Jonathan Stuart

Occupational English (OE) is a training intervention that provides speakers of multiple languages with the opportunity to build their workplace English skills. It is not an English as a Second Language program or a general English development program, but a program designed to provide formal training for employees who are not native English speakers, thereby enhancing their value in the workplace through targeted language skills development. It focuses on aspects such as work-based processes, vocabulary, and nomenclature, as well as specific pronunciation needs. It can be particularly helpful for reading technical documents, verbal communication with coworkers, or writing emails. Many employees who require OE training may not have a formal higher education background, so they can obtain a certificate from an institution and receive free training at their workplace during regular working hours.In cases of OE interventions, there is often value in partnerships between companies, government funding, and higher education institutions to oversee and deliver training. Even large companies may not have the in-house capabilities to deploy OE initiatives, and partnering with government and higher education institutions can be a great fit that benefits all members.Governmental actors continue to provide underwriting of training interventions. Having thriving companies and strong industries provides both a knowledge advantage and an economic base through organizational and individual tax collection. Departments of labor coordinate training programs and apprenticeships in select industries, such as IT, medical device manufacturing, and nursing. Targeted grant funds are also allocated to higher education institutions that can provide grant oversight and specialized subject-matter expertise to design interventions to upgrade technical skills, mandatory training, or soft skills. Many higher education institutions have specialized training departments focused on business and industry, while others offer graduate students opportunities to gain experience in organizational settings and to learn by doing. Some examples of partnerships to develop OE initiatives include:A supplier of utility frames and designer of small cab components for many different brands, with a workforce consisting mostly of native Spanish speakers, was looking for ways to develop written and spoken language skills to support cross-functional component delivery. They partnered with a community college that had received a multi-year grant to support manufacturing workers who would benefit from job skill training. Expertise for the assessment and training delivery was outsourced to the college’s faculty. MN State and the University of Minnesota joined together to assist a medical device manufacturing company in assessing an OE training program. PhD students in the College of Education & Development (CEHD) at the University of Minnesota conducted a needs analysis and developed an assessment to be delivered to non-native English speakers. A medical device manufacturer with many product lines and manufacturing sites employs speakers of multiple languages who, despite their technical skills, often lack opportunities for leadership or mobility within their departments. A program was implemented to give select employees specific leadership and communication skills. The program was funded by a state grant and delivered by college faculty along with an external consultant. Following completion of the program, employees became eligible for promotion to line lead.Strategic partnerships among government, higher education institutions, and individual organizations can significantly affect workforce development. By addressing specific training needs and utilizing diverse resources, employees’ skills are enhanced, benefiting both individuals and the organization. Additionally, connections between higher education and industry can provide students with a community of practice that goes beyond theory. 

