The Content-Based Workplace
English Training Program :
A Case of Federal Lock Company
內容為導向式職場英語訓練：以柏佑製鎖公司為例
Reporter: 李燕俞
Introduction

Employees’ foreign language proficiency level,
especially English, has become a critical factor in
the workplace market of all industries.
 Taiwan
is an export-oriented country who has frequent
business transactions with countries of whole world.
 English is the major language used on the internet.
 The proliferation of e-commerce has reshaped both
business organization and activities.
 The trend of globalization and English become a
global language.

In Taiwan’s economy early stage
→OEM(original equipment manufacturing)
 Lack
the knowledge of design and marketing
 Skilled worker or engineers need to understand
customer’s blueprint or samples only.

Business type: OED(original equipment design)
ODM(original design manufacturing)
 R&D(research
and design) and marketing knowledge
→company must own
 Reading, writing and speaking skills
→certain language level

English is till the main language.
 E-learning
become more and more popular
→without the limitation of time and place
 The only limitation: learner’s language skills
 Computer literacy→Internet literacy

English is the first choice language.
 E-commerce
internationally
Content-Based Instruction(CBI)
→one of the most suitable approaches to be applied in
workplace English teaching and learning programs

Motivation


When learners finish their academic study in schools
and go into the workplace, they are supposed to be
equipped with certain language skills for their jobs
or daily lives.
Their language skills are still not enough to meet the
requirements in workplace.
 Social
factors play an important role.
 Workplace contains lots background knowledge which
is quite different from what students learn in schools.

Social factors play an important role.
 In schools→just learn basic and academic English
 In workplace→communicate with people who have
different background.
 Salesmen:
argue prices with buyers, receive complaints…
 Engineers: discuss new designs, solve the production problems…
→use language skills in negotiation, persuading, giving instruction,
or arguing with people in different situations

Workplace contains lots background knowledge which is
quite different from what students learn in schools.
 New salesmen can’t handle customers’ complaints.
 They lack the knowledge of the business and the
customers’ particular needs. Not their poor language
skills.
Purpose of the study




To determine the business content of Federal Lock
Company.
To determine the needs of their salesmen, engineers
and administrators.
To design a content-based English instruction
according to their needs.
To evaluate the effects of the instruction.
Research Questions




What is the workplace content for Federal Lock
Company?
What are learners’ needs in the company?
How a content-based training course and teaching
materials can be designed to meet their needs?
What is the outcome of the training program?
Literature review

Supports for CBI
 There
are many supports for CBI from the research of L2
acquisition to controlled training studies and strands of
research in educational and cognitive psychology.
 Grabe and Stoller(1997) devided them into 4 categories.

Models of CBI
 Content-based
instructions have various models defined
by different researchers, and classroom practices also
vary among different communities, schools, and teacher
(Sheppard, 1997).

CBI Syllabus Design
 Stern(1981)
identifies one approach to second language
teaching, communicative language teaching(CLT), which
became dominant in L2 teaching.
 2 versions of CLT: L-approach & P-approach.
L-approach →a new kind of linguistic analysis, led to work on socalled notional syllabuses and emphasis on language function
or communicative competence
P-approach → concerned with establishing the process and
conditions which facilitate second language learning most
efficiently, led to work on methodology in such new ways
 Content-based
instruction in its essence is the P-approach since
it rejects the commonsense notion that the content of language
courses should be language itself.
 Eskey(1997) suggests that there is a third dimension, the factual
and conceptual content, which should be included in CBI beside
language function and language form.
 In brief, Eskey suggests the CBI syllabus should incorporate
three dimensions, the content function, and form.

Summary
 Content-based
instruction is one of the most suitable
approaches to be applied in the workplace English teaching
and learning programs. Since it emphasis the learning of
content knowledge and language skills as well.
 Researches in the second language acquisition, classroom
training studies, and educational and cognitive psychology not
only support the CBI, they also support the workplace
instruction.
 There are many different models of CBI instruction and the
following are the instructions which can be applied in
workplace: (a) theme-based instruction, (b) sheltered classes,
(c) whole language, (d) cooperative learning, and (e) taskbased language learning.
 CBI syllabus design should incorporate three dimensions:
(a) content, (b) function, and (c) form.
Methodology

Overall Research Design
Define
Workplace
Content
Conduct the
Training Program
Collect Content
Material
Design and Editing
the Interface
Assessment and
Feedback
Analyze the
Corpus
Design the
course

Subjects
 15
employees in “Federal Lock Company” in Ping-Tung
county
5
salesmen (3 export sales and 2 domestic sales)
 3 engineers
 7 administrators with various management jobs
3
export salesmen are able to speak, read and write in
English fluently.

Instruments
 Questionnaire
Survey of Learner’s Needs
 Group Discussion and Observation
 English Tests
 After-Treatment Questionnaire and Follow-up Interview
Result





Subjects’ needs vary according to their jobs in the
workplace. They need to learn the content knowledge and
language skills in order to complete their daily jobs.
Subjects’ learning motivation is instrumental and is related
to promotion, salary or self esteem in the workplace.
Subjects with different jobs have their likes or dislikes
among teaching materials.
Choosing a proper content-based instructions model is
crucial to the training course design.
Training programs or teaching materials should enable
learner’s self-study skills.
Conclusion
RQ1. What is the workplace content for Federal Lock
Company?
 The
product is the most important domain of workplace content.
 Reasons:
 The
product is the essential of any given business or company.
 The knowledge of the company’s products is a must for every
employee.
 The content knowledge of the products varies from business to
business.
 Federal
Lock Company produces and sells all kinds of locks.
The types of lock, their production and lock-related business
are the workplace content for the company.
RQ2. What are learners’ needs in the company?
 Learner’s
needs are all related to their job requirements or
promotion.
 Salesmen need four skills to handle their daily jobs.
 For engineers, reading and writing skills are enough for them
to meet their job requirements in the workplace.
RQ3. How a content-based training course and teaching
materials can be designed to meet their needs?
5
teaching materials designed for Federal Lock Company:
(a) An interactive program
(b) A corpus
(c) A key word list
(d) Word games
(e) The realia
 Corpus
is the one that only salesmen think is useful to them. It
can be built or expanded to meet specific learner’s needs.
 Word games are welcome by most learners and work fine as
recreation activities.
RQ4. What is the outcome of the training program?
 Results
of the Federal Lock Company’s training program
indicates that content-based instruction is a suitable instruction
in the workplace context.
 Learner’s
motivation is instrumental in the workplace and CBI
instruction can increase learner’s motivation.
 Learner’s reflections show that they learn both the content knowledge
and language skills.
 Learner’s reflections after the training program provide a useful
feedback to the course designer for further improving.
 Content-based
instruction is a suitable instruction in workplace
since it emphasized on both content knowledge and language
skills.
Suggestion




Further study should consider more subjects with various
learning backgrounds and needs to design various training
programs and materials.
A specific content-based instruction based on subjects’
needs, can promote their motivation.
Further study can focus on how to evaluate a learner’s
language skills and content-knowledge at the same time.
How to establish the criteria for different workplace
content, subject’s background, and language skills is an
important issue.