Creating Authentic Language Course Materials in Vocational and Professional Education

Description

Teaching languages in vocational and professional education often comes with unique challenges.

Unlike general education, there are rarely ready-made and target-specific textbooks that fully address the specific contexts of trades, professions, or adult learners.

As a result, language teachers in this field usually need to adapt existing materials or design their own resources to meet their learners’ needs.

Even if this can be a time-consuming activity, it can also represent an opportunity to create relevant materials to achieve the learning outcomes.

This course is designed for language teachers who want to improve their ability to create authentic materials specifically targeted at vocational and adult professional learners.

It will offer clear guidelines for designing and adapting manuals, worksheets, and activities that can respond to the real communication needs of students.

Participants will be introduced to the principles of instructional design and will learn how to use the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to ensure that materials are inclusive, flexible, and accessible for diverse groups of learners.

Also, during the course, participants will experiment with different types of texts, tasks, and formats.

For example, special attention will be placed on the creation of scenario-based audio and video materials, with the support of ICT and AI tools.

Given the practical nature of this course, participants will work both individually and collaboratively on developing authentic and personalized materials, receiving at the same time constant feedback from their peers, sharing materials, and refining their outputs and strategies.

By the end of the course, participants will have gained the confidence and skills to design, adapt, and deliver authentic vocational language materials that directly support learners’ professional growth and communication needs.

Concept by Erika Blašković

Learning outcomes

The course will help participants to:

• Apply instructional design principles to plan and develop authentic language learning materials;
• Create texts and tasks tailored to vocational and profession-specific contexts;
• Adapt and level materials appropriately for learners ranging from beginner to advanced levels;
• Produce and integrate audio and video resources that simulate authentic workplace communication;
• Choose suitable formats and platforms for publishing and delivering materials effectively.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to the course

• Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
• Icebreaker activities;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools;
• Identifying the essential components of a manual or coursebook for vocational/professional language teaching;
• Introduction to the basic principles of instructional design.

Day 2 – Structuring materials

• Fundamentals of language content representation;
• Tools for creating and structuring books and course materials;
• Workshop: first steps in material development: drafting a course outline.

Day 3 – Developing text content

• Key rules and principles for text representation and adaptation;
• Adjusting texts to suit different language proficiency levels;
• Workshop: creating and adapting texts with digital tools.

Day 4 – Multimedia formats and integration

• Basic rules for creating and using audio and video in teaching materials;
• Workshop: creating simple audio and video resources and embedding them into manuals;
• Practical activity: using tools for multimedia development in vocational contexts.

Day 5 – Delivering the final product

• Exploring publishing options for different material formats;
• Standard formats for delivering materials in schools and vocational training;
• Understanding the basics of intellectual property rights and copyright in educational publishing;
• Group discussion: sharing and presenting participants’ draft materials.

Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities

• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
• Excursion and other external cultural activities.

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