Improving Students' Employability Chances - Foreign Language Trainers' Role (original) (raw)
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2018
Foreign language teaching has broadened its scope and objectives, blurring content boundaries, discovering environments and provoking approaches. As the job market is constantly redesigning its framework and reaffirming values, the fundamental skills future employers need are creativity, flexibility, collaboration, teamwork and emotional intelligence (world economic forum, 2016). The aim of this paper is to shed light on the importance of developing such skills within the environment created by the language class in a non-philological university. The students in life sciences within the BUASVM “KING MICHAEL I OF ROMANIA” FROM TIMISOARA are training in various specialties but soft skills are also an important dimension of their learning curriculum. Our endeavor to plan our language courses and activities from an ecological approach offers opportunities to make students aware of the impact of soft skills on both their professional training and social integration in a working context.
Development of «soft skills» during ESL course for business students
Humanities science current issues, 2021
Rapid economic and social-cultural development of the society and transition to new models of business activities necessitate the formation of «soft skills» of future specialists. Modern labor market requires highly-qualified professionals who are ready for ongoing self-development and advancement, who are team players, communicative, flexible, computerliterate, etc. It is noted that the course of English as a Second Language (ESL) has a great potential for the formation of «soft skills» related to effective participation in intercultural professional communication and personal development. The author's vision of the structure of interrelations between «soft skills» and school background, teacher's competence and efforts, student's environment, technical strengths and hard work is presented. Four basic types of «soft skills» are distinguished. The division of soft skills into four main areas is offered. The skills that can be successfully developed when teaching ESL to business students through mutual projects, team work, the need to solve the tasks and constantly interact with partners are identified. It is stated that development of «soft skills» among students of universities can be based on support program (academic focused and non-academic programs), formal teaching and learning and campus life. It is established that implementation of the methodology of formation of «soft skills» should be based on the principles of communicative, intercultural, professional, individualized and socio-emotionally oriented learning, interdisciplinary links, etc. The stages of the technology of formation of «soft skills» when teaching ESL providing a step-by-step construction of the learning process have been established. Possible ways of introducing «soft skills» in ESL course are clarified. Based on the research, key qualities of a teacher having «soft skills» who teaches ELS to business students there have been identified. Therefore, it is recommended to implement «soft skills» development as an integral component of the ESL course.
Proceedings of ICERI2023 Conference 13th–15th November 2023, Seville, Spain, 2023
Teaching foreign languages at the Faculty of Management and Business of the University of Prešov aims at the quality professional foreign language training of future managers in various areas of the economy. Emphasis on the development of foreign language skills, intercultural competence and interdisciplinary approaches to the studied issues are among the features of the educational process that will enable the Faculty of Management and Business graduates to find broad-spectrum employment in the labour market. The acquisition of foreign languages and intercultural competence also corresponds to the current trend of global education promoting global citizenship in modern Europe. The purpose of the paper is to identify and describe specifics of foreign language teaching and learning of the Master's students of Management in the context of intercultural competence development based on the needs analysis from 2020 to 2022 at the Faculty of Management and Business (University of Prešov). The most significant results show that the students of Management believe that the knowledge of relevant cultural specifics is a part of foreign language learning and understand what intercultural communication is about. They are not motivated to develop their foreign language skills, though they agree that English is the lingua franca of international business.
GLOBAL AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCES IN LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES TEACHING
Conference Proceedings / Contemporary Challenges in LSP Teaching, 2022
In the present-day globalized and multicultural world, an individual cannot exist without relevant communicative competence. When teaching a language for specific purposes, it is necessary to take into account the existing conditions of language usage and its purpose. Management and economics students will work in a business world that requires language knowledge not only limited to grammar and vocabulary, but also the knowledge of the cultural background of communication in the targeted language. Therefore, it is necessary to develop both, global and intercultural competences as relevant soft skills. In general, the knowledge of cultural specifics of the selected language community is necessary to understand which way of communication is preferred (a part of communicative competence), which non-verbal and extra-linguistic aspects enter the conversation (a part of global competence), and also justifies and explains the existence of intercultural differences (a part of intercultural competence). The teaching material for management and economics students has to be designed concerning all these competences. LSP teaching can make use of the understanding of the processes of globalization and cultural learning in various ways: lectures, role-plays, field trips, discourse analysis, etc. In the paper, the course design at the Faculty of Management and Business at the University of Prešov in Prešov (Slovakia) is presented to illustrate and justify the importance of global and intercultural competences improvement activities as a part of LSP teaching of management students.
