Teaching employability skills: Q&A

Ken Beatty
Teacher sat in front of a classroom pointing at a student with their hand up

Preparing students for the modern world of work can be challenging; it's constantly adapting and changing which can be hard to keep track of. Today's post is a Q&A on the teaching of employability skills and the essential skills and qualities students need to thrive in the 21st century. offers insights to answer common questions and help you improve your language teaching skills.

1. How can we make students see the value of employability skills when they prioritize traditional language skills? Any tips to bridge this gap?

My advice is to push the issue back to the students by putting them in groups and asking each group to identify a different job/career that involves people working with others. Then ask "What would happen if this job was competitiveinstead of collaborative?" You may have to re-explain the concepts, but let students write a little story about a situation in which the workers suddenly all turn competitive.

For example, It was chaos in the women's soccer/football game. All the members of the blue team suddenly became competitive. Each one still wanted to win, but each decided that she would shoot a ball into the other team's net. This included the goalie, who ran up to the front of the field and purposely shoved and tripped members of her team ….

Or for more traditional jobs, In the middle of the operation the nurse pushed the doctor out of the way and picked up the instrument. The patient also wasn’t completely asleep, and he tried to do the operation himself, then …

It's all absurd, of course, but it can lead into other tasks asking students why collaboration is so important in each job. Then, turning it back to language, what kinds of language does each profession require to collaborate? For soccer/football players, this includes shouted requests and commands:Pass the ball to me! Shoot!as well as hand and body gestures. Similarly, doctors require professional jargon:Pass me the scalpel, please.Rather thanGive me the pointy knife thing!

2. Considering all the impact of tech, is there a clear future for employability for teachers?

One hundred years ago, in 1923, Thomas Edison predicted that motion pictures would replace teachers and books. Since then, similar predictions have been made for radio, TV and computers. It hasn't happened, and one of the reasons is that we crave the human touch in our teaching and learning. I recently read. "When it comes to getting knowledge to stick, there may be no substitute for human relationships. … I've been to former students' weddings and baby showers and funerals of their parents," says Millard, the high school English teacher in Michigan. "I've hugged my students. I've high-fived my students. I've cried with my students. A computer will never do that. Ever, ever.”(Waxman, 2023, para. 21-22)

But, that doesn’t mean teachers should stop learning about new technologies. We need to keep finding ways for them to help us and our language learners in the classroom. It can seem overwhelming, though, which is why I recommend shifting responsibility to students: “Do any of you know about ChatGPT? Yes? How do you think you could use it to help you learn?”

3. How can we deal with collaboration in a competitive world?

Although the world is in many ways competitive, there are countless examples of how students will do better by collaborating. Most of our students today won't be working in environments where they are competing against their co-workers. Instead, they'll be in teams and need critical thinking and negotiation skills to help them do so.

One way forward is to ensure that your classroom features more collaborative activities. Get students working in pairs and groups on all their assignments, but also create a buddy system so students always have someone else to ask for help. For example, if they're having to read a text and come across difficulties, it's often easier for them to text or call a friend than to wait until the next class. After a few collaborative activities, discuss collaboration versus competition with students and ask them which they prefer. Also, ask them for examples of what their friends and family members do regarding collaborating and competing.

As always, it's better to lead students to understand a new idea than to tell them.

If you want to learn more, make sure to check out Ken's webinar here. If you'd like to learn more about teaching future skills to students check out21st-century skills and the English language classroom.

References

Waxman, O.B. (2023, August 8).The creative ways teachers are using ChatGPT in the classroom.Time.time.com/6300950/ai-schools-chatgpt-teachers/

More blogs from app

  • Students working together laughing with a laptop in front of them

    Improve student vocabulary and memory with these classroom activities

    By Vaughan Jones

    Reading time: 6.5 minutes

    Vaughan Jones has more than 30 years of experience as an EFL Teacher, Trainer and Author. He’s lived and worked in France, Japan and Spain, and has worked to produce a number of coursebooks, including Focus, an English language learning series for upper-secondary students.

