Workforce training aims to prepare adult learners for family-sustaining employment through a structured plan of study that concludes with skills and/or credentials needed to obtain employment in a specific and often in-demand industry. The resources in this section offer guidance for program development and strategies for instruction, specifically in reference to supporting workforce preparation and designing occupational training for immigrants and English learners. Additionally, career exploration activities that are useful in helping learners identify occupational training areas of interest may have relevance in occupational training instruction.
Research
Situation Analysis: Immigration and the Future of the Workforce
This white paper highlights the importance of immigrants and refugees to the nation’s economy and prosperity and makes the business case for investing in this essential workforce by ensuring they become proficient in English. States can use this information to build interest and investment in IET.
Research
Business-Adult Education Partnerships Toolkit: Resources
OCTAE’s resource collection on adult education/employer partnerships is archived on LINCS. It includes research, policy, and resources to support career pathways and workplace adult education and literacy strategies. States can use these resources to support their employer engagement efforts.
Informational Material, 2024
Adult Education and Workforce Development System: Partnering to Improve Services
Adult education is the component of the workforce development system that serves the most multilingual learners. Innovative partnerships within the workforce development system also help improve services for adult learners including multilingual learners.
Instructional Material, 2022
Skills for the Nursing Assistant
This nursing assistant course includes lessons on effective communication, nonverbal communication, communication barriers, and communication strategies from USA Learns’ library of online courses for adult ESOL designed by the Sacramento County Office of Education. Instructors can use these materials in remote, hybrid, and blended IET programs and encourage their use as self-study materials.
Digital skills are needed for obtaining and retaining employment in today’s workforce, and without them, immigrants and English learners may miss out on the opportunity to enter jobs that provide family-sustaining wages. For this reason, building workforce digital competencies is an important aim of workforce preparation activities. This section’s resources focus on how workforce digital competencies can promote immigrants’ economic integration.
Research, 2020
Digital Equity for an Inclusive Economic Recovery
This resource provides data on digital skills needed in key sectors: manufacturing, retail and hospitality; health and social work; and construction, transportation & storage. States can use this research to guide policy development.
Research/Informational Material, 2019
Foundational Digital Skills for Career Progress
This brief synthesizes research on the rising demand for foundational digital skills and how many adults and out-of-school youth have these skills. Programs can use this resource to guide programming and curriculum development.
Informational Material
Competency Model Clearinghouse
This resource lists skills necessary for careers in various industries and outlines technology applications and skills for industries. Instructors can use this resource to develop aspects of instruction contextualized for workplace digital competencies.
A network of partners may deliver these services to adult English learners, including internationally-trained professionals.