The current demographic situation in Europe is a challenge for the care sector. Elderly people make up a growing segment of the population and the demand for quality elderly care – expressed in terms of ‘personalisation’ – is rising. Personalization in elderly care demands higher levels of both occupational and generic skills, in particular communication and language skills. The call for training is clear. The European Commission's Rethinking Education initiative (2012) urges education systems to respond to the real needs of today's society and calls for a strengthening of links between educationalists and employers. In many European countries, the care workforce includes substantial numbers of staff with low educational attainment and, increasingly, migrant workers who may have limited majority language skills. Effective approaches to occupational training and work-related language development are needed. Research confirms that, with the right support, the workplace can be a rich environment for learning, including language learning. Reflection is recognized as an essential component of workplace learning and has obvious potential as a vehicle for language development. Based on these understandings, the Swedish project, ArbetSam, developed a new conceptual framework and methodology for workplace learning that involved not only staff enrolled on the programme but their managers and colleagues too. The TDAR project supported the development of vocational training for care staff elsewhere in Europe by the transfer and further development of ArbetSam’s innovative results. Key elements include the focus on workplace learning, cooperation between vocational education providers and employers, and the development of workplace scaffolding and support for language development, including second-language acquisition by migrant workers. The transfer of results from ArbetSam is complete; resources have been translated and an analysis undertaken comparing the different contexts in partner-countries is completed. Partners in Germany and Spain have piloted and further developed the methods and models for VET, where language skills, intercultural competence and adult education are integrated in both care and other sectors. TDAR has contributed to the development of the VET system and its response to the world of work. Project activities were situated within mainstream VET systems, securing greater sustainability of results.