Communication for employment and training

This is a description of retraining programmes devised and developed by the Lancashire Industrial Language Training Unit during the period 1980–1983 in order to meet the specific needs of adult South Asian textile workers in the country who had become unemployed as a result of the current economic recession in Britain. The Industrial Language Training Service was originally established in Britain to improve communications in multiracial workplaces. This has always involved a combination of: (i) job-related language training for ethnic minority workers in their place of employment, and (ii) communications awareness training for indigenous managers, supervisors, and union representatives. All programmes are based on a survey of communication needs in the specific workplace and the active involvement of key company personnel in the language training. The programme described here adapts this approach to meet the needs of unemployed adult speakers of English as a second language. The aims of the programme are to integrate communications and trade training in order to increase learners' trainability and employability, and thus equip them for either re-entry to employment or further specific skills training. This article describes the steps taken to achieve this.