by Mourad Taboubi (CFA de Béja)
2010, June 22^nd

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Personally, when I was teaching English in Hammam-Lif, Jendouba and Beja, I tried my best so that I could give the most useful program to my trainees bearing in mind the differences in specialties and sectors. (By the way, after being nominated as a technical coordinator and stayed for about a month in Japan, I noticed that they adopt 1/3rd communicative and functional English and the rest technical English.) As a matter of fact, I divided my program into four main parts :

The first: Communicative and functional English taking about 25% of the total score. This part covers the useful expressions and situations which any trainee needs when he is in the street or in the factory, whether in Tunisia (with foreign companies) or out of the mother country. Expressions like introducing oneself or buying an air ticket have become an imperative nowadays.

The second: Spare parts naming taking about 25% of the total score. This part deals with spare parts naming in English.

The third part: Bilingual interpretation having about also 25% of the total score. The main objective of this part is tha as we are francophones, we have to interprete technical terms in both English and French (the same thing is applied in Japan).

The fourth part: Technical function having 25% of the total score. Every item has its own technical use, like "a needle" = "aiguille" in textiles is used to sew clothes either manually or through a sewing machine. Moreover, technical manuals of several machines have to be dealt with in accordance and coordination with other technical trainers ; and sometimes I used to consult many collegues about the modules they were dealing with.

To sum up, Technical and professional English is an important tool that can help trainees to be much more competent whether during training or at work. It is in few words useful and necessary to promote vocational training competencies.

Parts that make up professional English

Communicative English	Spare parts naming	Bilingual interpretation	Technical function	Total average
25%	25%	25%	25%	100%