Usefulness of Soft Skills for Better English in Employment Opportunities for Teachers

Exploring the Importance of Soft Skills in English Teaching

by M. Stanley Jones*, Dr. Kalyana Chakravarthi Thirunagari,

- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540

Volume 15, Issue No. 11, Nov 2018, Pages 357 - 363 (7)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals


ABSTRACT

The aim of this research was to explore the usefulness of soft skills for better English in employment opportunities for teachers. English is the preferred common language because it is an exact language. It allows a person to say what he or she wants to say without having to argue about the meaning. The research will use the secondary data approach. The result of the study shows that teaching as a multilayered presentation that demands a broad extent of skills and awareness including personal and interpersonal skills for successful achievement of handling classroom burden. Thus, the gift of teaching simply doesn’t entail a diffusion of knowledge from professor to people.

KEYWORD

soft skills, better English, employment opportunities, teachers, exact language, secondary data approach, multilayered presentation, personal skills, interpersonal skills, classroom burden

I. INTRODUCTION

Currently, the world as well as our nation particularly is exposed to 3rd industrial revolution namely the revolution of communication. This alternatively is disrupting business and also workplace. In the sphere of international communication, English is deemed as business world's lingua Franca disregarding political, social, geographical and also religious differences. There was a time when getting a job required proficiency in a particular skill but today one need to possess communication skills along with their subjective skills. The urge to prioritize communication skills for development of English is of sheer importance and owns the aim to propel job aspirants get job easily.

Soft skills can be regarded as traits of an individual that Improves performance in job, interaction with lecturer, along with viewpoint of career. Pachauri (2014) define soft skills being traits of an individual, gracefulness, language fluency, personal habits, optimism and friendliness to varied extent (Pachauri, 2014). Soft skills have been adopted being an ordinary feature promoting lecturers selection with respect to personality traits and community skills (Tang and Tan, 2015). An efficient lecturer is expected to commit to his or her work and also takes initiatives. Teaching is regarded to be the multifaceted performance that seeks wide knowledge range along with skills both soft and hard that deter classroom burden (Tang, et. al., 2014a). Also, thought to be a social activity, teaching is all about communal interaction amidst students and lectures (Lim and Tan, 2013). Past few years, English importance has raised two fold thanks to globalization of teaching jobs. Across regions, English has become a crucial trait for communication both at intra-national as well as international level. Spoken English importance also has increased dramatically as they exists multiple cases when an individual has knowledge about its subject but cannot communicate effectively in English. So, spoken English is of core importance. Also, learning a language as English in a country where it is not probably the native language exposes to plentitude of opportunities for all. Corporate world today recognizes the importance of English language more than the technical subject. Style of teaching is combination of behavior resultant of which, teaching talent not only consists of knowledge transmission from lecturer to a student but also streamlines the entire process of learning of an individual (Prasertcharoensuk and Tang, 2016). Soft skills are both social as well as relational and a lecturers necessity toiling in greater performance leading to higher proficiency (Tang, et. al., 2015a). One can consider subject as a means of soft skills of a significant area. Also, the understanding of what one should consider as soft skills varies. Project management knowledge though good to have is also a must have. Cultural awareness

friendliness, and varies optimism. Hard skills and soft skills go hand in hand and are the jobs technical requirements. Table 1: Soft Skills Examples Training experts as well as educational enthusiast segregate competency skills in two parts as hard skills and soft skills. Ibrahim (2017) seek skills being a group of attitude, personal traits, and social grace and is responsible for segregating employees (Ibrahim, 2017). Marketing and professional training researchers suggest that both the skills have an impact on the performance of job. The soft skills are merely a combination of habits, qualities, personal traits along with social graces. Gibbons and Lange (2000) suggest that soft skills are ones non cognitive abilities inculcated and are required to maintain a steady relationship. Emphasis by Rugarcia et al (2000) states that if the needs of student‘s maps with the ones provided by institutes of higher education then English teaching needs to be mandated along with technological support. As per Massaro et al (2016), soft skills competency compel changes in organization by employees (Homer, 2001). Employees acquiring soft skills reflect proficiency in performance. Corporate world acts on English. If an individual is highly proficient in English, he can climb the ladder to success easily. Likewise, if someone is poor in English, no matter how effective ideas he has, he will still rank low in the management ladder. Ones that have great proficiency would upsurge using your ideas. Hence, there exists plentitude of opportunities for the trainers for training students and employees so that they stand out in public speaking or additional conferences or meetings. One can effectively handle all grammatical issues, vocabulary and skills of presentation. Several skills that a trainer teaches include:

A. Standard English

Indian English pronunciation drastically varies across varied regions as per the vernacular influence. Hence, the question arises as to what is the form of Standard English. British English, Indian or American English, owing to the regional influence. Uptil globalization, the standard form was British English tech centric nations.