Occupational English Training

Picture this:  Your training department has just formed a five-person “multimedia team.”  Each team member is competent in IT, and they are self-taught when it comes to video.Within a few weeks the unit is buzzing with everyone busy working on projects for colleagues across the learning division.  However, during an important project, Sean falls ill. Someone needs to step in and finish his project to meet an important internal deadline.   Thanks Suzy!Fortunately, Suzy volunteers to step in.  But she’s faced with a problem: Sean didn’t write a script for the video because he thought it was easier to “wing it.” Suzy now has to determine the learning objective of the video and then write the script.  But what’s the video really about?  She finally finds his notes scattered through a manila folder in his camera case. But there’s no shot list or list of footage that he had captured.  Sean, who is very creative and a talented graphic designer, didn’t log the video he had already shot.  Why should he?  He knew where everything was. But Suzy doesn’t.  So, she spends an entire day viewing and re-viewing hours of video to find appropriate clips.Where are the graphics files?What about the graphics files?  Sean had completed them, but Suzy couldn’t find any of them—and she cannot get in touch with Sean. Suzy must start from scratch.This should have been a simple job.  But Sean’s approach was entire differently to hers, and he was a bit sloppy in his housekeeping.  As the deadline approaches, Suzy feels the pressure, so she turns to her colleagues for help. Thankfully, her team will pitch in. Stuart, who is an editing whiz, offers to cut the clips together so Suzy can finish the graphics. How do I edit this?The problem is that Stuart wants to edit his section of the video using Final Cut, which he considers to be the best software for editing. Although, in truth, it’s the only editing software he knows. There is nothing wrong with Final Cut—except Suzy set the project up in Premier, which she thinks is the best software for editing.  What software should they use?The boss is losing hair.Meanwhile, Rachel, the director of learning, feels the heat coming out of the multimedia office every time she walks past their door.  But she has no idea what the problem is.The multimedia unit is producing a couple of videos a week, but she’d really like to see more output because a team of five should be able to do more, right?  Some of the videos have been really good—but others were disappointing. Cleary, the productivity isn’t outstanding, nor is the video quality standard consistent. She keeps wondering if she should have just budgeted for a professional video crew.This is real, but it shouldn’t be.Sound familiar?  This type of scenario happens in organizations all around the globe.  While the challenges vary in degree, they usually follow the same pattern. A multimedia team is formed to churn out great content to avoid hiring external vendors, but things go wrong because team members lack the right skills and everyone has a different way of doing the same thing.It doesn’t have to be like this.  I believe learning video is the flipchart of the future.  It promises so many benefits to what we as learning professionals offer   our organizations.  We can’t afford to not do it right.As an industry, we need to professionalize the way learning video is produced in training organizations.  Here are just a few ways to do this.  I’ll elaborate on them more in future posts.We need to learn media grammar, and evolve it for learning applications.  We need to learn media psychology and apply it. We need to learn production skills.  These include technical, editorial, and pedagogical disciplines.  These skills should be part of future train-the-trainer classes. We must broaden the talent base.  Learning video is often championed by one person who acts as gatekeeper to all things visual.  Every trainer needs to learn how to make cheep and cheerful video to enhance their classroom and e-learning solutions.We need a standard for what is acceptable and what is not.  Poorly lit “wobbly” cam is acceptable for only so long.  Now is the time to demand certain standards about how video looks.We need to develop video workflows.  Everyone in your department should follow the same production techniques and housekeeping rules.  If someone is sick, a colleague should be able to jump in quickly.  We need to know when not to use video.  Video is expensive, and it is not ideal for every training situation or topic.  We need to go beyond the “gee this is fun” stage to producing video only when it really achieves a learning outcome linked to the business.What do you think?  What are your experiences with video? Have you found the magic workflow or series of production disciplines for your organization?  Or are you still searching for them?

