Transcript
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Welcome, everyone, to today’s webinar on Leveraging English Instruction for Workforce Pipelines.
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I’m super excited to speak to you all today, but I want to give everyone about 30 more seconds to get into the webinar, and then I’ll get started.
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Okay, I know we only have 30 minutes, so I want to get started. Welcome, my name’s Katie Brown.
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And I’m the founder and chief education officer of an organization called NGEN, um, and I have a PhD in second language acquisition, and I’ve spent the last nearly 30 years
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working on upskilling language learners with workforce-focused skills so that they can access career mobility.
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I’ve been lucky enough to do a 30 Minutes of Excellence presentation with Not Up in the past.
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And today’s talk is going to be a little bit different, because what I want to share with you all are some really practical strategies that workforce organizations
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are using across the country.
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to help their multilingual workforce get access to the English skills that they need for jobs with the potential for economic mobility.
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I mentioned in the chat that my colleague is here on the call with us and can answer questions as we’re going, and I will also save a little time to answer questions at the end.
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We know that everyone across the country is really focused on resolving staffing gaps. Employers are facing persistent staffing problems despite low unemployment,
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And some states have as few as 38 workers available for every 100 open jobs.
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70% of employers are reporting skills gaps within their organizations.
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The skills that we need today are things like technology skills, project management skills, data analysis skills,
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And probably most important, I’m at a conference this week, a workforce conference this week, and I was at one two weeks ago, are the types of transferable skills, like critical thinking and problem solving, that we all need to use as we’re undergoing this
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huge shift in how we do work, given artificial intelligence.
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One-third of employers say that the skills gap that they see has limited innovation.
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Uh-oh. What’s happening to this?
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Here we go.
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Um, 1 in 10 working-age adults
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is an English learner, and the U.S. meets the needs of just 4% of our workforce.
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So, with the backdrop of needing to increase our talent pools and talent pipelines,
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Needing to upskill for innovation, we also have
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big populations of multilingual learners who are unable to access the English skills they need to participate in the labor market fully. One of the reasons for this is that traditional ESL programs aren’t always meeting the needs of working adults.
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They rely on outdated and ineffective curricula. They’re not focused on the English skills people need for jobs.
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There are significant barriers to participation. They’re often taught
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during the workday, they require people attend a series of in-person classes, there are shortages of providers.
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But the most important issue, especially for this presentation, is that ESL is often siloed from workforce development programs.
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So, our English as a second language learners aren’t getting the language skills that they really need. Learning a language is learning a skill, it’s not studying a content area, so we need to approach it differently.
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We know what works best for English upskilling is contextualized learning.
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And I think all of you probably know what contextualized learning is, but just to make it clear, it’s an approach to learning based on the idea that you’re going to organize all of your instruction around
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the real-world application of knowledge. This is going to free up
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cognitive resources, and it also promotes learning by doing. Adults learn things best when they are contextually relevant, and when they can see right away how they use them.
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So imagine an upskilling program that provides people with the English skills they need
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To become certified as commercial drivers, to become certified nursing assistants, to become solar panel installers, or to become experts in project management.
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You’re going to need to have different English skills for each of those career pathways.
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And we know what works best is to start with the career pathway language that you need. We are seeing this drive bottom line outcomes across the country,
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and across industries.
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English for hospitality, English for skilled trades, English for cybersecurity, Community Health Workers, HVAC installers.
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We see tens of thousands of workers get the English skills they need for specific career pathways,
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In every state across the country.
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So how do we do this? Well, the building blocks for success for a program like this are pretty straightforward.
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We need someone who cares, we need the appropriate content that will give people the literacy skills in a vocational area or in a domain of expertise.
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We need a clear career pathway, and we need learner agency. What does that mean? It means the learners we’re serving need to be part of the process to give them the contextualized
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vocational language skills they need for career pathways.
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So I want to dig into how this is working in a few different places.
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For example, in Maine, we have an ecosystem approach to upskilling, and you can see in my diagram here, we have the main chamber of Commerce and local employers.