B. Tool for employability

India also has given its contribution to several vocabularies for English language and occupied its place in standard dictionary. English proficiency is necessary for maintaining employability. This is basically one capacity to stay employed with his relevant skills. Skills of communication are largely desireable for the growth of an individual. Also for the growth of career, it is necessary to have proficiency skills both in written as well as oral form. Since English is undoubtedly the common and popular language across the globe, its knowledge is required to get employed. Corporate world relies on the knowledge of English. Efficiency in English is not just producing grammatically correct sentence but additionally having presentation, negotiation and convincing skills.

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

Though recently, higher education institues focus greatly on employability but that fail to describe industry, agency of government, academics, & students. It is seen that employability would encompass skills along with attributes enabling graduates to get hold of job and also the ones having a job strive towards career advancement. This includes having significant knowledge; attitude and skills that help deploy specific traits and further enabled marketing those to employers. Finch, Baldwin, Hamilton, and Zehner‘s (2013) saw that email would hire graduate who have better soft skills and give least importance to academics along with skills of problem solving, pre graduation and functional (Finch, et. al., 2013).

A. Role of soft skills in effective communication

True that skills of communication rank high when assessing skills for employability along with interpersonal and also intra personal skills. Candidates are deemed inefficient if they lack communication skills. Traits interpersonal are: • Attitude • Managing time • Responsibility • Ethics, values & integrity

Interpersonal traits of an individual include: • Self-awareness • Promotion Teamwork • Communication alomgt with networking • Listening and Empathy skills • Problem solving skills and troubleshooting • Leadership

Non-Verbal Communication

As said action speak louder than words. There needs to be a balance between verbal and non-verbal form of communication. Nonverbal communication includes: • Gestures • Eye contact • Facial Expressions • Body posture So we know understand that soft skills and Personality traits both are necessary for career Developmental along with academic and hard skills.

C. The most important soft skill

Communication skills appear to be one of the most important soft skills required by an individual. And sadly most employers lack while they step out of universities and colleges. If asked about communication skills, one will give varied answers as it is fusion of multiple specs. Find below some of the important element that help shape skills of communication of an individual.

Figure 1: Communication Skills

esteem that is shown in the conversation skills along with body language, enough discussion skills and key significance of presentation skills to market themselves and their ideas. Communication skills are required to give a boost to the professional career of an individual and also to boost social competency. This is the major fact that is applicable to the soft skills. The candidate should be proficient enough in social skills to showcase them in the workplace and hence to ascend their career ladder. If you drill down further into communication skills, the problem would be more complicated. In the current world where the number of people speaking English is increasing, language proficiency is not just about speaking and reading, but also includes writing skills in a professional way. Though, there are many graduates who have sound hard skills and know where to use it and where not use, but inadequate soft skills of not knowing where exactly to use the standard form and in which tone have become a big challenge as per (Shaheen and Zhang, 2012).

D. Acquiring soft skills

The best way to get formal training is to attend evening classes to improve your language, Rhetoric, presentation skills and learn to resolve conflicts and manage culture. This is the widely known concept that is giving ample benefits by giving the students who have attended the course with a certificate which would be helpful while applying for jobs. The sarcasm that is projected in the last line is deliberate, since there is no assurance that taking the course will help you to improve your soft skills. Another best way to learn soft skills is to get self-trained, i.e. by reading the books. As discussed previously to acquire personal characteristics you should be keep on practicing for which you need self-training. This helps you to improve the soft skill category. In addition, in the last 10 years, there is another technique to get self-trained has gained a lot of popularity and that training is called as electronic learning, which in short called as e-learning. There is an article that projected the significance of web-based training that would hone your soft skills and highlight you to practically embrace this approach as per (Tang and Tan, 2015). In many educational institutions, every level of teaching is totally changed and will see many changes in the future. The teaching methodology will be more about student centric. This move is also driving to add soft skills into the curriculum along with the hard skills. To be precise, students who are taking part in the lecture to be learning hard skills and also without their knowledge, they will be practicing soft skills too. This is the very practical way of lecturing. There are a few