Professionalize Video

Jonathan Halls is an author, trainer, and coach. He wrote  Rapid Video Development for Trainers  (ASTD Press, 2012) and was a contributing author to Speak More (River Grove Books, 2012) and the ASTD Handbook: The Definitive Reference for Training & Development 2nd Edition (ASTD Press, 2014).  The former BBC learning executive now runs workshops in media, communication, leadership, and creativity. Jonathan has been training, speaking, and coaching for 25 years in more than 20 countries. He describes his work as “at the intersection of media, communication, learning, leadership, and innovation.” Q: You’ve been quoted as saying video is the flipchart of the future. What do you mean by that? JH: Just 25 years ago, train-the-trainer programs taught us how to write on flipcharts: what color pens to use and how to turn the page without distracting the learner. The flipchart was the media we created apart from workbooks and acetates. Today, our media includes video and audio. Already many of us are making videos, and this will only increase. Tomorrow’s trainer will not only be a trainer, but also be a media communicator. Being able to create engaging video, audio, and other media content professionally will be an essential skill in tomorrow’s trainer’s toolkit. Q: What challenges does this present? JH: Probably the biggest challenge is understanding how audio, video, and written text all differ in terms of learner engagement on different platforms. People read the written word very differently on a printed page than they do on a smartphone. We can’t just copy and paste learning from a workbook onto a just-in-time learning piece on a smartphone and expect it to be effective. Likewise, a message needs to be crafted very differently for an audio podcast than it does for a video. Making sure these things are considered is essential to avoiding boring content that fails to achieve the learning objective. This can be tough to learn and put into action. Q: Video is simply about aiming your camera and pressing record, right? JH: No, that’s like saying, “I can write a bestselling novel because I know how to use Microsoft Word.” Good video is about storytelling, pictures, music, effects, and the way they are edited together to efficiently achieve your learning objective. Without these, the camera and record button are nothing but a waste of time. You can’t just wing it if you want meaningful media content. Q: Not winging it and developing proper skills for media production seem to be two of your hobbyhorses. JH: Maybe, but I think it’s justified. I spend a lot of time traveling the country helping trainers and their organizations make video a meaningful part of the learning process. And when I see people winging it, their video quality is so often boring, it takes longer to get to the message and they spend twice or three times as much time creating content than they should. This is easily rectified by learning basic editorial skills and production methods that media professionals follow. Q: Now technology is so cheap, anyone can create video, right? JH: Sure. But not everyone can create good video. We’ve all heard people say, “I’m a good talker, so I’d be a good trainer.” This insults the instructional design skills and facilitation techniques learning professionals take years to develop. A similar attitude exists with video: “Show me the record button and I can make great video.” It takes a lot of skills to make video that people want to watch.Q: So, what sorts of skills do learning professionals need to become media professionals? JH: Learning executives and training managers will need to incorporate into their roles the skills associated with broadcast executives and newspaper editors: commissioning content, production budgeting, how long it should take, and what makes acceptable editorial standards. Trainers will need to incorporate journalism and production skills into their work—everything from interviewing subject matter experts in ways that make the interviews appealing to packaging learning content into short, digestible chunks in audio, video, and animation across multiple platforms. They’ll need to be able to pick up a camera or digital audio recorder at short notice, as well as create production plans. Q: If learning practitioners want to be really forward thinking, what do you suggest? JH: Start thinking about content detached from platforms. This is not new—we’ve been talking about this in the media industry since the turn of the century. But concepts such as 360-degree storytelling and transmedia are really starting to happen. I remember a TV executive on a workshop I ran in 2002 in London saying it would never happen. Today he runs a company doing transmedia. And some European countries are really pushing the boundaries of media. The Witness (Germany) and The Truth About Marika (Sweden) are two fascinating drama examples that offer a lot for learning professionals to reflect on. Q: What is your favorite project to-date? JH: The Daily Telegraph, one of the big broadsheet newspapers in London, made a bold move into the digital world in 2006 by creating the first-ever converged digital newsroom. The project is still quoted as a “sea-change” in the newspaper world. IFRA Newsplex, which did the design and change consultancy, asked my company to design and deliver the training for all their journalists to transition from print to multimedia storytelling. We delivered learning for hundreds of journalists and it was a huge success. I loved how the learning function was so carefully tied into the change process. Learning is often an oversight, but here it was integral. It was also a groundbreaking event in the publishing world, so being part of that was electric. Q: What is your favorite book on media (besides your own of course)? JH: My favorite book is different every month. This month I’m rereading The Filmmakers’ Eye by Gustavo Mercado. I approach video from a cognitive mindset, while he sees it as art. And his perspective is cinematic, while mine is factual online video. These different perspectives stretch my thinking and deepen my understanding. Q: When did you fall in love with being behind the camera? Actually, I never really fell in love with being behind the camera or in front of it. I think by virtue of my book on rapid video and having previously run the BBC’s television training department, people immediately associate me with video. However, I see myself as a media generalist. I have worked across audio, video, and written content both in the traditional media world (radio, TV, and newspapers) and digital media (web and multiple platforms). What drives me most of all is how we use media of any form to transform people’s thinking.