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We have the Maine Department of Education and the Maine Department of Labor, and then we have local CBOs, nonprofits, and workforce development organizations
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all working together to work on upskilling the multilingual workforce for in-demand jobs. So, how does that work? Here’s one example.
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with CNA Apprenticeship pathways. The first step is an English plus Digital Literacy on-ramp.
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We have participants from 50 different countries speaking 40 different languages. They’re getting personalized, competency-based English and digital literacy development,
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With wraparound support, flexible scheduling, all of the barriers that we know exist,
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to help people get into the workforce have been removed.
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They get into a pre-apprenticeship pathway with stacked credentials, and the stacking of these credentials is also super important, so they have something they can take with them
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beyond the getting a credential in blood-borne pathogens, becoming a personal support specialist, and becoming… leading up to a certified nursing assistant.
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Which means they can exit at any level of the program and still qualify for employment.
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Then they move into apprenticeship employment as certified nursing assistants. It’s a one-year paid apprenticeship,
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with structured on-the-job programming. Right now, so far, we have 6 employer partners, a 100% retention rate of the place graduates,
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And we’re expanding to other sectors. So this model works, and it works because it addresses all of the issues that I explained earlier in the presentation. And again, this is being recorded, and I’m happy to share
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These slides with anyone afterwards. This is some feedback from this apprenticeship program. I’m not going to read all of these to you, but I’ll just read you a couple.
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Uh, certified pre-apprenticeship programs are opening doors for multilingual learners in Maine. That’s coming from the Maine Department of Labor.
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I am confident to talk with everybody because I can understand and communicate well. I passed the CNA English test. We’re hearing from all of the stakeholders in this ecosystem,
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From an employer, from the Department of Labor, from the participants, that a program like this is unlocking opportunity.
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So let’s talk about another partnership. This one is with FedCap.
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And what I love about this partnership and why it’s particularly applicable to workforce development organizations is they’re connecting TANF recipients with English skills to succeed in today’s workforce.
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So this is ensuring equitable access to career pathways for the multilingual workforce.
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Creating on-ramps to jobs in healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, green energy, and more.
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And those fields will come as no surprise, because they are in-demand fields where we know there is opportunity. What we’re doing is integrating English instruction into the existing job training and support programs.
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So, access to the… and this is an excellent quote here from the Senior Director of Education and Training at FedCap Maine.
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Access to career pathways begins with the right foundation, and English is a critical part of that.
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What we’re doing is giving people the English skills that they need to succeed in the training, and also after the training.
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So how does this work? I have 6 steps.
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So first, we identify and enroll eligible participants and screen for English proficiency
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referring the TANF recipients into our NGEN program, which is personalized competency-Based Delivered Digitally. Then we’re delivering career-aligned instruction. So participants are accessing English content that’s personalized for job training in healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing.
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Again, we are giving them English skills that are focused on existing career training programs.
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Serving as an on-ramp to those training programs and removing the friction you see at transitions. This is fully integrated into their workforce services.
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It’s embedded into the training, coaching, or case management models that are being used
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So that people are getting English as part of the career coaching.
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we’re… part of this whole program is making sure that the staff supporting the learners
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is trained in how to work with the multilingual workforce, how to help people access programs like this.
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We’re able to track learners’ performance with real-time data, understanding when learners’ proficiency is improving, when they’re finishing
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courses that are aligned to the workforce training programs that they’re moving into, and then
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because we’re able to show these outcomes, organizations can use sustainable funding models.
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TANF and braiding and WIOA, SNAP E&T, and other workforce funds to cover the implementation, because you’re able to show that you’re taking a population of
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Job seekers who have a clear barrier, English proficiency, and get them the English proficiency they need to participate in existing workforce programs.
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Here’s another clear example of how this works. This example comes from Lake County, Illinois.
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Working with the Lake County Workforce Development Board.
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What we did in Lake County was expanded digital learning through countywide licenses.
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There’s free access for nonprofits and adult education programs. The whole goal here was to improve English integrated with career skills for local job seekers.
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Again, multilingual learner success coaching and goal setting strengthened talent pipelines for local employers, and here are some outcomes from Lake County.
