Pixel International Conferences

We are facing unprecedented challenges - social, economic and environmental, driven by accelerating globalization and a faster rate of technological developments. These global trends are already affecting individual lives, and may do so for decades to come. The development of personal/professional skills, which consist of life/career competences and which are basically referred to as “soft skills” in subject-specific literature, have become an important part of any coursework required to earn Bachelors, Masters or PhD. Skills such as creative thinking, critical thinking, learning to learn, communication and collaboration are value-added skills essential to any career. So, while earning their degree students ought to develop these skills within the framework of three foundational contexts: emotional development, digital literacy and discipline knowledge. Thus, the aim of the current paper is to define the domain of soft skills in the ESP context, as well as thoroughly elaborate and introduce a number of authentic ways and means, which can support the development of these skills in “ESP: Business and Management” course instruction. In order to devise the activities properly we had to provide answers to two basic questions:

• What competences do students need to thrive and shape their world in modern employment market?
• How can these competences be effectively developed in “ESP: Business and Management” course instruction?

As it has been observed, in ESP instruction the teacher should be committed to developing not only language – communicative competences, but also helping every learner develop as a whole person, fulfil his or her potential. Thus, the ESP course should be designed around students to motivate them and recognize their prior knowledge, skills, attitudes and values. Students should be offered a diverse range of topic options, and the opportunity to suggest their own topics which should be challenging and enable deep thinking and reflection. In this way learners will be able to link their learning experiences to the real world and have a sense of purpose in their learning. The activities introduced in the current paper are adaptable and dynamic, they give learners opportunity to discover how a concept or a topic can link and connect to other concepts or topics within and across disciplines, and with real life as well.

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes, soft skills.

References:

• Hutchinson T. and Waters A. English for Specific Purposes. Cambridge University Press, 1993. -183p.
• Keith Harding, English for Specific Purposes, Oxford University Press, 2007, 170p.
• The Future of Education and Skills, Education 2030, OECD - https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/">https://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/
• The Cambridge Framework for Life Competences, Introductory Guide for Teachers and Educational Managers, Cambridge University Press, https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2018/04/05/cambridge-framework-life-competencies/">https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2018/04/05/cambridge-framework-life-competencies/