There is quite a lot of cross-pollination between the workplace literacy world and the world of regular language teaching. A small example of the way our work in the literacy world has enhanced what we do in the regular language school is with spelling.
Spelling is important in the workplace and while everyone makes the odd mistake and often it does not affect meaning, poor spelling reduces the professionalism of the text and creates a very poor impression on the reader. Especially when there are multiple errors or lots of texting language. On top of that, not being able to spell fluently is a real barrier when it comes to writing quickly, and poor spellers will use all sorts of avoidance strategies when it comes to writing words they cannot spell. While many language learners have much bigger issues to worry about when spelling, for some international student groups, E.g. learners who speak languages with a different script or those who are working towards a proficiency test like IELTS, spelling is a real barrier to their progress too.
Here’s a worksheet we have developed for use in our Learning Centre which is based on a simple programme we have been using with some of our literacy learners. It introduces some useful web resources, sets goals, has some tips and a grid for measuring progress. Feel free to use it in your workplace or share.