Helping Newly Arrived People Communicate Efficiently in Occupational and Social Settings

Languages covered

• English
• Danish
• Irish
• Czech
• Portuguese

The WeR1 project is a transnational strategic partnership, funded by the European Commission, which aims to produce materials and guidance for professionals involved in educating and integrating newly arrived people.

In the past few years, millions of people have left their home countries in an attempt to find work, better opportunities in life, and to escape war and atrocities committed near and around their homes. People from all social classes ventured across water and land in the search for a new start or refuge. Europe was no exception.

The large influx of newly arrived people has been a challenge for many countries, some established strategies and integration programmes to better assist the integration of newcomers, but there is more to integration than providing people with food, water, and shelter. Financial independence, intercultural competences, and life skills, alongside language skills, are key to successful integration. In most cases, this relies on the individual mastering a functional language, which can be used to interact successfully with people in the host society and a potential workplace.

The produced materials in the WeR1 project focus on assisting educators in motivating newly arrived people to learn the host language by presenting them to themes with direct relevance to their lives and realities.

WeR1 wants to help newly arrived people to:

• Enter the labour market as quickly as possible
• Interact and communicate with inhabitants in the host society
• Overcome challenges created by different underlying values and assumptions
• Develop resilience and self-efficacy

Access to teaching resources

Find inspirational lesson plans for migrants and refugees

• Construction industry
• Hotel and Restaurant sector
• Auto Industry
• Workplace culture
• Life skills

Find resources for professional development for language teachers

Making Language Teaching Engaging and Relevant for Adult Migrant Learners

Based on the idea that language teaching and integration efforts go hand in hand, the WeR1 Handbook introduces language instructors to the theoretical cornerstones of the WeR1 approach, providing them with the knowledge needed to put theories into practice. The content of the Handbook is directly linked to the tools and materials available on the WeR1 learning platform.

• Introduce how the CLIL and TBL methods can be used in vocationally oriented language teaching situations
• Present different approaches to dealing with culture shock and acquisition of intercultural competences
• Introduce how to further develop self-efficacy, based on positive psychology
• Assist educators in creating their own WeR1 lesson plans
• Introduce how to increase learner motivation