mention Apple’s Thunderbolt). It’s the same principle for eLearning.

Sharable Content Object or SCO: This describes the elements of the SCORM package that can be reused across multiple tools and platforms. Once the various elements of the package are SCORM compliant, the content should be understood by all compatible learning platforms and tools. They are the ‘assets’ used in the course. In practical terms the conversion of SCORM for the PESE project means a lot of painstaking work, as hundreds of PowerPoint slides are scrutinised and reformatted.

Why this e-course will be beneficial for learners.

Learning business English will help you to improve your existing English skills as well as build up new knowledge. You will study vocabulary and expressions specific for your branch, you will learn how to write business correspondence and do other practical work-related tasks and, at the same time, you will have a chance to polish on your general English including grammar and pronunciation. In business English sessions you will frequently work with texts and articles from real-life newspapers and magazines (so-called authentic materials). In other words, you will have plenty of exposure to global news and trends in business. We are living in a world of constantly growing levels of globalisation, interconnectivity and intercommunication. There are business relations between companies from all over the world which makes the need to use a common language in communication rather obvious. While studying business English you will learn how international companies collaborate with one another, how they do business and build professional relationships.

Often, a good level of business English can help you get the job which you wouldn’t land without the knowledge of this global language in business context. Nowadays it’s rather indispensable to be able to express yourself confidently on a variety of topics in a business environment if your intention is to have an interesting and well-paid position in a multinational.

Being able to use specialised vocabulary and phrases confidently and fluently will make you sound like a real expert and you will be treated more seriously in business. You might be a great specialist and get your point across successfully in your mother tongue but if you aren’t able to do the same in English at international meetings you won’t be perceived in the same way. As a result, in the eyes of people who you will be dealing with, your value as a professional may decrease a great deal in such circumstances. In other words, in order to avoid this type of situation you have no choice but to get down to working on your business English!

If you would like to learn more about our projects, please stay tuned for our next updates on our website here and on our Facebook page.

PESE PROJECT – Framework For A Curriculum

Background 

The PESE project aims to research the labour market in partner countries and establish the type of English skills employers currently require from their employees. The deliverables of the PESE projects will help to upskill the participants and empower their position in the labour market. 

The expectation is that on completion of the project, members of the direct target group (unemployed learners) involved in piloting and those reached through a widespread dissemination strategy will increase their professional English skills and thus boost their employability. 

The project will eventually produce an e-course which will obviously benefit those who live in rural areas without access to language schools or face-to-face classes. 

The project so far 

The project kicked off in November 2020 and work on the IO1 – Handbook Development, began in earnest in January 2021 and was completed in March. 

This handbook outlined the skills required by employers for employees in partner counties working in professional white-collar positions such as civil service, finance, logistics, accountancy, and business and executive management and blue-collar manual personnel employed across a range of fields. The research also included feedback from professional language teachers employed by language centres facilitating onsite and online language courses to businesses within the partner countries and internationally. 

The next step to PESE project was the development of professional English framework for a curriculum.

Partners conducted research by gathering and analysing the best practices in delivering such training in their national and regional areas. Partners jointly conducted research on good practices, case studies and examples of the successful use of professional English curriculums in the context of improving employability and which demonstrate good practice/case studies from:  

1. their national territory  

2. their local/regional territory (including examples from their own teaching practices within their organisation if relevant).  

3. the internet and online sources.  

This research formed the basis of the Framework for a professional English. 

With the research conducted by the project partners in mind, a framework for a curriculum has been drawn up to address the skills required by survey participants. Overall, speaking, reading and writing were considered important skills across the industries and businesses surveyed. Within each skill, there were a number of subskills that were required by respondents to the questionaries conducted by the projects British, Cypriot, Maltese, Romanian, Portuguese and Spanish partners.   

The impact of the framework will be two-fold: Firstly, VET centres and language schools will be able implement it in the courses their run to boost employability and secondly, the indirect target group of this IO (unemployed learners) will benefit from having a tool uniquely focused on the skills they actually require to succeed in the job market.  

At the same time, the output is designed with transferability to different countries, teaching methodologies and cultural contexts in mind. It will transfer well to a vast amount of learning contexts- schools, colleges and training departments 

If you would like to learn more about our projects, please stay tuned for our next updates on our website here and on our Facebook page. 

Enhancing access to professional English training for all IO1 Handbook Development

Background

The PESE project aims to research the labour market in partner countries and establish the type of English skills employers currently require from their employees. The deliverables of the PESE projects will help to upskill the participants and empower their position in the labour market.

The expectation is that on completion of the project, members of the direct target group (unemployed learners) involved in piloting and those reached through a widespread dissemination strategy will increase their professional English skills and thus boost their employability.

The project will eventually produce an e-course which will obviously benefit those who live in rural areas without access to language schools or face-to-face classes.

The project so far

The project kicked off in November 2020 and work on the first intellectual output began in earnest in January 2021 and was completed this month.

From the initial research, it came as no surprise to discover that English language is the most demanded in the labour market (90% job offers). This is followed by French (7,2%), German (7,1%), Portuguese (1,3%), and Italian (0,8%). This pattern was seen in most of the partner countries. But the main of this output was to understand the current needs of EU employers in respect of the English use of their employees.

All partners conducted research into the current labour market requirements for English in each partner country. Afterwards, partners studied the intervention methods, techniques and best practices used in each country to teach unemployed people and in particular methods used to teach them English. Two such approaches were broadly categorised as enabling intervention and reinforcing intervention conducted either on an Individual and small group via one-to-one coaching, or a classroom-based education where instruction is intensive and targeted at group-level where this includes peer instruction and feedback. 

The final step for this output was to map the particular skills and competences required in each partner country so that this could be collated into a handbook and used as a basis to inform other outputs.

This handbook outlines the skills required by employers for employees in partner counties working in professional white-collar positions such as civil service, finance, logistics, accountancy, and business and executive management and blue-collar manual personnel employed across a range of fields. The research also includes feedback from professional language teachers employed by language centres facilitating onsite and online language courses to businesses within the partner countries and internationally.

According to the research conducted on the type of interventions available to upskill unemployed people in the partner countries there are several public and private initiatives that address the teaching of English, with some courses tailored to specific business activities, although a significant number of examples point to more general English courses. In some countries, like Malta for example, there is a lack of opportunities for unemployed people to learn business and professional English. In countries such as Cyprus, formal education does not prepare learners in Professional English and in Spain, for example, the research identified a group of 35-45 years old who did not even have sufficient opportunities to learn English at schools, and, therefore, are less equipped to deal with employers’ requirements.

With regard to the professional English courses being offered across the partner countries, they all seem short-duration courses focused on the specific sectors they cater for, with a particular emphasis business English. They also tend to adopt a more traditional approach in terms of teaching, focusing on grammar, vocabulary, role play exercises, among others while not giving special relevance to some crucial aspects like cultural awareness, office skills, non-verbal communication, diplomacy and building professional relationships.

Therefore, we see these results as an opportunity to build an innovative professional English course that is based on a more comprehensive approach, integrating cultural competence, language specific-skills, on-line communication skills, non-linguistic communication and professional skills. This can be achieved with the use of technological tools to enable a more dynamic teaching and learning process.

To sum up, this handbook will not only serve as a guide for the next outputs but will work as a stand-alone reference for educators of the English Language, whether they work in VET institutions, companies or as freelancers.

Stay tuned for our next updates on our website here and on our Facebook page.