Schedule: 2009-09-09 (19:00 - 19:30)
Educational Showcase (Sala de Conferencias 1)

Title: Spanish for Immigrants: finally, a multimedia tool to train a potential skilled workforce
Authors: Gemma Delicado, Eva María Domínguez, Enrique Agudo, María Antonia Paín
Abstract: The increasing size of human movements arriving in Europe in recent years, turning into a potential workforce will eventually lead European governments to train these newly arrived worldwide citizens in different skills across all professional sectors. The first step towards their integration and subsequently hiring should be teaching them the appropriate work-related skills, so they can meet the existing and future requirements of prospective employers. Taking into account that professional skills cannot be separated from linguistic and cultural premises, this paper addresses the question of formative necessities in foreign language competency in selected working collectives. In the light of these premises, our research group GEXCALL has created a multimedia pioneering level A1 and A2 language training program designed to teach Spanish for specific and occupational purposes to immigrant speakers of other languages, following the policies of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, and Assessment.

As for the content, this course differs from traditional and abundant Spanish programs addressed to foreign college students. In other words, this is by no means a wide-ranging course, but tailored to cover the present and future needs of these newly arrived immigrant students with such varied backgrounds, culture and even levels of alphabetization in order to be employed and integrated in society. The method of reaching the goals in this ongoing work considering the most demanded professional fields is based on two fundamental cornerstones: language for specific purposes acquisition and online /multimedia learning. Bearing in mind possible geographical and schedule limitations experienced when attending conventional courses, it reveals as a powerful tool to successfully teach a great amount of incoming people, integrate them into the European society and by so doing, help combat the high immigrant unemployment rates.
Keywords: Spanish, occupational purposes, E-learning, Common European framework for languages

Main topic: Pedagogical change in technology integration

Biodata: The authors are faculty of the Univesity of Extremadura and belong to GEXCALL, an interdisciplinary research group of the University of Extremadura. This group is currently engaged in several projects: Spanish for occupational projects, teaching applications of of Web 2.0, corpora, computer assisted translation.
Type of presentation Courseware Exhibition

Paper category (Other)

Target educational sector Primary education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project Yes

Schedule:	2009-09-09 (19:00 - 19:30) Educational Showcase (Sala de Conferencias 1)
Title:	Spanish for Immigrants: finally, a multimedia tool to train a potential skilled workforce
Authors:	Gemma Delicado, Eva María Domínguez, Enrique Agudo, María Antonia Paín
Abstract:	The increasing size of human movements arriving in Europe in recent years, turning into a potential workforce will eventually lead European governments to train these newly arrived worldwide citizens in different skills across all professional sectors. The first step towards their integration and subsequently hiring should be teaching them the appropriate work-related skills, so they can meet the existing and future requirements of prospective employers. Taking into account that professional skills cannot be separated from linguistic and cultural premises, this paper addresses the question of formative necessities in foreign language competency in selected working collectives. In the light of these premises, our research group GEXCALL has created a multimedia pioneering level A1 and A2 language training program designed to teach Spanish for specific and occupational purposes to immigrant speakers of other languages, following the policies of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, and Assessment. As for the content, this course differs from traditional and abundant Spanish programs addressed to foreign college students. In other words, this is by no means a wide-ranging course, but tailored to cover the present and future needs of these newly arrived immigrant students with such varied backgrounds, culture and even levels of alphabetization in order to be employed and integrated in society. The method of reaching the goals in this ongoing work considering the most demanded professional fields is based on two fundamental cornerstones: language for specific purposes acquisition and online /multimedia learning. Bearing in mind possible geographical and schedule limitations experienced when attending conventional courses, it reveals as a powerful tool to successfully teach a great amount of incoming people, integrate them into the European society and by so doing, help combat the high immigrant unemployment rates.
Keywords:	Spanish, occupational purposes, E-learning, Common European framework for languages
Main topic:	Pedagogical change in technology integration
Biodata:	The authors are faculty of the Univesity of Extremadura and belong to GEXCALL, an interdisciplinary research group of the University of Extremadura. This group is currently engaged in several projects: Spanish for occupational projects, teaching applications of of Web 2.0, corpora, computer assisted translation.
Type of presentation	Courseware Exhibition
Paper category	(Other)
Target educational sector	Primary education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	Yes