Immigrant and Aboriginal First Languages as Prior Learning Qualifications for Formal Employment in the Business, Government and Education Sectors. NALL Working Paper.

The extent to which Canadian employers recognize the informally acquired first languages of immigrants and aboriginal persons as prior learning qualifications for formal employment in the business, government, and education sectors was examined through a survey of organizations across Ontario. Personalized questionnaires were mailed to a sample of 140 Ontario organizations, as follows: 32 businesses (half randomly selected and half purposively selected); 71 colleges, universities, and school boards; and 37 municipal, provincial, and federal government agencies and psychiatric hospitals. Of the 140 questionnaires mailed out, 79 (56.4%) were returned. Although 88.6% of the organizations indicated that they would benefit from employing staff fluent in languages in addition to English or French, only 30.4% were actually actively recruiting such multilingual employees. Private organizations were more likely to recruit multilingual individuals and educational institutions were least likely to do so (52.9% and 25.7%, respectively). The methods used to evaluate potential bilingual employees' language proficiency were as follows: interviews (25.8%); employer references (18.6%); and formal qualifications and personal references (13.4%). Educational institutions used formal qualifications to assess language fluency much more often than other types of organizations did (20%, 10%, and 7.6% for academic institutions, private organizations, and public organizations, respectively). (Contains 22 references.) (MN)