Applied research

The Collaborative Delivery of Foundational Learning for Rural Learners project looked to increase access to quality learning for rural learners in NorQuest's stewardship region and beyond through a technology-supported, collaborative delivery model.

The Common Ground: English in the Workplace resource is designed to support English in the Workplace programming.

The project addressed professional development for Alberta employers and ESL educators in rural and small urban centres to develop their capacity to provide workplace occupational language and workplace culture adaptation skills for immigrant employees.

The Critical Incidents for Intercultural Communication in Health Care project developed a resource that will increase the intercultural communication competence of health professionals in culturally diverse healthcare contexts and teams.

This project will research and develop short communication scenarios (or critical incidents) based on authentic challenges in intercultural communication from an Alberta professional and industrial workplace context.

This project developed an online resource that can be used by ESL teachers across the continuum of English language programming in Alberta, both for teacher-directed study and to support self-study.

The English in the Workplace: New Employee Orientation for Newcomers in the Workplace project was a response to a need identified in the Alberta trades sector to increase the percentage of newcomers passing basic site safety training as a requirement to gain access to employment.

The Immersion to Integration: Beyond Access project (Phase 2) focused on the issue of organizational integration for internationally educated professionals (IEPs) in two organizations actively employing engineers with education and experience outside of Canada.

Working with the project lead, the Alberta Teachers of English as a Second Language (ATESL), the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership conducted a research project focused on understanding current practices to integrate intercultural communicative competence (ICC) into ESL instruction, curriculum and professional development in Alberta.

Through comparison of video interviews by credible candidates from different cultural backgrounds, this project makes visible the invisible curriculum of diversity and inclusion in the Canadian job interview.

The English in the Workplace training program developed by the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership which includes several courses including Clear Speech, Business Writing (Mechanics and the UnWritten Rules), Conversation Management, Personal Management and the Language of Leadership are unique in how they are designed to combine curriculum and learning activities to simultaneously develop language and communication skills within the context of the workplace and to develop intercultural communication competence in practical ways that apply student’s learning directly to their day-to-day work environment.

The purpose of this project is to develop online resources to support the teaching and learning of workplace integration language skills for newcomers. The project will create a set of resources that can be used flexibly to support teacher-led and learner self-study of pragmatic language expressions within workplace contexts.

This project researched and implemented a model that provides immigrant professionals with an opportunity to develop and apply professional language proficiencies within their current work environment, opening the way to greater integration in the workplace and leadership roles within their field.

This project created a research-based approach to provide English in the Workplace instructors and corporate trainers with made-in-Canada resources to enhance professional language proficiencies within current work environments. These resources support greater integration for immigrant professionals (Canadian Language Benchmarks 6+) in the workplace and in leadership roles within professional fields.

The Roots and Connections resource is a culturally integrated English as a Second Language (ESL) resource that provides the foundation for English language learning using a community orientation and cultural integration approach.

This project integrated resources and lessons learned from previously funded projects that explored ways to effectively integrate newcomers into the Alberta workplace. 

This research project developed a pedagogical tool to facilitate effective intercultural communication in the workplace.