Abstract
University human resources departments dedicate themselves to providing relevant professional development to their institutions’ employees. However, few of these departments consider the language learning needs of employees who are nonnative English speakers. This paper introduces the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison)’s unique approach to meeting the English language learning needs of employees through its Cultural Linguistic Services (CLS) department within the Office of Human Resources (OHR). The CLS Workplace English Program features the development of contextualized learning materials, active participation of employees’ supervisors, dynamic scheduling, and on-the-job practice with authentic communicative tasks. The collaboration between CLS/OHR and other UW-Madison departments has resulted in a successful, sustainable, and potentially replicable Workplace English program for employees who are English language learners.
Recommended Citation
Parrillo, Karen
(2020)
"Workplace English as Professional Development: The UW-Madison Model,"
MITESOL Journal: An Online Publication of MITESOL: Vol. 2, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mitesol/vol2/iss1/1
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons