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The CEFR describes A1 and A2 learners as ¡®basic users¡¯ of a language. So how can we help these students to develop their English for the workplace?

Here are our six top tips:

1. Focus on high-frequency vocabulary for work

Learning English vocabulary for work context is the top priority for many low-level learners in business English classes. It helps them to communicate their message in a simple, effective way. This makes it important to teach common words and set expressions for everyday work situations.

These include:

• lexical sets (words related to the same topic or situation) ¨C for example, days, months, numbers, verbs to describe work routines, verbs in the past.
• common collocations with verbs and nouns (for example, manage a team, have meetings, place an order, solve a problem).
• functional language and fixed phrases ¨C greetings (How are you? Nice to meet you.) and offers (How can I help you? Would you like¡­?).

2. Help students with vocabulary learning

Teach vocabulary items in realistic contexts. For example, phone calls, to-do lists, short emails, text messages etc.

While it might be tempting to give students lots of vocabulary to memorize, this can cause overload, be frustrating and ultimately demotivating for learners. Instead, you should aim to present eight to ten new words in a lesson as a general rule. This is an achievable number for working memory and helps to build learners¡¯ confidence. The number of words can be a little higher if items are easy to show in images or there is repetition; for instance, the numbers 20 to 100.

Have students make simple decisions about new words, as this helps with recall later. Start with simple tasks, such as matching words and pictures or verb and noun collocations they¡¯ve seen in a short text (for example, managing a team, call customers, writing emails, etc.). Next, ask students to complete sentences using the target words and write their own sentences using these words.

Getting students to personalize new vocabulary makes it more memorable, for instance writing sentences describing their work routines. Repetition also aids long-term memory, so make sure vocabulary is recycled in the materials in later lessons.

Finally, make a list of vocabulary games to use for revision exercises, warmers and to finish classes.

3. Maximize student speaking time

Learners need to develop their English-speaking skills for work. The classroom is a safe, low-stakes environment for them to gain fluency and confidence.

Use the audio and video scripts of short dialogues or an extract from a longer script. Students read the dialogue aloud in pairs or groups. Give feedback by drilling the stress and rhythm of any words or phrases which were difficult with the whole class. Back-chaining phrases ¨C starting with the last sound and building up going backwards ¨C is an excellent way to drill. Get students to swap roles and repeat the task.

You can also use another technique called disappearing dialogue. Put a short dialogue on the board for students to practice in pairs. Then delete parts of the dialogue and ask them to repeat the task, swapping roles each time. Gradually delete more parts to increase the challenge. Students can reconstruct the dialogue as a final task.

Moreover, surveys, questionnaires, true/false games, and information-gap exercises are ways to practice speaking in English, target structures, and vocabulary.

More and , giving candidates the opportunity to apply for jobs from anywhere in the country and across the world. In turn, this wider net has enabled HR professionals to bring in giant pools of qualified candidates ¨C and of course, more great hires.

But with more job applications coming in, HR professionals know they need to work faster and more efficiently. And the right HR tools can help teams save time and standardize hiring across the board ¨C especially when assessing candidates¡¯ English skills or personality traits from afar.

Need help choosing the best HR software? We¡¯ve got you covered. Here are 6 tools for busy HR professionals ¨C including a number of HR tests for measuring sought-after soft skills:

1. Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp

How it helps you: Test candidates¡¯ English language abilities with AI

Need a fair way to test candidates¡¯ English skills? Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp is an HR test that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to score language assessments instantly. Made by ÃÛÌÒapp, the world¡¯s leading education company, the tool tests candidates¡¯ speaking, listening, reading and writing skills to help HR professionals evaluate how easily someone can handle different workplace tasks ¨C like speaking with customers over the phone or writing clear emails to co-workers.

Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp also provides an Intelligibility Index score, which objectively measures how well someone pronounces words or expresses their thoughts ¨C both things that are important for effective workplace communication, but easily overlooked.

The test is available 24/7, with no appointment required, in more than 100 countries around the world.

Learn more about how Versant by ÃÛÌÒapp works

2. Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal

How it helps you: Measure important critical thinking skills

The Watson-Glaser test is a popular critical thinking assessment. In fact, it¡¯s been around for more than a century, helping organizations and institutions measure the decision-making and rational thinking skills of employees, job applicants, and students alike.

The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal tool makes it easy to administer the test on a larger scale. The assessment is timed (it takes 30 minutes) and includes a large bank of questions to help make sure no one ends up writing the same test. The scores are also given as a percentile, based around the following three criteria: whether someone can recognize assumptions, evaluate arguments and draw conclusions.

Overall, it¡¯s a great tool to use with current employees wanting to move up in the organization. But best of all? It can help HR professionals screen out candidates whose critical thinking skills aren¡¯t up to par ¨C and save time interviewing people who might be qualified on paper, but not necessarily in practice.

3. Golden Personality Profiler

How it helps you: Assess a candidate¡¯s personality type and how it will affect their behavior at work.

is one of the most in-depth personality assessments on the market. It allows HR professionals to understand what makes an individual unique. In turn, this leads to greater self-acceptance among employees and the ability to value differences in others¡ªkey factors impacting team performance.

So, how does it work? Powered by Jung¡¯s Theory of Type as well as the Five-Factor Model of personality, Golden identifies the most detailed aspects of an individual¡¯s personality. The program presents findings in a clear and concise report to make it easy to understand.

Of course, this is all good information to have in mind. But how can personality tests be helpful for HR? Not only does this test help predict how well candidates will perform at work, but it also helps to quickly identify a team¡¯s strengths and resources and its potential weaknesses and blind spots. Furthermore, this tool can help HR professionals hire people who will match, or help shape, the company culture.

