On the Job: ESL and Essential Skills for Work

Writing, Reading Text and Document Use are Essential Skills that are intertwined and very hard to teach in isolation. Teach them all together. Learners will need to use them all together in the workplace. Writing includes writing texts, writing in documents (completing forms) and non-paper-based writing (on a computer). Complexity levels for writing are based on the length and purpose, style and structure, and content of the writing.

People coming from different cultures and school systems have developed different ways of thinking and processing information. In some cultures significant use of memory is stressed more than in others. Decision making is discouraged in cultures where a top-down management style is favoured. In other countries secretaries still manage timetables and schedules with the result that some managers have not developed job task planning skills.

Working with Others deals with the extent to which employees work with others to carry out their tasks. Do they work cooperatively? Do they work alone? It does not include non-task related social behaviour that occurs in the workplace, such as small talk. That is not saying small talk is not important but rather that this definition is confined to work tasks.

Integrating oral communication skills into the ESL classroom is nothing new – in fact that is pretty well a “raison d’etre” in the first place. Most language learning methods used in Canada include a balanced approach to learning that integrates speaking and listening, as well as reading and writing.

Anyone working with numbers in the workplace typically finds them embedded in a lot of spoken or written text. Explanation, elaboration and analysis of the numbers, for example, are frequently presented along with the numbers. There is a language challenge, then, that needs to be considered in numeracy tasks.

Document Use is one of the most important skills in the workplace but one of the most overlooked skills when it comes to preparing people for work. Documents are everywhere – they convey safety information and important warnings to staff, record daily routines, list items, track expenses, and on and on.

There are different purposes for reading leading to various levels of complexity. Complexity is based on how much processing of information is required to arrive at an accurate outcome. These levels range from level 1 (the least complex) reading relatively short texts to locating a single piece of information to level 5 (the most complex) interpreting dense and complex texts and making high-level inferences and using specialized knowledge.