WorKit: Job Language Guide for Migrants

Migrants in the EU often face barriers when looking for a job in a new country due to insufficient language knowledge, low level of education, lack of local work experience, poor information about how to present themselves when applying for a job or how and where to look for a job. 

Organisations from five EU countries (Bulgaria, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK) have worked on the WorKit project at transnational level in order to exchange experience and help migrants with their labour market orientation and integration.

WorKit project has developed a Job Language Kit for Migrants, along with on- and offline learning tools, which help migrants acquire employment-specific skills in the host country language and offer them on-the-spot language support in their job seeking. The separate elements of the kit are used as supporting materials facilitating the orientation and the participation of adult migrants in the labour markets.

A WorKit training program has been developed for (volunteer) educators providing language lessons for adult migrants to train them how to use the WorKit materials as part of their language courses.

Year(s): 2015-2017

Target group(s): Educators / job coaches / social workers working for the integration of migrants / migrants

Website or other online channels: www.workit-project.eu

Methodology

Methodology of the training program for educators

The objectives are: 

• To bring together professionals who work for migrants in the context of social integration, language learning and/or labour market participation 

• To enable the educators to facilitate migrants’ basic language learning related to labour market orientation and participation 

• To build the educators’ practical skills and confidence in using the Kit and online resources with migrants who wish to develop their language and communication skills in job seeking situations 

• To offer educators skills for managing multicultural groups 

 

The program is divided into two parts: theoretical and practical. 

The theoretical part consists of 3 modules and takes 4 hours. The modules are:

• introduction to the WorKit Job Language kit

• overview of the national labour market situation and issues relevant to migrants 

• working with multicultural groups

The practical part consists of 3 modules and takes 4 hours. The modules are:

• description of the methodology of the kit

• demonstrative sessions using the WorKit Job Language Kit

• evaluation and feedback

Type of product

Paper-based material Online resource Video clips / Films Course / Training Mobile application

Brief description of the outcomes

The training program for educators is based on the WorKit Job Language kit and is available on the website. The kit contains:

• WorKit Textbook, containing employment-related language information divided in different topics and scenarios

• Workit Phrase Fan, based on the content of the Textbook and containing commonly used and important phrases. The Phrase Fan is available in 10 language versions. 

• WorKit Route providing necessary information on work and employment issues 

• WorKit Interactive toolkit based on the Job Language Kit for Migrants and developed as an innovative tool with educational and informative character that offers instant, on-the-go support to migrants in their job seeking. 

• WorKit Mobile App that provides audio with survival phrases in Dutch, Bulgarian, English, Italian and Spanish for on-the-spot support in different employment-related situations. The audio content is supported in Arabic, English, Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Turkish.

Impact on target groups / Transferability potential

The WorKit project has developed innovative, attractive and user-friendly language products for creating and upgrading employment-specific skills together with a training program for educators on how to use these products. The project provides opportunities for better training of educators in their work for adult migrants through the application of innovative context-related and learner-centred tools providing language information linked to the migrants’ immediate needs for employment. 

Report Form

The project products address specific needs of educators and welfare workers when helping migrants in the process of seeking, finding and keeping a job and provides them with new attractive methodologies and products 

The training program contains a broad range of possibilities for application not only with migrants but with a much wider target group of language learners. In this sense, the Job Language Kit can be used for developing and upgrading employment-specific language skills of language learners both with migrant background and natives for the purposes of learning the host country language or other foreign languages.

The WorKit methodology is considered to be a very suitable approach for different types of context-specific language learning and could be thus adapted to deal with different topics, language content and target groups (e.g. healthcare, financial issues, administration, etc.).

Promoter of the initiative: PRESSURE LINE in cooperation with 7 EU partner organisations

Country: Bulgaria Italy Netherlands Spain United Kingdom

Languages available: Bulgarian Dutch English Italian Spanish

Website or other online channels: https://www.facebook.com/workitproject