English Language and the Transition to Work or Further Study (original) (raw)
Related papers
This discussion paper investigates the research evidence about the English language preparedness of international students and their selection for entry to tertiary study in Australia, in universities and VET. education institutions, standards agencies, governments, business groups and professional bodies around this complex topic. It takes account especially of the changed context facing tertiary education, in particular the establishment and emerging responsibilities of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) and the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) for threshold standards, including the particular focus on English language standards for all students. include: Revising the GPPs to align them within the current focus on threshold standards and learning outcomes. Extending the GPPs to other sectors, especially private higher education, public and private VET and if appropriate schools. Developing enrolment practices which consider English language and academic ability for entry to courses. Implementing comparable research across schools, VET and higher education to establish a strong evidence-base to inform practices. Incorporating English language within the increasing use of learning analytics in universities, to enable monitoring of students from diverse entry pathways. In summary, increased accountability through TEQSA and ASQA, and the introduction of learning and teaching standards means that tertiary institutions need to become better at assessing, monitoring and vital role to play within this context. We have made some progress in this since the 2007 Symposium, but more research is needed to better inform policy and practice.
English for University Graduate Employability: Students and Employers' Voices
The Twelfth International Conference on Applied Linguistics Proceedings, 2020
Currently, English has taken a more significant role in all domains of life and is always associated with globalization and industrialization. In Indonesia, the growing importance of English has created new purposes and needs for learning English mainly by university students. This also calls for a shift in the mindset of universities from nurturing graduates for local to the global market. This study investigated the voices of university students and employers on the need for English language proficiency and skills for employment. Data were collected through interviews with forty final year undergraduate students at a private university and five employers from hospitality, service, and trading companies in Indonesia. The results show that both parties agree that English plays a major role in employability. English is important for a job interview in multinational companies and communication in the workplace (corporate training, company meeting, and presentation). It also becomes one of the keys to engaging in international communities and very important people in industries. In addition, there is a general agreement among students that good speaking skills are very important. However, in trading and service industries, employers put a great emphasis on listening and reading, followed by speaking and writing skills while in hospitality industries speaking skills are considered the most important. This study suggested that university should design English syllabus which caters the students' needs to meet local and global industrial demands.
Recent literature has suggested that the relationship between globalisation and the English language implicates employability in the job market. Although the effects are uneven in different occupational groups and in different countries, such relationship is growing in significance to policy makers. This paper has explored the hitherto unstudied relationship between English language proficiency and employment and the success of Bangladeshi graduates in Australia to establish how English language skills influence the employment mechanism in the Australian job market for graduates from a non-English speaking South East Asian country. The study was carried out following an interpretive approach as its overall aim was to understand the role of English language skills of university graduates in determining their employment opportunities and career prospects in Australia. It was found that in various ways one's English language skills influence prospects of employment, especially in contributing to the possibility of " secure " and " better " jobs. The research findings may inform educational policy planners, teacher educators, employers and career advisers to optimise English language learning programs that support increased employability through English.
The employability advantage: embedding skills through a university-wide language programme
In an ever unstable job market, improving the employability skills of graduates comes very high in the priorities of languages departments. As the employment of graduates appears among the performance indicators of institutions in higher education, universities are focussing more and more upon the development of employability related skills to enhance students’ prospects in the job market. All UK universities are measured on the first jobs that their students acquire after graduation. In response to this, Coventry University implemented numerous new strategies to emphasise and stress the importance of education for employability
Producing ‘work-ready’ graduates: What has this got to do with Applied Linguistics?
In this talk I make the case that many if not most so-called 'employability skills' either consist of language and communication skills or depend for their acquisition and development on such skills. Addressing an audience of graduate students of Applied Linguistics, my aim was to awaken their interest in emerging fields of appliable linguistics, where language professionals engage in collaborative research and joint problem-solving with practitioners and academic specialists from a wide range of other subject areas. I use examples from professional accounting practice to make some of my main points.