Conversing in English

The secret to the friendly ambience at Han's chain of cafes lies not only in the ingredients, but also the company's investment in staff training. Mrs Teo Hong Lian, Mrs Yong Yan Ting and Mrs Chua Bee Luan, Han's employees at different outlets, have been attending weekly conversational English language courses at the company's Park Mall branch.

Flexible Training Makes Learning Easy

Han's Anson Road outlet is a hive of activity before 10am every weekday. Stepping into the cafe, you can spot Mrs Teo Hong Lian, 56, serving a rapid succession of customers queuing for their morning coffee and toast. As the outlet is located in the Central Business District, it is not unusual for Mrs Teo to serve expatriates. Mrs Teo said, “Before attending the English course, I would always pass on the English-speaking customers to my colleagues. I was too afraid to speak to them.”

She was glad when her supervisor recommended her to attend conversational English lessons at one of the Han’s outlet. The lessons were arranged around her work schedule and at a convenient location, which made it very convenient for her to attend and reduced fatigue from travelling.

She learnt to pronounce words such as “orange juice” without provoking laugher, and also picked up useful phrases when taking orders, such as “Can I help you?” and “What would you like?” “It also helps that the trainer is engaging. He doesn't put us to sleep!” laughed Mrs Teo.

Interesting, Bite-Sized Modules Engages Trainees

Mrs Yong Yan Ting, 46, has been working at Han's for the past 10 years. She started at the Hougang branch before being transferred to the Novena Square branch. The cafe sees a steady traffic of office workers at breakfast and lunch times, some of whom are from overseas. Mrs Yong also has Filipino colleagues with whom she cannot converse in Mandarin.

Mrs Yong said, “As a child, I never had the chance to learn English in school. I am grateful to the company for giving me this opportunity.” Every week, Mrs Yong attends an English course where she learns the same conversational skills as her colleague Mrs Teo.

“I like it that the trainer uses games to stimulate our interest. When some of us struggle to understand him, he also translates the difficult terms using Mandarin,” said Mrs Yong. The training is also delivered in bite-sized modules, which makes it easy for trainees to pick up.

Customised Course Makes It Relevant

For Mrs Chua Bee Luan, 50, the English@Workplace Scheme has given her the opportunity to learn not just the English language but also simple greetings customised for her work environment, such as “Good morning Sir. Welcome to Han's”, “Enjoy your breakfast” and “See you again”. The contextualised training is relevant and helps Mrs Chua apply her new-found knowledge at her workplace. As her conversational English skills improved, she became less afraid of interacting with her English-speaking customers.

Her family members are very supportive of her efforts to upgrade herself, and even practise the language with her at home.

 

The three ladies are the beneficiaries of the English@Workplace Scheme, which enables them to undergo contextualisation training designed based on the workplace contexts in bite-sized sessions, making it more convenient for the trainees. The Scheme encourages companies to provide customised English training at their workplace, so as to help low-waged workers perform better at work and access better training opportunities.

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