In an increasingly globalized and digital world, companies are feeling the pressure to enhance their employees’ communication skills. Skillful communication can be the difference between business success or failure, whether it is navigating a crisis, completing a merger, or avoiding regulatory mishaps. However, developing these critical skills in your workforce can often seem like an uphill battle. Enter Learnship Sprint, the solution for next-generation blended language learning with a focus on developing communicative competence in the workplace.
Evolving Workplace Needs and the Rise of Industry 4.0
The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report from 2023 states that “The Fourth Industrial Revolution has accelerated the pace of adoption of technologies and shifted the frontier between humans and machines across sectors and geographies. Technology is altering the way we work, but also changing job content, skills in need, and which jobs are being displaced. Understanding how technologies will impact labour markets is crucial for determining whether people will be able to transition from declining occupations to the jobs of tomorrow.”
Reframing Business English Training
Learnship Sprint offers a unique perspective on language learning. It recognizes the nuanced reality of graded proficiency levels in communicative tasks, scaling its curriculum to match the learner’s abilities. Designed as a task-based, short course delivered in five-unit modules, Sprint seamlessly integrates digital preparation exercises and live classroom sessions into an objective-driven curriculum.
Where traditional courses fall short, Sprint bridges the gap. It incorporates communication skills into broader competence frameworks with a focus on genuine business needs, such as business writing, negotiations, meetings, and presentations. We have also added specific courses on logistics, technology, sales, human resources and more.
Blended Learning and the Power of the Flipped Classroom
Learnship Sprint adopts a “flipped classroom” approach, a practical and scalable model that shifts part of the learning to a self-paced zone. This approach allows learners to study key vocabulary, grammar, and functional phrases on their own timeline, equipping them with the key tools needed to effectively take part and communicate in training sessions and in the workplace. This efficiency creates more time for practical application, offering immediate feedback and thus rapid progress.
At Learnship, our concept of next-generation blended learning is based on four key principles:
- Coherent Cross-Platform Curriculum: We offer a clear, purpose-driven, multi-platform curriculum.
- Methodological Soundness: Our structured programs lean on proven education theories.
- Difficulty Gradient: We target the learner’s reach, offering continuous challenges.
- Clear Objectives: Our goals cater to all stakeholders, aligning with business outcomes.
The Sprint Structure & Benefits
Sprint offers a concise blended course with five modules, requiring two hours of learner participation per week. Courses are available at three language proficiency levels: Low Intermediate (A2), High Intermediate (B1), and Advanced (B2/C1), which are determined through an adaptive pre-course assessment. Our Step + assessment ensures that learners are accurately placed at the right level and proficiency.
Task-Based Learning
Task-based learning, a principal component of Sprint’s classroom approach, focuses on developing confidence and fluency in authentic business communication. In this method, the lesson centers on the task itself, not grammar or vocabulary. The goal is completing the task using appropriate language as a communication tool. There is typically no single ‘correct answer’; students choose their own way of accomplishing the real-world task using suitable language.
For task-based lessons to work, the tasks must feel authentic to the learner. We use business-school style case studies about fictitious companies experiencing real-world business issues, such as German automakers dealing with outsourcing, Czech IT startups facing high churn rates, and Indian textile manufacturers turning to digital sales channels, among others.
Customer Success and Performance Score Weightings
Success at Learnship is defined as a combination of engagement and performance. When reporting course scores, while engagement is revered, performance predictably carries greater weight in the eyes of the corporate buyer. After all, quantifiable, tangible results signal a robust return on training investment. This dual focus is designed to keep learners fully invested and rewarded for their efforts.
Learnship Sprint is the future of corporate communication skills training. By achieving a seamless blend of business communication skill development and technology, Sprint sets the stage for businesses to succeed in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. It’s more than just learning a language—it’s mastering communicative competence.