Dora Mirta Troitiño Díaz is a teacher of ESP at the School of Energy and Mining. She is interested in topics related to distance education and how to teach English online, specifically English for Specific Purposes. She has written articles related to Moodle and the teaching of English as well as professional improvement in the postgraduate education. I enjoy working with students from different ages.

Email: dorita@eem.minem.cu

 

Introduction

Training constitutes one of the organizational forms of professional improvement. Nowadays it is not so used in Cuba for the preparation of professional in their work post. This article will give some important point for the applying and carrying this postgraduate organizational form.

 

Some definitions of training

In the Pedagogy 2017 material Collaborative postgraduate teaching tasks: learning more to advance, it is stated that [1] :

The training is aimed at updating, perfecting, systematizing and consolidating skills and practical knowledge with a high level of independence for professional performance or its reorientation, as well as for the use of new procedures and technologies. It is carried out in settings conducive to research, development, innovation, artistic creation, specialized performance or others related to professional activity, under the guidance and monitoring of the tutor. The training contributes to the enrichment of the performance culture and the personality of the professionals [2].

The author Amaro describes training: "process by which the company encourages the worker to increase their knowledge, abilities and skills to increase efficiency in the execution of tasks and thus contribute to their own well-being and that of the institutionʺ    [3].

This definition of training highlights the opportunity provided to the individual to acquire and / or develop knowledge, abilities, skills and improve attitudes towards work, in order to achieve efficient performance in their job. produces in this form of postgraduate is guided or directed to achieve knowledge, skills, professional modes of behavior, according to this author.

For its part, Chiavenato (2015) defines training as: “a short-term educational process applied in a systematic and organized way, through which people learn knowledge, aptitudes and abilities based on defined objectives” [4].

Likewise, this author considers that training constitutes the intentional act of providing the means to make learning experiences possible in a positive and beneficial sense, completing them and reinforcing them with a planned activity so that individuals at all levels of the company can more quickly develop their knowledge and those skills and abilities that will benefit both them and the company itself. This is how the training covers a programmed sequence of events, being able to be visualized, as a whole, as a process.

Bernaza states that training:

 (…) is the pedagogical process focused more on the exercise - in real conditions or very close to them - of processes such as research, specialized professional performance, innovation, artistic creation, as well as in the exercise of other processes closely related to the activity Specific work under the guidance of a tutor, generally a professional with proven high performance in production processes and services [5].

The author of this research, after having reviewed different definitions in relation to training, assumes that of the author Bernaza. It reflects how this organizational form, through various processes that are related to the work activity of the graduate student, allow them to update, perfect and deepen their knowledge and skills in a scenario that is as real as possible. In this case, the scenario is the company, which may be the refinery, the research center, or the oil exploration-production company. The training materials are designed specifically for the graduate student's work area which makes it more effective, taking into account the needs of the participants. By developing in the job position from the economic point of view is more profitable, the student does not have to travel to school, geographically far. He is not absent from his job, favoring his attendance and developing tasks that will have a positive impact on a better performance of his work.

This particularity of the training also justifies its selection, as it is aimed at specialists who, due to their professional responsibility in their field of action, find it difficult to be absent from their position. As it develops during the working day, it is experienced as inherent in the tasks of their profession and a more favorable psychological climate is created towards learning, since they feel more confident to express the anguish and fears in relation to the ignorance of a specific performance task. When it is taught after working hours, it means that after 8 hours of work, the student must continue in this case studying what negatively affects their performance, since they are exhausted.

 

Some international experiences

International experiences also recognize the value of training as an organizational form of postgraduate studies. The Higher School of Business Administration and Management (ESADE) of Spain develops training in English, what it calls In-Company training. In his website propaganda he states that the classes are highly participatory and are aimed at a rapid and effective progress of his employees. They will be able to apply what they have learned in class from the first day on their job. This In-Company training can take place in the company or at the school's own headquarters. They continuously monitor the evolution of the employees and write detailed reports at the end of the course, both for the company and for the student. The school makes linguistic advisers available to companies, who in collaboration with its human resources department specify the learning needs that allow them to achieve the objectives quickly and effectively [6].

Another center that provides these trainings is the British Training Center (BLTC). It has offices in the Republic of Moldova and in Amsterdam. Likewise, they assign an advisor to go to the company that requests the training to define the learning needs before developing the training program. It can take place in the company or in the school. They develop tailored materials, according to the field of English in which the training will take place: financial, law, etc. They carry out, as in Spain, the follow-up of the employee once the In-Company training begins their work [7].

 

Some training characteristics

Training also uses teamwork as an exercise. When students from the same industry, but from different areas and positions, for example directors, supervisors, heads of areas, etc. They are interacting on the same stage and they come to a better understanding of the work of their colleagues. Experiences are exchanged and generated that have a direct impact on their job, but at the same time on the organization in a global way.

In the development of activities, performance teaching tasks where communication is vital is privileged, and English in this case constitutes a requirement for their professional performance.

