Ask Dr. Katie: How can community colleges – and employers – support multilingual learners and workers?
Before I founded EnGen, I spent over a decade working as a teacher and researcher at both community colleges and four-year institutions in Maryland, Virginia, and New York. My life’s work has been laser-focused on championing adult English learners – and that same spirit shapes the work we’re bringing to scale at EnGen.
That’s why I was delighted to find myself surrounded by room after room of like-minded people in Orlando last month at Achieving the Dream’s annual DREAM Conference. We’d gathered to ensure that community colleges fulfill their promise as accessible, equitable, and inclusive hubs of learning – and continue to create pipelines of high-potential, highly-prepared job candidates for local employers.
Community colleges have catalyzed the “dream” of career and economic mobility to generations of learners from diverse backgrounds – and now, as immigrants, refugees, and speakers of other languages comprise at least a third of students on community college campuses across the country, we must ensure that adult English learners can continue to attain that dream.
This month’s “Ask Dr. Katie'' blog will focus not on a single question, but rather on a series of questions that I posed to a group of adult educators and administrators at DREAM. We gathered at a “Lunch and Learn” session convened by EnGen to highlight the needs and potential of multilingual learners and workers. Here is a summary of our conversation – with insights to replicate on community college campuses AND at workplaces across the country.
Q: How can we ensure that English (and arbitrary English proficiency scores) aren’t barriers to credentials and careers?
Too often, test scores and abstract scales of “proficiency” or “fluency” can become barriers for learners to access careers and credentials – especially when English instruction and workforce training are siloed.
I often share the story of Mamadou, a dentist from Mauritania, who was one of my first ESL students. He was told he’d need to complete six semesters of English classes and pass two tests before he could begin the courses that would catalyze his goal of returning to dentistry in the U.S. The reality was discouraging: He languished in a career as a security guard, unable to commit to the time and expense of at least three years of instruction to reach his goals.
Forward-looking community colleges are addressing these barriers by building contextualized and competency-based English programs. These programs go by a variety of names, including “transitional ESL” or “targeted instruction” or “career-aligned English,” but all have similar goals: To connect adult English learners with both language skills and job-related coursework simultaneously, accelerating student progress toward credentials and degrees.
“We looked at the contextualized language in our courses and we are [now] working to pair a content faculty member alongside English instruction,” said one instructor.
Beyond community college campuses, these same insights apply in the workforce: Companies grappling with skills and talent gaps are hyper-focused on upskilling their workers, yet many training programs are offered solely in English. Contextualized approaches to on-the-job training can equip multilingual workers with both English and new job skills simultaneously.
Q: How can we intentionally increase diversity on our campus or workplace – and strategically boost recruitment?
As demographics are changing at community colleges across the country, more must be done to ensure that learners of all backgrounds are able to access learning opportunities. The work ahead requires closer alignment between the instruction that community colleges offer and the skills that employers need in their workforce.
Community colleges across the country are successfully doing just that, by creating Integrated Education and Training (IET) programs that result in industry-recognized credentials and then building partnerships with employers who need to hire a workforce with those credentials.
“We’re making it easy for learners to get the skills and credentials they need for employment and open the doors to the employers for them,” said one program administrator.
These classroom-to-career connections can be driven by employers too, working with a community college to identify training needs for their current workers, and then building on-site, flexible programs that don’t require incumbent workers to come to campus.
In both scenarios, it's critical to ensure that English isn’t a barrier to participating in career-aligned programs, which is where the career-aligned, contextualized approaches described above are key.
Q: Beyond simply supporting multilingual workers and leaners, how do we more fully embrace multilingualism at our organization?
Multilingualism is an asset in both the classroom and in the workplace. Adult educators are embracing learners' linguistic backgrounds’ in instruction, creating innovative programs that offer in-language instruction and support.
“We’re looking to create a business program that is taught in Spanish. To be successful in serving our student population, we know we must have Spanish-speaking support,” explained an instructor at an institution where 15% of the student enrollment is Latino or Latinx.
Successful approaches to multilingual instruction can also integrate career-aligned or contextualized English instruction. One instructor suggested creating a digital glossary of key vocabulary that students can access via an app or learning device. Others stress the importance of peer-to-peer learning and mentoring to facilitate in-language support.
“We use peer support, pairing a current, successful student with incoming learners to make the journey more real and attainable.”
Employers, too, can embrace multilingualism on the job site. Invest in translation and interpretation services, especially during critical onboarding periods. Make commitments to using “plain” workplace language – cutting down on jargon and unnecessarily complex or formal language. Here too, peer-to-peer support, including mentoring, can support multilingual workers’ retention and inclusion.
Championing Multilingualism on Campus and at Work
When speakers of other languages are fully included, everyone benefits: Study after study links diverse and multilingual teams to increased innovation, adaptability, problem-solving – and improved bottom lines for employers. Community colleges are the catalyst to building effective classroom-to-career pathways, and employers must ensure that their hiring, training, and retention programs contribute the work of championing this high-potential workforce.
EnGen partners with community colleges and employers across the country to provide a contextualized, real-world approach to English instruction. Request a live platform demo: https://getengen.com/demo