courses. There are a few lectures that would get overlooked, when the significance of soft skill increases and hence not many dedicated courses would support it. The best and ideal way to offer soft skills training to the students is to add this into the hard skill courses. This will keep the curriculum the same rather the teaching methodology of the lecturer would change and is reflected in students acquiring soft skills. Nganga (2015) has come up with key skills, which are significant. The first is an innovative development and the second is thinking ability and problem solving ability and the third is communication skills and the fourth is lifelong learning and managing information and the fifth is leadership skills and the sixth is teamwork and the seventh is ethics and professionalism as per Pachauri (2014). As per the results of the research, there are seven soft skills that are found and picked by the institutions to add into the teacher education. There include communication skills, thinking skills and problem solving ability, teamwork, lifelong learning and information, entrepreneur skills, ethics, moral and professionalism and leadership qualities.

Embedded model

The soft skill model will be having teaching as well as the learning process in the curriculum. No student is required to undergo a special soft skill training to hone their communication skills. Students are rigorously trained to improve their soft skills by going through formal learning and teaching activities that are conducted with the help of few key strategies and techniques to attain those objectives and develop soft skills. Every element that is in the soft skills will give a great learning outcome and then this will be executed as an instructional plan for courses. This can be acquired through various teaching and learning activities like attending brainstorming sessions, doing team work, questioning, discussing in the class, delivering presentations, taking part in role play and simulation, doing tasks or project, participating in field work and doing project work. To implement this kind of model, one should hire the teachers who are experienced in using teaching and learning strategies along with methods that would need active participation from students. As per Pachauri (2014), if everything is meticulously planned and is used with relevant teaching as well as learning strategies, then this model is the best way to develop and improve soft skills (Pachauri, 2014). This research will highlight about the perception as well as attitude of people running educational institutions to find reasons for not teaching or neglecting to teach soft skills as part of teacher‘s educational activity in Pakistan. There are many models that are available to teach soft skills that are best suited and meet the requirement. The widely the curriculum of teaching. Though, the curriculum is not concealed, but this would become an active part of the entire teaching process.

E. Importance of soft skills acquisition by teachers

Tang, Yunus, and Hashim (2014) have carried out a study that presented the lack of soft skills and knowledge in lectures. The lecturers were not taught soft skills while pursuing their higher education. As per Tang et al (2015), it was found that the soft skills acquired by teachers will show their excellence in their teaching to their students. The study finally stated that soft skills should be imbibed in teachers to create the best and powerful teaching practice. As per Tang et al (2015), soft skills will be an addition to hard skills and will have great impact on the ability of teachers to organize their work. The score of improving soft skills in the workplace is higher over the ones that are gained by teaching the students. Tang and Tan (2015) analyzed the ethics, presentation skills and moral skills of amateur teachers who are teaching in the secondary schools as stated by the superintendents of the school. The results are totally triangulated using self-rating data that was given by the teachers. An investigation has been carried out by Tang, Tan, and Vetriveilmany (2015c) to find the key issues to develop soft skills with the help of teaching specialized exercise. They found that the embedded model to be an excellent solution that assures to develop soft skills in students when are embedded in every course. Tang et al (2015a) have thoroughly inspected the people who are concerned about the soft skills that are gained by students to achieve excellence in teaching. The significance of having soft skills of the teachers is a related variable. Communication skills are all about the ability of the lecturers to improve their oral and written English language skills. This will also have skills that will let lecturers, to get evidence and deliver a right opinion in a simple and reliable way. Lecturers would need to try their best to attain active listeners while giving the engaging lecturers and response to the queries of listeners. Critical thinking and problem solving abilities are the best way to differentiate and explain about the issues, create right solutions and see how the gap is bridged with knowledge components. These skills have the ability to find the best resolutions for the issues that would let the lecturers to tap their creativity, use their reasoning skill and previous experience along with the evidences and sources. The key elements that the soft skills should have are the ability to identify and

