Contribution of writing skills training in professional environment. The case of cleaning services jobs
This study concerns the linguistic training of employees with a basic level of qualification. The research work shows that the lingual part has an important place in the professional activity of the employees, including those who are the least qualified. Training courses called basic have been established for the past decades to give to the personnel who do not master them well, linguistic skills useful for the exercise of their professional activity. We have analyzed different types of training. Are they adapted to the needs of employees ? Are they an adapted answer to their expectations and their real needs ? The study undertaken aims to understand how these employees use their linguistic skills in the workplace. It is based on the hypothesis that in training for adults, the issue of language at work should be extended to the issue of literacy and more specifically, to the logic of writing. Jobs, such as those of a cleaning agent, where time and space management are crucial elements, are interesting cases. Particular schedules, work duration and presence of users need an effective time and space management. Spontaneous strategies based on experience are implemented by these employees in order to be more efficient in their professional activity and make the work less difficult. Observations in the field led by this research, inspired by ethnology, show that workers use " tactics" effectively in the sense of M. de Certeau (1990). But these methods are ignored skills which are not appreciated, either by employers, or by trainers. Hence, this research contributes to a better understanding of professional environment and allows approaches for linguistic training that should take into consideration their skills. Indeed the results give information about the place of language in professional activity and about what we can call work logic : updating the know-how, tricks and ignored or hidden skills, which, however, are crucial to work organization, especially in time and space management.