Perspectives of Science & Education, 2022
ntroduction. The formation of universal competences (flexible skills) is an imperative of the modern education system, while foreign language proficiency is one of the key competences of a modern specialist. A foreign language as a subject has great potential for the interconnected development of both subject and meta-subject, universal competences. The research purpose is to analyze the textbooks and online courses that are actively used by university teachers and evaluate the structure of tasks used and their potential for the interconnected formation of intercultural competence and soft skills. Methodology and methods. Twenty-one teachers of Petrozavodsk State University took part in the survey. Criteria based on the framework of intercultural competence and soft skills were developed to evaluate learning materials. Based on the proposed criteria, six groups of tasks were identified that contribute to the interconnected development of intercultural competence and flexible skills (culturological materials; tasks for critical thinking development; tasks for information analysis and interpretation; tasks based on students’ experience; tasks for generating one’s own ideas and products; tasks for the interaction (in pairs, groups) and creation of a joint product). Results. The study showed that 85.7% of foreign language teachers of Petrozavodsk State University (Russian Federation) agree that the development of intercultural competence and soft skills is possible and necessary. However, only 42.1% of the respondents are satisfied with the quantity and quality of tasks offered in textbooks. Moreover, all respondents use additional tasks and 95.2% do it regularly or often. The analysis of the textbooks confirmed that the respondents have reason to be dissatisfied with the quantity and quality of tasks. Only 19%-25% of the tasks offered in textbooks and/or online courses can be used to develop universal competences and intercultural competence. A more detailed analysis of the tasks revealed that the least presented were tasks for creating one's own product (individually) and group tasks for creating a group product. Conclusion. The results obtained allowed to develop a classification of tasks to be used in foreign language classes at a university for the interconnected development of subject and meta-subject competences. The formulations of tasks for achieving integrated results in foreign language education were proposed.
Teachers’ Perspective of Soft Skills Development in Business Studies
2023
Education and employment stakeholders worldwide have increasingly acknowledged the need to teach students soft skills to improve their academic performance and long-term prospects. Soft skills are transferable across jobs and industries and related to personal and social competencies. Their development aims to empower and increase personal growth and learning participation and improve job opportunities. Given their central role in shaping students' educational experiences, teachers must be well-versed in the value of cultivating soft skills and awareness of the necessity to incorporate their study into various curricular frameworks. As a result, this article investigates whether business schools adequately prepare their students for the soft skills demanded by today's labor market. Business teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina were the subjects of the survey. The findings indicate that teachers recognize the value of teaching students soft skills but that current curricula may be strengthened in this area.
Foreign Language Skills: A Challenge for the Economy
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Awareness of the fact that multilingualism opens doors to new markets and new business opportunities is not an original phenomenon, but the various works produced with a view to its being acknowledged are still little publicized and granted little practical use also. Showing mastery of communicative skills in several foreign languages is always valuable for the market economy, not only in terms of sales and marketing, but also in order to reach new target groups and establish lasting strategic relationships. The purpose of this article is to provide a general overview of the studies carried out in this context, focusing in particular on aspects such as the increasingly obvious relationship between in force language practices of a diversified nature and the proper functioning of businesses. Equally important is the mastery of language skills, seen as an important driving force of cross-border cooperation, as well as the development of an emotional culture within the business world, p...
Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing employability, 2017
T his case study examines student perceptions of the experiential value of a work placement carried out as part of a languages degree programme. The data for the case study consists of a corpus of 67 reports submitted from 2011 to 2015, reflecting on placements carried out in Europe, Japan, the UK and the US. The data offers a student view of the impact of the placement on their linguistic prowess, character development, employability and career plans. The case study compares these with the soft skills increasingly required in employment, and concludes that the reflective nature of the work placement report is beneficial to students in preparation for marketing themselves to potential employers.