In the activity that takes place in the training, the orientation is directed to the specifics of their professional actions. As from the academic point of view, the students already have an intermediate or B1 level of the language, that is, this is not the scenario to teach the verb be or how to formulate sentences or questions in the language, it is time to update and refine in vocabulary term more specific to the language, for example when the fractionation column is studied in the topic of Refining, the specialist knows perfectly the processes that occur in it and explains them even better than the tutor teacher, of course in the mother tongue . It is his job to teach him all that specific technical vocabulary to be able to explain in English how the refining processes are carried out in it and the products obtained so that the foreign visitor goes to the refinery and the student can describe its operation without help from the translator. The moments of execution and control are characterized by freedom in their performance based on their experiences and professional experiences and the teacher-tutor supports and corrects in cases where the error interferes in professional communication. The development of these two moments is foreseen in the different jobs in the oil and gas industry linked to the subject under study, after coordination.

Students arrive with a set of knowledge and skills that are used to continue deepening and refining them, activities are designed so that in each of the skills the four components of communicative competence are integrated.

 

Designing the training program

Regarding the specific design of the training program, it is agreed with Bernaza who states that of the steps outlined in the postgraduate training section of this chapter, it should be emphasized [8]:

• Diagnosis of needs to overcome a certain work activity
• Determination of objective, content, methodology (learning activities, their orientation and control, the use of the media, in this case the conditions of the job are specified)
• Determination of the systematic and final learning assessment
• Bibliography selection
• Number of credits
• Modality and duration
• Determination of possible impacts [9].

 In this regard, the author considers that a step should be added regarding:

Consult the organization receiving the product; the preliminary program proposal is presented to the training department of the oil and gas industry, in order to assess the relationship established between the contents of IFE and the dominant tasks of the students to whom the proposal is oriented.

The training program should offer degrees of flexibility that allow adjusting as much as possible to the inherent dynamics of each job position, where there are breaks, equipment damage, variations in working conditions; that involves making quick and creative decisions that cannot always be anticipated. That is why the objectives, although they are provided as a guiding guide for the activity, can be readjusted in the process itself.

Once the content has been selected, we proceed to the selection of materials for the training, as this is worked on in the real setting, the authentic means and materials that support the assimilation process of the students are very real and allow them to experience in a direct their characteristics and regulate their professional behavior accordingly. It is convenient to complement this process with authentic materials, whether oral or written, that contain mental representations of your professional objects. Another argument that supports the selection of training for the improvement of these specialists is that this organizational form provides a space to actively involve students in the creation of support materials for their learning, as they must be nurtured by the knowledge and experiences they bring.

The tutor teacher knows the English language, but they are the experts in their industry so they provide information, the aforementioned texts, such as emails, letters, reports, industry magazines, presentations, etc. and at the same time experiences are exchanged. In many cases the language may not be at the right level, but it is nevertheless real material from your daily work. The important thing at this stage is the performance task that they are going to carry out, the student feels that he is not only learning English, but that they are also reading, listening or discussing topics that she needs for her daily activity.

Another of the benefits of the training is the possibility it offers to replicate each of its topics in the different companies of the industry, depending on the needs of the participating specialists.

Regarding the evaluation of the training program, it is conceived as a constant process. The tutor teacher, although he has already defined the needs of the students at the beginning, must continuously think about how the objectives and materials can further support the process. The evaluation tries to improve the program continuously, for this it is necessary to encourage students to self-evaluate their own progress at the end of each topic, as well as the positive, negative and interesting aspects of the proposal and not wait for the end of the training program to make the relevant adjustments.

The tutor teacher evaluates the progress of each student, as well as the development of the training. At the end of each meeting, a reflection is made of what was achieved and what is missing, if the objectives were achieved and if there has been a change in their needs, the usefulness of the chosen materials, etc.

In response to the evaluation of the impact of the program, in this case it is expected that three months after the end of the program, the performance of these specialists will be evaluated by the organization where the students work when they join their work activities.

The results of this evaluation process are the most important inputs for the improvement of the program.

 

Conclusions

It is important to state as a final conclusion of this article that these steps for designing a training program are possible to be generalized for other topics. The author has shared her experience in the English for Specific purposes field but it can be done in any other area. In-company training gives the tutor in the postgraduate education more benefits than drawbacks. Being prepared at the work post is a source of gaining skills for their daily activities that professionals show later in their continuous working life.

 

References

[1] Pedagogy (2017), Collaborative Posgraduate Tasks, Superior Education Editorial, Havana, Cuba

[2] Bernaza, G (2018) . Professional improvement: move ideas and move further. Havana. First digital version.

[3] Amaro, R. (2012). Personnel administration. Limusa Editorial, Mexico: Limusa. p.266

[4] Chiavenato, A. (3 de julio de 2015).  Training in management. A tool for changing the organizations. Recovered from http://www.monografías.com/zip

[5] Bernaza,G.(2015).Buildingpedagogicalideasaboutthepostgraduatefromthehistorical- culturalapproach.EditedandprintedinMexico:

UniversityPublishing.DigitalEdition.Pp.57-62,73-80,122-123,128-140.

[6] British Training Center. (BLTC). En www.bltc.nl.

[7] School of Business and Company Administration. (ESADE). En www.esade.es.

[8] English for Specific Purposes: International in Scope, Specific in Purpose. (2011). TESOL, Quaterly,25(2), 6-12.

 

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