Integrating soft skills in the English language classroom is especially crucial for professional growth. It is taken as an employability skill, which many employers around the globe are looking for nowadays in their employees. Engaging students in debates helps them develop public speaking, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving and listening skills
Today's changing trend in education, globalisation and an ever-growing competitive market place require highly skilled human resource. Soft skills must be demonstrated in every sector of life, including academics and professional life. In imparting knowledge to the students, teachers play a vital role, and his/her role or activities are imitated by the students.
In this context, it is important that teachers be well-equipped with soft skills through training.
Soft skills are valuable traits that ensure better functioning of personal, professional and academic life. They are behavioural in nature, dealing with ways to communicate with people, making business presentations, being empathetic with the people one comes across, working as a team member and managing the time well.
Soft skills can be communication skills, interpersonal skills, decision-making skills, emotional intelligence skills or problem-solving skills.
While hard skills are academic, soft skills are professional skills. Since colleges/ schools are the second home for the learners, it is necessary that the teachers first work on themselves in terms of incorporating soft skills, such as communicative skills, problem-solving skills, time management skills, public speaking skills, team management skills, leadership skills and emotional intelligence skills.
Hard skills are visible and are comparatively easy to teach, and are also capable of being measured and estimated.
However, soft skills comprise psychological and social attributes.
Soft skills comprise personal traits that develop an individual's interpersonal skills, job performance and career endeavours. Soft skills also refer to fluency in language and personal habits.
Deficiency in soft skills is greatly observed in today's learners, and it is the teacher's responsibility to inculcate such skills in the students.
For instance, when the students are made to present in front of the class, or take part in group discussion or peer evaluation, they could be quite nervous.
This is because they lack communicative competence, are unable to face a mass or take a decision.
This situation occurs frequently in an academic setting, which provides enough space for conducting research in this area. Students on graduation will soon be responsible professionals, and they need to exhibit their soft skills in order to be competent in their fields. Integration of soft skills in the teacher training programme can help equip the teachers with professional skills, resulting in a better teaching and learning environment once they join a school or college.
A teacher should be intelligent, possess a positive attitude and have high ethical values as he/she is responsible for preparing the necessary human resources for the nation. This demands that the teacher education curriculum be revised so as to inculcate soft skills in them in order to meet the needs of the society and the learners.
According to research conducted on soft skills, seven soft skills need to be taught in the teacher education programme: communicative skills, life-long learning and information management, entrepreneur skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, team building skills, leadership skills, and ethics, moral and professionalism skills.
These can be enhanced through academic and non-academic support, formal teaching and learning activities that include class discussion, questioning, brainstorming, teamwork, presentation, role play, project work, field work, site visits, and also learning through extracurricular activities that include different games.
And educators, after being equipped with the soft skills, should be able to pass these skills to the students through peer directed learning and self-development of students.
Lack of these skills can make one feel paralysed in life. Some of the strategies to enhance soft skills are essay writing, group discussion and oral presentation.
Students who show an active participation in learning activities are in a better position to further their career later on.
Integrating soft skills in the English language classroom is especially crucial for professional growth. It is taken as an employability skill, which many employers around the globe are looking for nowadays in their employees. Engaging students in debates helps them develop public speaking, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving and listening skills.
Assigning project work to students with step-by-step guidelines also helps in enhancing their soft skills.
Soft skills are also termed as people skills that are helpful for the overall development of an individual.
The strategies to enhance them are through questioning, peer evaluation, group discussion, problem-based learning, task-based approach, project work, fieldwork, site visits, brainstorming, teamwork and game-based activities.
And these strategies should be motivational through a student-centred teaching method.
As the students are future professionals who will hold responsible positions, they must be guided to be competent in soft skills too to fit in the competitive global marketplace.
They will need to showcase not only hard skills but also soft skills to meet the organisational goals and targets.
The education curriculum should integrate a subject on "soft skills" in the teaching and learning curriculum from primary to university level studies.
And teacher training programmes are crucial in training the teachers to teach soft skills in a practical-oriented manner. The students should be encouraged to implement their theoretical knowledge in practice in an efficient manner.
Priya teaches English in college
A version of this article appears in the print on July 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
