Challenge

The city of Antwerp wants to sharpen the Dutch language skills, and by extension the digital skills in general, of its (non-Dutch-speaking) low-language employees in order to bridge the 'linguistic' and also the 'digital' gap. To this end, the city of Antwerp wants to have a language app developed on smartphones that allows (Dutch) low-language employees to practice speaking, writing, reading and listening in/of Dutch.

It should be a user-friendly language app that incorporates game elements, is permanently available ('in everyone's pocket') and is close to the living environment of the target group. By actively involving (direct) managers in (the development of) the language app and by focusing the offered context as much as possible on the work environment (jargon, work instructions, etc.), the language app should enable an optimal learning transfer to the shop floor.

The City of Antwerp already has an intensive and targeted internal language policy to increase the employability of low-language employees on the labour market (= both inside and outside the organisation) and to improve communication on the shop floor. The current targeted approach is also already delivering results but is very (time-)intensive and only reaches a small part (about 200 out of about 1,000 low-language employees) of the target group.

With the envisaged language app, the city of Antwerp wants to offer practice opportunities to low-language-skilled employees anytime ('daily') and anywhere ('on the shop floor and also at home'), so that language acquisition and improving language competences becomes an essential part of their daily routine and does not only take place during moments of training or coaching. In this way, the entire target group can also be reached instead of just the limited group that can be coached with the current approach.

An interesting (and innovative) element of the envisaged language app is the game element (gamification). With the envisaged language app, employees of the city of Antwerp should be able to do language exercises in game form. Through that game element, employees can be intrinsically motivated to practise (on the Dutch) language because they get immediate feedback and can easily follow their learning process, and also because of the social aspect associated with the game element.