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92% of these Lake County learners report improved confidence. 92% improved their digital skills. What we often hear when we talk about
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technology-mediated programs for English language learners is that digital skills are an issue.
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How are you going to help these learners when they don’t have access to computers, when they don’t have the technology skills?
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What we’re doing is integrating those technology skills with the English upskilling focused on workforce outcomes,
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So that you’re able to tackle everything all at once.
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85% of these learners save time at work.
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75% are better able to navigate life, and 15% report starting a job, training, or education program. And here’s some quotes from these Lake County learners themselves.
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I’ve started to learn software methodologies from IT expert systems through the Lake County Job Fair. I’m able to understand daily life interactions. Now I’m much more comfortable, and I don’t freeze up during conversations.
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So, this is another example of how a workforce development organization can
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create opportunity within their existing infrastructure by having English acquisition focused on the workforce as an on-ramp.
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We have institutions across the country that are leveraging English upskilling in a way that makes sense for what they’re already doing, and I think that piece
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is really important to point out.
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You all are the experts in your own workforce ecosystem. You know what jobs are open, what industry-recognized credentials will lead to access to in-demand jobs.
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And what career pathways are open to the incumbent workers you’re serving, or the job seekers that you’re serving?
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So figuring out how you can add support for multilingual learners to the
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ecosystem and job placement infrastructure that’s already working is the thing that will make this work the best.
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It’s why we have so many different models that work in so many different places. Everyone is already doing the hard work of helping job seekers and incumbent workers with the skills they need
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For jobs with access to family-sustaining wages, and what this is doing is creating that opportunity for English language learners. So, one example here is Emily Griffith Technical College.
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Where they have boot camp-style programs, and learners can be in a vocational transition program, they can work on their own on the English skills they need for specific
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industry-recognized credential programs, and as soon as they reach the level of English necessary, they can transition into those programs.
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Um, Austin Community College has a wonderful program for internationally trained professionals.
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I’m not sure if everyone on the call knows, but there are 2 million adults in the United States
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who are unemployed or underemployed, because they have a credential, at least a bachelor’s degree or higher, from another country.
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And they can’t use it here. And so a program that is focused on helping people who have skills and degrees from other countries figure out how to fit into the workforce training
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pipelines in their local community is super valuable, and that’s what’s going on at Austin Community College.
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Uh, Lewiston Adult Education connects learners with career-aligned English and short-term credentials to succeed as CNA apprentices.
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And then the Miami-Dade College example is offering learners across the campus English upskilling that’s tailored to their own goals.
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And what all of these programs have in common is that they all are including English upskilling
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focused on workforce outcomes that make sense for their own context. Because one size is not fits all here, it really needs to be specific to your own geography, workforce development ecosystem, and truly to the in-demand roles in your community.
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We can support that with on-ramps for dozens and dozens of credential programs. I put a few up here.
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English for Early Childhood Education that can lead to, um, child development associate credentials.
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Preparation courses for foreign-trained nurses who need to be able to pass the NCLEX, and we’re passing the NCLEX is a barrier to employment.
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The English skills you need to become a commercial driver. These are all very different. You can imagine that what you learn in an NCLEX prep program is
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totally different from what you’re learning in a commercial driver’s license prep program. And so you can treat learners with diverse career goals using the same platform with different content.
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I wanted to share a little bit about our 2025 Workforce Report, because our outcomes speak for themselves.
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Everything we do is centered on measuring the impact of English upskilling, and like I said, this is taking place in hundreds of different implementations all across the country. This was the fifth year that we
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did this multilingual survey. Nearly 40,000 learners were invited to complete the survey. 6,000 of them, more than 6,000 responded.
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And what is interesting is that about 67% of the respondents
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are accessing English Upskilling through their employers. So we are serving tens of thousands of learners who are accessing English as a benefit
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through their employers. 33% are accessing English upskilling through an adult ed provider, a nonprofit organization, or a state government initiative.
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Those are for… generally for people who are job-seeking, working, um, with some sort of local adult education provider, or workforce training organization.
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84% of the learners that we served said that they would remain with their current company because English was offered as an educational benefit.
