How to Ensure Effective Language Training
Cologne (GER), December 2010 - Trainers and companies need to gear their training objectives clearly toward employees' professional activities and goals. This can be achieved using scenarios. Scenarios consist of a chain of actions and guide employees toward achieving their professional objectives. In the language training field, SKYLIGHT has joined forces with Henkel AG & Co. KGaA to develop a blended-learning system that supports this approach.
The system simulates business processes, taking into account any specialist language, the role of conversation partners, the business functions, and the learners' communication objectives.
Learners can use the eCLTC online platform to practice scenarios according to their level of proficiency and learning objectives. The scenarios take into account the positions in which the employees work and the related processes in the company. Learners can thus practice the communication skills they need for their daily work in the relevant foreign or specialist language.
The goal of Henkel and SKYLIGHT was to create a blended-learning system specifically to teach Henkel staff languages and business communication. The aim behind the system is to tailor language training even more efficiently to employees' work-related learning needs.
Learners work through the scenarios in the eCLTC system in their own time, where they also prepare for and follow up their lessons. The system maps out their learning paths and can be used by trainers to provide corrections and comments. In other words, the eCLTC system is both a workplace and a classroom for trainers where they can communicate with their students and offer them support with their learning paths. The eCLTC offers all the functions of a scenario-management system.
Scenarios are the future of language training. For years now, in-company training has seen an increasing focus on job-related skills to make efficient use of budgets. By using scenarios, language trainers can practice communication skills with participants, such as negotiating, presenting, making arrangements, exchanging information, reporting on the status of projects, and customer service. Contact teaching time is put to optimum use, ensuring that participants internalize how to apply the skills in their daily work.
This raises learners' awareness of the communication skills they need for their jobs and improves their language proficiency. The course content is transferred more rapidly. Lessons are also moving away from traditional "chalk and talk" teaching, which focuses mainly on imparting knowledge of a language.
The eCLTC system and its approach incorporate the key training criteria that are relevant for the participants and the company. The training is geared toward business processes and objectives and teaches skills rather than just knowledge. Furthermore, it enables the course content and design to be structured according to the job descriptions of individual employees. Finally, the system permits independent learning to be organized in the system and in face-to-face phases between learners and trainers.
