ESL for Hispanic construction workers

[whitlock]

I'm charged with making a 12 day, 2 hour a day ESL class for Hispanic construction workers in Louisiana. Any suggestions on the best way to order the class to cover both work vocab and everyday verb use, etc?
Thanks!

[Tdol]

What level are they? Can you meet them first? Often, people know the specialist vocabulary, so it's worth checking what they do know before teaching them.

[whitlock]

There are MANY workers here, all at completely different levels. I think I'll have the workers who feel they have pretty weak English skills. They use the English terms for Iron worker, scaffold, beams, pins, and all that stuff, but they've said they don't feel they know enough "work words." I might even catch an American iron worker and ask what they say all day. I'm not sure how to handle it.

[Tdol]

It sounds as if they know the work words, but the problem may well be formulating the pahrases and questions they have to use. Speaking to a native worker would be a good idea to finf out what they are exepcted to do with beams, etc. It might be a problem of 'grab that beam and drop it off over there, then help me with the scaffolding' sounds like 'yadda yadda beam, yadda yadda yadda scaffolding'. If you can find out the tasks required, that could be very useful, including t6he words actually used, like grab might be used instead of take.

[whitlock]

Thanks for your advice. I've asked my boss to set up a meeting with an ironworker and scaffolder to see if they can think of the sort of phrases they use all day. Easier said than done, though!