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These are the ones who are accessing this as a benefit through their employer. And 86% said they’d refer someone to their company for the same reason.
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This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. I said at the outset of this presentation that we are meeting the needs of 4% of our adult English learners,
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Most of them don’t have access to the type of English training that will lead to jobs, so when they can get that training through an employer, they are quick to recommend that employer to their friends.
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Almost 80% reached a career goal, like a pay raise or a promotion, as a result of English upskilling, and we have data, like I said, from over 6,000 learners last year alone.
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This is driving confidence, communication, and customer experience. 94% of the learners we serve said they felt more confident using English at work and beyond.
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93% save time at work, and 88% improved their proficiency. They’re able to
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Not just do their jobs, but do their jobs better and be included in the workplace and part of their communities.
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It mitigates critical skills gaps. We talked about skills gaps at the beginning of the presentation. 90% of the workers that we served, the learners, this is all of them, report that their digital skills improved as a result of English upskilling.
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And 92% improved their job skills. It makes a lot of sense. When you focus on integrated skills,
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English that you need for work, English that you need for technology, you’re able to accomplish all of those things at once.
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This supports a culture of learning and development. 75% of workers agree that an on-demand competency approach
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to language skills is better than traditional classroom-based learning, and it’s because there are so many barriers to adults actually participating in those traditional models.
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And finally, 83% of our learners achieved a social goal, like community engagement, helping their family, they can navigate their lives better. We hear from individual learners that they’re able to go to the doctor without needing a translator. They’re able to understand what comes home in their kids’ backpacks, they’re able to participate in their communities.
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The truth is that the multilingual workforce is an untapped superpower of potential, because they all already speak
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Dozens of languages, when we can help them get the English skills that they need to get jobs where they are delivering customer service, delivering healthcare, delivering education, it makes all of our communities stronger.
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And the investment is something that pays for itself rapidly. So, this was looking at
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multiple state and local government programs that invested in English upskilling.
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When you look at giving people access to the English skills they need to get better jobs, they’re able to access higher-paying jobs, and they’re able to have more discretionary spending,
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It creates jobs, and it offers tax revenues. So for every dollar… every
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dollar that’s invested in English upskilling, local economies are seeing $6 back.
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This isn’t an expense, it’s an investment. We see the same thing when employers do this.
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When they invest in incumbent worker training programs that help give English skills to their multilingual workers,
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They’re able to retain those workers at a higher rate, they’re able to move them into open roles, and they’re able to open up new roles for frontline workers who will then benefit from training.
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So, this is a comprehensive workforce development strategy that can serve employers, can serve learners, and can be paid for, as you saw in the presentation, with a combination of
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education dollars, adult education dollars, and money from employers who are investing in education, training, and upskilling.
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This is what I had prepared for my presentation, and I was really hoping that I’d be able to answer some questions from the crowd. So if anyone has any questions, please, please put them in the chat, and I will answer them about any of this, and I’m happy to go back
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to any of the slides. I think we have
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We have about 70 people on the call, so hopefully someone has a question.
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If we don’t get questions, I’ll just start answering the questions I always get.
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How do your services work? Do you sell the courses, step in as a consultant? So,
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We do, we, I mean, what we do is we offer access to our platform that includes access to all of the
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personalized English upskilling, as well as all of the wraparound services that go with it. So, helping figure out what model works best for you, helping to figure out how your learners should be accessing this, how to work within the organizations that you’re already serving.
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Is this available to individuals as well as programs institutions? So, we typically work with institutions and programs to make access to the platform available to learners, either through incumbent worker training programs, through education as a benefit program, or through workforce development programs that come through adult education,
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or Department of Labor funding to a state or a county or a local government.
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One question I get asked all the time
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is, uh, what about…
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creating, you know, like, we have… we have so many Spanish speakers in our community. Um, shouldn’t we be teaching them this content in Spanish? Do you have a program that will help people get a CDL that’s taught in Spanish, or get a CNA certification that’s taught in Spanish, or taught in another language?
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And the answer to that is that while, um, it’s helpful if you can help people learn things in whatever language they feel comfortable in, the truth is that to get a job in the United States and to be able to be included in your workplace, you need to be able to speak English.
