Sector-Specific Terminology Information
and Counselling (STIC)

Introduction to the STIC Program and Materials

The Sector Terminology and Counselling (STIC) project provides a model for sector specific orientation, occupational terminology training, computerized profile building, and career action-plan development for internationally-trained professionals and tradespeople. The project has been developed for four sectors: Engineering, Accounting, Health Care, and Automotive Service Mechanics.

The STIC workshops are designed to be used in a classroom setting. The information included can assist individuals to learn more about their occupation in a Canadian context, including licensing/certification requirements and labour market conditions. They also learn the terminology of their occupation as it is used at work, in job advertisements, and in testing/ licensure.

The workshop is sector-specific, does not depend upon the availability of computer facilities for participants and is intended for use by regulatory bodies, community groups and other organizations that wish to provide an introduction to each occupation.

Audience

The material presented on this site are designed for employment workshop facilitators to use with internationally trained professionals and tradespeople.

How to Use This Site

The information on this site is organized by occupation. To make best use of this site, select the occupation you are interested in and then decide whether to use the Overview and Orientation workshop or the Occupational Terminology workshop.

Each workshop is presented on the site by table of contents, to give you an overview of the workshop materials and flow. Within each worskshop section, the lesson plan outline is presented to you in HTML format, so that you can quickly review the lesson plan content, goals and outcomes. The lesson plan and all faciliator materials, overheads and participant handouts are available to be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat PDF format for your use. At any time, from any lesson plan page, you can download the entire Facilitator's Guide and Participant materials.

We recommend that you spend some time reading the Facilitator Introduction for each workshop, to become familiar with the goals and suggested use of this curriculum.

Each individual lesson plan is available for you to download and use. While it makes most sense to use this curriculum as a whole, you are able to make use of the various activities within the curriculum for your specific needs.

You are also expected, as part of this curriculum, to create resource packages for your clients with these occupational backgrounds. The resource package area of each Overview and Orientation Introductory section provides a guide with suggested content from newspapers, web sites, directories, books, acts and regulations and where you can get licensing/certification packages. For some of you, this guide alone will be valuable for you in your service delivery.

As well, the authors suggest that the sections do not necessarily need to be delivered in the order presented. However, the activities within each section should be delivered in order. In other words, you may choose to deal with Licensing before the Labour Market, but the activities within the Licensing Section should be delivered in order.

Content

Each occupation is organized into 2 separate types of workshop:

1. Overview and Orientation
2. Occupational Terminology

The Overview and Orientation Workshop is generally intended to be delivered over 30-35 hours. It has been divided into six sections, with an introduction and wrap-up. It has been designed specifically for immigrants with international training, qualifications and experience in the particular occupation. Additional information is provided on the occupations of. If you intend to accept members of other occupations into the workshop, be aware that you may have to conduct further research and adapt the curriculum to meet your needs.

The Occupational Terminology workshop is intended to be delivered over 35 hours of classroom time divided into three modules that are further subdivided into three-hour lessons. The modules reflect three different contexts for communication: workplace, work search, and licensing. Relevant terminology is incorporated within each topic. The lesson plans conform to the Canadian Language Benchmarks, meaning the specific skills, competence areas, and competencies that are required to accomplish tasks are outlined each lesson. Clear learning outcomes are also outlined in each lesson.

Curriculum in each workshop includes:

• A manual and workshop that provides an overview of specific occupations in Ontario, including requirements for licensure/certification, and current labour market trends.

• A manual and workshop on terminology used in specific occupational sectors.

• A model for researching and developing detailed job profiles that include current and realistic information provided by sector experts. These profiles identify competencies, knowledge and education required for specific occupations.

• A model for counselling foreign-trained individuals on how to implement their career action plans.

Employment counsellors providing workshops to internationally trained professionals and tradespeople will find this curriculum useful and adaptable to other occupations.

Funding for this project provided by:

This project was designed and developed by the Access to Professions and Trades Unit, now part of the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, and Skills for Change, a community-based agency. Funding was provided by Human Resources Development Canada.