The Partnership for Worker Education offers five workplace English classes for campus employees. We have also offered classes for international graduate students. All classes aim to improve students’ communication skills in speaking, listening to, reading, and writing English. Classes are small, enabling teachers to design lessons to meet learners’ and workplaces’ needs and goals. Respect for all cultures is emphasized.
For employees, predominantly custodial and dining service staff, our beginning classes focus on increasing workplace vocabulary, following work instructions, understanding work safety issues, and introducing basic grammar. In the more advanced classes, we emphasize increasing fluency in communication at home and at work, improving sentence construction and grammar, and understanding English at its natural pace. As well, all classes have tutorial support and provide extensive conversational practice, centering on workplace communication and understanding U.S. culture.
For international graduate students, our classes have focused on improving reading, writing, speaking, and listening to English. Classes have been small, providing students an opportunity to share experiences and challenges acclimating to the U.S. Students practice pronunciation extensively as well as work on improving academic writing and presentation skills. Conversations focused on understanding U.S. culture, on campus and more broadly.
Our range of workplace English course offerings
- Beginning Workplace English
- Intermediate Workplace English
- Workplace English for International Graduate Employees
- HiSet for English Learners
Questions? Please contact Midori Tabery, Outreach Coordinator and Workplace English Instructor (mtabery@umass.edu)