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And so if we can incorporate English upskilling with workforce development, we can help people truly be included in their communities.
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A couple of more questions here. One of them is, what distinguishes nGen from a product like Burlington English?
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So, Engine is designed specifically for English as a workforce skill, for one. So, instead of teaching English in a traditional
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language-focused way. We start with real workforce training programs and work backwards.
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So learners are getting the language skills they need to succeed in
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industry-recognized credential programs, really any real-world task you can imagine, and our platform is completely
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adaptive and personalized and built based on decades of research on how to use technology to support language learning.
00:25:06.000 –> 00:25:18.000
And we measure every single thing that we do. So we are constantly innovating and iterating on the content model, the delivery model, and the personalized instruction to maximize learner proficiency gains.
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Our learners start with a proficiency assessment, we measure their proficiency in an ongoing way, and we personalize the learning to their needs.
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Burlington English is designed to be used with teachers in classrooms. Engine is designed to meet learners wherever they are, with whoever is facilitating their learning, whether it is an adult education provider, or it’s a community,
00:25:38.000 –> 00:25:50.000
Um, whether it’s a case manager, whether it is their employer. And so we are really flexible approach to delivering learning that is targeted to learners’ needs.
00:25:50.000 –> 00:25:56.000
Uh, the next question is, does the… do the ESL classes and curriculum qualify for incumbent worker training dollars?
00:25:56.000 –> 00:26:02.000
Um, I think it depends on how your incumbent worker training dollars are being used.
00:26:02.000 –> 00:26:14.000
Um, but yes, we are used with incumbent worker training dollars, depending upon the program, and I’ll put my contact information up here, and my colleague Tad’s contact information up here, and you should definitely reach out to us.
00:26:14.000 –> 00:26:25.000
If you have specific questions, so we can figure out a way to work within whatever framework you’re working in. Because yes, we do work alongside and in conjunction with existing programs, like WIOA.
00:26:25.000 –> 00:26:33.000
Um, what type of project management training do we provide? So we can provide implementation, training, and support
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for anybody managing an English upskilling program for the multilingual workforce, and if you need… if what you’re talking about is project management specifically for
00:26:42.000 –> 00:26:57.000
English learners, we also offer that. Uh, what is the range of literacy levels required for courses across curricula on the platform? Yes, it includes the lowest ESL literacy levels. We can work with learners who have
00:26:57.000 –> 00:27:02.000
zero literacy in English, and actually who are… have very low levels of digital literacy.
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The truth is that those learners require more wraparound services, so we can also work with your organization to understand what services are available for your learners to make sure that our platform integrates with those services.
00:27:15.000 –> 00:27:27.000
Um, the requirements for partnership are… we would talk to you to figure out what you needed, and then figure out how we could help support you, but we have very flexible models that work with
00:27:27.000 –> 00:27:29.000
partners across the country.
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I’m so excited that we had all these questions. It’s my favorite thing to do, is answer them.
00:27:33.000 –> 00:27:48.000
Are there any more? I think we have a couple minutes left. I’m happy to answer more questions live. I’m happy to let you all have 2 minutes back in the rest of your day. Um, if anybody wants to get in touch, you have my email address here, you have my colleague Tad’s email address here.
00:27:48.000 –> 00:27:59.000
I have been doing this work for about 30 years, and the most important thing to me is that we can rapidly help English learners get the language skills that they need to accomplish their own goals.
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Because the more efficient we are about equipping the multilingual workforce with English skills,
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the better able we are to incorporate them into our communities and fill critical open roles.
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across the workforce ecosystem.
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Thank you all for your time and for your attention. Um, how can you share the slides? I have no idea how I can share the slides, but I’m pretty sure Nadip will help me share the slides. So if you registered for this, we have your name on a registration list,
00:28:26.000 –> 00:28:36.000
And I think we send out the recording, and I’m happy to send out a link to the slides as well. And if you don’t get them, then you can send me a note, and we will figure this out.
00:28:36.000 –> 00:28:43.000
Thanks, everyone, and have a great rest of your day.
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Thank you.
