Print version Recommend this page Press release
43/ 2005
Bonn, 17.11.2005
CEVT learning groups with participants of different nationalities: What trainers have to know in order to do a good job
Trainers in the publicly-funded continuing vocational training sector are often faced with having to teach technical matter not only to native speakers but also to immigrants from, for example, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Iraq or African nations. Instructors have been little prepared to date for the special demands posed by the different origins of their trainees or by learning processes in which native speakers and non-native speakers learn together. Special training courses for instruction personnel are therefore necessary for ensuring the quality of continuing vocational training. At the same time, the Federal Employment Agency should establish a framework that stipulates admission requirements for participation in continuing vocational training courses and ensures a reasonable amount of instruction time for the amount of subject matter to be covered during the respective course.
These are conclusions the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training ("BIBB") has come to in its Requirements of trainers in continuing vocational training for learning groups with participants of German and other nationalities research project. The qualitative survey conducted by BIBB in 2003 coincided with the amendment of Volume III of the German Social Code which provides for employment agencies issuing training vouchers on the basis of suitability tests. The project focused on determining what special demands are placed on instruction personnel in the continuing vocational training field when teaching courses with both Germans and immigrants from various countries.
Looking at the framework conditions for continuing vocational training courses, BIBB recommends on the basis of its survey findings that:
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- The prospective participants' knowledge of the German language be taken into account when determining whether they are to be admitted to the respective course, and that
- The duration of the respective course not be too short so that all subject matter specified by the curriculum can be covered and participants have the opportunity to do exercises to "cement" what they have learned. This applies to all participants. However, this point is particularly important for those participants for whom German is a foreign language and therefore require more time to work through instruction material than native speakers do.
Based on the insights acquired in the course of the project, training concepts that prepare trainers for working with mixed learning groups should contain the following elements:
- Basic knowledge of problems involved in and methods for helping non-native speakers learn technical German. This would include conscious language behaviour (correct use of technical terms, avoiding complicated sentence structures, etc.) and special teaching methods;
- Basic knowledge of the cultural norms in the individual participants' country of origin that could be important during instruction (e.g., conduct vis-à-vis persons of authority, rules of courteous conduct);
- Knowledge and targeted use of special group exercises aimed at encouraging particularly reserved participants and fostering a team identity.
Further information about this subject in German can be accessed at the BIBB Knowledge Map at www.bibb.de/de/wlk8579.htm
Information about the Requirements of trainers in continuing vocational training for learning groups with participants of German and other nationalities research project is available at BIBB from Dr. Monika Bethscheider, Tel.:+49 228 - 107 1229, e-mail: bethscheider@bibb.de
