From ESL to Employment

Did you know that getting a job or better employment is one of the main reasons students come back to your ESL class week after week?  How is your ESL program or classroom preparing your students for the workplace and reaching their goals?

Here at HOPE Literacy, our mission is to “help other people excel (HOPE) in life by sharing the gospel through ESL and literacy programs.”  Adding some workplace correlations may be a great next step to helping your students excel in their everyday lives.

Here are some practical things you can implement in your ESL program to help your students advance in their employment journeys.

Goal setting

Take time to meet with each student one on one, at least once a semester.  If you are short on time, some components can be done as a whole group.  This process will not only help you learn what your students need, but also assist the students in clarifying their own goals and in mapping out their own desired paths.  Once students can visualize their goals, they will be more motivated to work to reach them and keep coming to class.  They will also see how important learning English is to gaining better employment or other life opportunities. 

If your program is a HOPE Literacy site, sign up on our website to access our HOPE in a Box, where you can find goal setting templates for beginning and advanced students. 

Go here to sign up.

Partner with the community

• Collect a list of job opportunities in your area and host regular career days for students.  Utilize volunteers to help students fill out job applications on those days or invite employers to your site.

• Bring in speakers from the immigrant community who have found success in the workplace to speak about their experiences.  Having a clear picture of what is possible can go a long way in inspiring students.

• Partner with local businesses in the area to provide specific training for positions in exchange for workers from your site.

Integrate workplace curricula or objectives into your program

• New Reader’s Press offers an online program called EnGen that students can use on their own time to prepare for specific jobs including phlebotomist, nursing assistant, and more, for a fee.  Students can work through the materials through an app while standing in line, waiting in the carpool line, or in the doctor’s waiting room.  More information.

• Partner with organizations receiving federal funding to provide job training to adult students.  For example, Fort Worth ISD and Tarrant County College offer such programs.  For help in locating a program in your area, contact us (info in footer).  However, some may require that they are unemployed in order to be able to attend the full program.  

• Integrate workplace preparation in your regular classroom through project-based learning.  Students can work alone or in groups to create a business plan and promotional materials for their dream business.  

Much of the information in this article was taken from a professional development given by ProLiteracy.  For more inspiration and stories from programs that have used EnGen, watch this training.