Charting a Course: Responding to the Industry-Related
Adult Basic Education Needs of the Texas Workforce
Handbook One: Planning and Implementation Tips
for Program Planners and Administrators

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A Message from Texas LEARNS
The Texas Adult Education and Family Literacy Partnership

 

Dear Adult Education Program Directors and Workforce Partners:

Historically, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESL / ESOL) and job training initiatives have not been closely linked. For Texas’ 2.7 million limited English proficient residents (2000 U.S. Census), this has often contributed to limited employment opportunities.

Integrated, innovative initiatives must replace sequential programs requiring English language learners to first master the language and obtain a GED certificate before beginning occupational training. Seamless linkages between contextualized English language development, occupational training, and job sourcing are critical in meeting business partners’ needs as well as the employment goals of adult English language learners. Education Rider 82 is an opportunity for Texas’ economic stakeholders.

Determining the education and occupational training needs of English language learners requires an examination of the sectoral changes in the labor market. Information gathered in response to Rider 82 suggests that Texas LEARNS, under the direction of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), with input from the Texas Workforce Commission, focus its efforts on industry sectors in which many adults seek entry-level employment:

• Healthcare
• Sales and Service
• Manufacturing / Construction Trades

Each of these sectors includes occupations for which English language learners may qualify, provided the opportunities to acquire employment-related language/literacy skills, work readiness skills, and pathways to occupational training are made accessible. Qualifying for jobs that pay a living wage in these sectors means that adult learners must have access to a continuum of education and training services, so they can continue to improve their work-related language and employment readiness skills and at the same time gain better access to employment and/or occupational training pathways.

Minimally, workforce-related adult education should include the following:

• Student orientation to the world of work
• Work-related English language instruction as well as reading, writing, and math skills development
• A balanced integration of English literacy and language development in a work-related context
• Integration with occupational skills training when partnerships make this feasible
• Employment readiness skills (including critical, life, and interpersonal skills)
• An introduction to industry-related environmental print, terminology, and realia*
• Technical skills instruction, including basic computer literacy and familiarity with job-related technical terminology, equipment, and applications when partnerships make this feasible

* realia are objects from real life such as coins, tools, etc., used in instruction

• Links to postsecondary technical education and training for access to career opportunities, licensure, and certification in healthcare, manufacturing / construction trades, and sales and service industry clusters

A program director’s role in responding to Rider 82 is pivotal. While curricular responses to Rider 82 for three industry sectors are under development, the responsibility for planning, implementing, and sustaining workforce/workplace-related education services falls squarely on the shoulders of local adult education providers and their partners in local workforce development systems. These include local workforce development board staff, one-stop career center operators, employers, and post-secondary education and training providers.

Texas LEARNS is committed to providing Adult Education programs with tools to plan, implement, and sustain workforce-related educational solutions. A number of Texas’ adult education programs are already delivering quality workforce-related instruction to emerging, incumbent, and dislocated workers in their local communities. But for many programs and many practitioners, workforce education is relatively new. Professional development efforts, therefore, must a) increase adult education practitioners’ understanding of their important role in preparing adult learners for the world of work, and b) provide adult education programs with the support needed to deliver quality workforce-related instruction.

This planning and implementation handbook has been developed with Adult Education program administrators in mind. Four modules cover the following topics:

• determining capacity to deliver workforce-related educational services;
• identifying local labor market needs and conducting a language task analysis;
• facilitating partnerships responsive to identified needs; and
• developing mutual, realistic, and achievable program goals and objectives.

A complementary handbook for instructional staff includes two additional modules:

• planning and delivering contextual instruction based on work-related needs, and
• meaningful ways to measure and report learner progress and program success

Professional development opportunities can be arranged through any one of adult education’s eight regional GREAT Centers in Texas. Technical assistance can be adapted to meet the needs of individual programs. Included are templates and practical activities designed to help adult educators plan, implement, and sustain successful workforce-related instructional programs. Adult education programs are encouraged to invite their local partners to join in these cross-training opportunities.

Charting a course for a statewide response to the workforce-related basic education needs of the Texas workforce is an evolving, dynamic process. As Texas seeks ways to better prepare its workforce, particularly those with limited English language skills, adult education is preparing to respond to a growing need in a global market.

Director of Texas LEARNS