The mission and delivery
LAL’s clients MPI and FTI are both major players in the tourism industry with whom we collaborated to provide industry specific training that would realise the clear objectives of their training needs as identified by their HR and training departments. Our main objective was to improve the level of spoken English of all staff with a primary focus on developing fluency and accuracy that would enhance their ability to communicate, particularly in client-facing roles. These roles included various positions from call centre workers to travel agents and facility managers. In order to ensure that we met our objectives, we level tested prospective students, undertook a needs analysis for each trainee and designed specific courses to meet their individual needs.
The outcomes
All students reported much improved confidence and demonstrated qualitatively enhanced aptitudes upon returning to work. The key to this increased confidence was the variety of opportunities for language development that the students were exposed to. These specific courses were designed to incorporate large amounts of practical vocabulary together with functional phraseology which they were able to apply immediately to their working roles. Not only were our lessons designed specifically to teach new, relevant language, they were also constructed to build upon the foundations that students already had, teaching them how to put everything they already knew into practice in authentic situations in a way that was fluent and natural. This was very important because most of the students already had some knowledge of English, and with our guidance and support they developed the ability to transfer their theoretical knowledge into practice in the real world.
In addition to having the opportunity to learn in the classroom, students also developed useful communicative skills applying the language they were learning in class to real world experiences outside of the classroom. All of our students obtained experience, confidence and a higher level of English to enable them to work and communicate better with their clients.