Shahabadkar et al (2015), soft skills are the key elements and the most demanding skill set that is in education as well as in every profession. Soft skills will give you a professional kind of attitude and also cements the gap that is between a person to be successful in his/her profession. This boosts the confidence level of the teacher and uses their abilities to the fullest to make the learning process intriguing and engaging besides accelerating success in their jobs. The View point will build attitude and this attitude will help to improve behavior. This behavior will develop the understanding and the acceptance level. There is a plethora of studies that were carried out previously and have highlighted about the importance of having good communication skills in employees, especially in English language. Basically, English is considered as a lingua franca that has more commercial sphere with businesses going from local to global. Many interviews are carried out in English; therefore, employers will judge the candidate's ability by seeing their ability to talk fluently in English as per. According to Pandey and Pandey (2014), an employee who has great ideas and lack good communication skills will not be able to climb the management ladder so easily. Pooja (2013) has commented on this perspective that lecturers who are teaching English will have great responsibility to fill the gap that is in corporate needs and what is offered by the institution. This gap will be filled by the lecturers who have good competencies. Canning (2009) strongly stated that academics will not highlight that modern language is what graduates require to develop competences rather they would need this language to increase the chances of cracking job. Pandey and Pandey (2014) and Pooja (2013) have written about the significance of English in securing employment, especially in India. As per Poon (2016), employment rate is very low in the graduates who lack good communication skills. The proficiency in English is not a big problem for the native speakers of the English language, but this becomes a hindrance for the non-native English speakers. It is an advantage to have good communication skills to get a job and have a great boost in the professional life. Proficiency in language and good communication skills are required for a graduate to secure employment in teaching as per (Aruna, 2011). Improving language proficiency is the main aim of lecturers who are teaching language. However, the main aim of language teaching is to let the learners to actively participate in the conversation where given and take is normal as per (Duncan and Dunifon, 2012). By giving a lot of attention to, content, accuracy and function teach language, there using the language in the real-time scenarios as per (Byrnes, 1984). Soft skills will improve your competency level and will help you to use your ability to subsidize to advance and transform. According to Salleh, Sulaiman, and Talib (2010), soft skills are significance operative instructions and techniques that are used in the higher educational institutions to improve the career of students and also lecturers (Salleh, et. al., 2010). By identifying and learning about the significance of sharpening your soft skills is thought-provoking for the people who design curriculum for students as per (Hodges and Burchell, 2003). A well-designed and well-organized education system is highly dangerous to grow human capital. It is very important for the institutions that are teaching higher education to earn human capital to reach the expectations and request that are demanded by the society as well as the nation by improving skills of students and get them placed as per (Pachauri, 2014). Acquiring soft skills is often considered as something that would happen normally and this has the ability to transfer as well as create knowledge that meets local requirements as per (Schulz, 2008). Subramanian‘s (2013) carried out a study that lecturers have appreciated the importance of soft skills to be added in the curriculum, but they did not follow the instructions stringently. Subramanian highlighted the importance of acquiring soft skills of the students. He also stated the lecturers should prepare and then deliver soft skills training when they are taught to students to hone their skills. It is critical for lecturers to learn about soft skills, since it would vary from one teaching approach to another embraced by the teachers while teaching students. Teaching is always a 2-way process that would turn to be organized and highly operative based on the understanding, talent and attitude that are possessed by the teachers as per (Adediwura and Baba, 2007). As per Schulz (2008), lecturers will be playing a major role in improving the soft skills of every student. Basically, the well-designed education system will have good human capital as per (Pachauri, 2014). The study has focused on taking up the challenge with the globalization of businesses. It is important for the nation to stay on par with the skills that are expected by the employers. It is required for students to be skilled and rational.

III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This research work is totally based on the secondary data. The secondary resources would

opportunities for teachers and students.

For collecting the data by doing secondary research, there are many other resources that are referred to gathered information. The researcher will use the information that is gathered before doing the research and can be used for various other reasons prior. The widely referred resources to gather secondary data include magazines, articles, journals, newspapers, financial reports and internal documents related to the organizations.

IV. CONCLUSION

The importance of basic improved, interpersonal skills in English on the subject of teacher‘s employment has been put forward in this paper. This study deduced, interpersonal skills are individual qualities which improve exchanges made by a professor, work execution, and professional standpoints. Commitment to work and capability for scheming is an anticipated quality in a decent lecturer. This study also established teaching as a multilayered presentation that demands a broad extent of skills and awareness including personal and interpersonal skills for successful achievement of handling classroom burden. Significance English language as a skill has multiplied over the years, and credits go to the job of teaching, in recent years. A topic can be supposed an interpersonal skill at a certain zone; similarly it could be supposed a personal skill at an alternative area. Moreover, the definition of interpersonal skills fluctuates a lot. Besides, teaching may also be thought a combination of actions. Thus, the gift of teaching simply doesn‘t entail a diffusion of knowledge from professor to pupil.

REFERENCES

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Corresponding Author M. Stanley Jones*

Research Scholar, Department of English, Mewar University, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, India

stanleymedapati@gmail.com