4. Acsendo

How it helps you: Run assessments and improve employee performance

For many workplaces, it can be difficult to keep morale up. Many people have reported feeling overwhelmed, isolated and unproductive working from home. , on the other hand, can help HR professionals push employee engagement and measure how everyone¡¯s performing.

Within the tool, HR teams can run company assessments to measure employee satisfaction and how they view their work environment, among other things.

It also enables HR to see if workers¡¯ objectives align with company-wide goals, for example, and helps teams create development plans for employees. Even more, Acscendo advertises that their platform only takes a few days for teams to implement.

5. Odoo

How it helps you: Manage employees and recruit from one place

is a pretty popular HR platform; they say they have more than 5 million users worldwide. The tool lets users keep track of things like employee leaves, hours worked, expenses and evaluations all in one place ¨C as well as recruit and manage new job applications, for example.

We also like that they¡¯re open source and that more than 20,000 developers contribute to it globally.

6. Raven¡¯s

How it helps you: Assess the skills needed for leadership positions and reduce bias

Raven¡¯s is another HR test to assess an employee¡¯s soft skills. But it takes into special account the unique skills needed for leadership or management positions. These skills include abstract reasoning, complex problem-solving, and observation skills, among others.

HR professionals get a report with the results. It shows how the candidate compares to others in the same role. The test isn¡¯t influenced by language differences, and overall, it gives HR professionals a better understanding of who¡¯s actually best for the job.

There¡¯s the saying, ¡°There are two types of teachers with 20 years of teaching experience: the first are those with 20 years of experience and the second are those with one year¡¯s experience repeated 20 times.¡±

Some believe most teachers want to be the first kind of teacher ¨C constantly evolving throughout their careers ¨C rather than repeating the same classes. Additionally, taking professional development courses can help us reach these new heights.

Doctors, engineers, lawyers and other professionals regularly have to seek training opportunities. This enables them to keep up to date with the latest technologies, innovations and changes in the wider world. It could be argued that teachers are no different.

Benefits of professional development training

There are several benefits to continued professional training for teachers. For instance, there¡¯s always something new to learn as developments are happening regularly in the world of ELT. Whether it¡¯s innovations in ed-tech, new research into how we learn languages or a new pedagogy, certain courses can help bring you up to speed with these!

Undertaking further training will help you to deepen your knowledge and widen your expertise. So rather than simply repeating the same method of teaching a grammar point over again, you¡¯ll learn new approaches. In turn, you¡¯ll be better equipped to find the tools that work to help your students reach their learning goals.

Another great thing about professional development is that it can lead to career progression and promotion. There are a number of courses that you can take to develop not only skills for teaching, but other roles in the ELT industry.
For example, you can train to become a director of studies, specialize in business or academic English, or enter ELT publishing or management. There are many options to explore through further education!

New trends in English language teaching

To be the best teachers we can be, it's important to be aware of new trends in the field of ELT. Some of the latest ones include:

Hybrid learning

Gaining popularity in recent years, hybrid learning is an approach to teaching. Specifically, it involves some students attending class in person, while others join the class virtually from home. This means that teachers must be prepared to simultaneously teach both students in person and online.

Flipped classroom

A flipped classroom means students are introduced to content at home. Often teachers introduce this via videos and then practice working through the new knowledge in class. This is the opposite of the more traditional method where they are given new content at school, and complete assignments independently at home.

Bite-sized learning

One method of teaching that has become more common is bite-sized learning. For example, breaking down information into smaller chunks instead of having learners listen to long, uninterrupted sessions, and this helps students absorb information and keeps them engaged.

If you¡¯re not already familiar with these, there are lots of professional development courses that teach you how to use them in your classroom.

Formal qualifications in ELT

So what courses can you take? Here are some of the most common courses you can take for English language teaching.

• CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) - Cambridge¡¯s Level 5 qualification is an internationally recognized ELT course. While this certificate focuses on teaching adults, language academies accept it for both adults and young learners.
• Trinity CertTESOL (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) - Like the CELTA, the Level 5 course is designed for people with little or no English teaching experience.
• Trinity CertPT (Certificate for Practising Teachers) - Trinity¡¯s Level 6 is designed for teachers who have already been teaching for a minimum of six months. It aims to support teachers' further development and help them improve their teaching practice.
• DELTA (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) - Cambridge¡¯s provides professional development for teachers with at least one year¡¯s experience. This level 7 qualification is also designed for those who want to progress into more senior roles such as head of English and teacher training.
• Trinity DipTESOL (Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) - Trinity¡¯s is designed for teachers who have reached a stage in their career where they¡¯d like to progress to a more senior level. Like the DELTA, it¡¯s an internationally respected level 7 qualification for experienced TEFL teachers.
• Master¡¯s degree - Master¡¯s studies in English Language Teaching, TESOL, or applied linguistics, are great options to reach a more senior level in your career. Most people take them to become a director of studies or reach a management position.
• Specialized courses - If there¡¯s an area of teaching that you¡¯d like to specialize in, plenty of short courses cover a range of topics. These include teaching online, teaching with technology, teaching business English and teaching very young children. Check out , or to see what they offer.

If you¡¯re unable to take a formal course, sharing ideas with colleagues is a great way to create professional development opportunities. You could exchange lesson plans and ask for feedback or input. There are plenty of podcasts, webinars and social media groups for teachers where you can find great tips and ideas from fellow teachers worldwide.

Whichever route you decide, remember that learning is a lifelong journey ¨C not only for your students but for yourself too! There are always new things to discover that will help you develop as a teacher.