    In this post he explores some tips and techniques for language teachers to help students improve their ability to remember vocabulary.

  • A young woman sat on a laptop outside, smiling and pointing to her laptop

    Three ways to learn new English words

    By Vaughan Jones

    It’s more important for teachers to help students find ways to practice their English outside the classroom. The more efficient students become at autonomous learning, the better they’ll be able to overcome interruptions and make up for lost time.

    It will be even more challenging if you're a self-learner as you do not have a teacher looking over you and steering your learning. But it’s helpful to learn from the teaching world and pick up teacher tips that you can apply to your own studies and techniques.

    Why are learning new words so challenging?

    Students learning new words in English generally progress steadily up until the pre-intermediate and intermediate levels. But after that, they start to struggle.

    This is because there’s a big difference between the volume of the vocabulary that intermediate students and upper-intermediate students need to know.

    • Intermediate (B1/B2 level) students need to know about 2,500 words
    • upper-intermediate (B2/C1 level) students need to know about 7,500-9,000 words.

    That’s a big jump in numbers. But the real challenge is that those 5,000+ new words are not very frequent. Consequently, students don’t encounter them very often, making it difficult to recall them and leap from one level to the next.

    While there’s no simple answer to this problem, there are ways to help students overcome it. The following framework can be a big help in any classroom:

    1. Focus on the most important words:Always teach appropriate words for the levels your students are currently at.
    2. Provide memorable first encounters:You never get a second chance to make a first impression. So, ensure your student's first encounter with a new word is as memorable as possible.
    3. Teach effective word-learning strategies:Provide your students with valuable tools, tactics and resources so that they can learn new words outside the classroom, too.
    4. Organize repeat encounters:Vocabulary works on a “use it or lose it” basis, so ensure your students encounter the vocabulary you want them to learn repeatedly.

    How to teach effective word-learning strategies

    There are three steps to teach students how to learn new words effectively:

    1. Help learners maximize their exposure to English and find opportunities to use English outside the classroom

    Thanks to the internet and technology, there are many ways that students can engage with the English language outside the classroom.

    However, simple exposure to a new language is not enough – it takes much longer and is less effective than active learning. When students do something with the language they’re exposed to; it is far more memorable.

    That’s why it’s crucial for teachers to help their students seek out English in their own time and use the language, turning passive exposure into active learning.

    • Encourage students to read, listen and view things that they’re interested in or passionate about in English. For example, introduce them to new blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, or TV series that fit their interests – since personalization leads to more effective learning.
    • Help students find ways to use English in different ways. For example, they can start a learning diary, make to-do lists in English, write social media posts, and create word cards to practice their writing. For speaking, they can record voice memos or video stories, take part in Zoom discussions, or participate in speaking projects and live classes.

    2. Provide ways for students to discover the meaning of new words

    It’s crucial to help students improve their guesswork. Instead of asking online translators to translate every time they encounter a new word, they should be able to guess the meaning of new vocabulary differently.

    • One approach is to look at the morphology of words and consider word families. For example, you can ask your students to brainstorm words with a common root. Or, you can have them identify and practice common suffixes.
    • Explore “true friends” or words that are similar in English and your student's native language.
    • Help your students figure out how to guess the meaning of a word from the context. To do this, you must ensure that your students don’t just hear or read new words but also put them into use.

    One way to get students to learn and retain vocabulary is to get them to create word cards:

    • Ask students to collect ten new words that they’re exposed to throughout the week and bring them to class, like a “show and tell” for words.
    • Then have a debate about how useful each of those words is.

    This helps to connect learning inside and outside the classroom, and it’s fun!

    3. Provide students with strategies to consolidate their knowledge of new words

    Finally, teachers should give students ideas on how to memorize words outside the classroom. You can have your students produce word cards and use a Word Store booklet to practice tasks like matching words with images or definitions.

    Lastly, it’s important to teach students memory tricks or mnemonics so they can retain the new words they encounter.