How to integrate Career Education into English Teaching

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How to integrate Career Education into English
Teaching

• ????
• December 16, 2004

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Presented by

• Mary Sue Sroda, PhD
• TESOL Consultant
• Yilan Teacher Training Center
• Yilan City
• E-Mail sue.sroda_at_murraystate.edu

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Outline

• Introduction and overview
• Definitions What is Career Education?
• Approaches and Perspectives
• Levels of School-based initiatives
• Classroom-based initiatives
• Sample activities and projects
• Workshop-developing your own activities (by
  discipline)

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

• Research shows that children as young as five
  years old can answer this question.
• In the US, popular answers from children are
  ballerina, astronaut, doctor and President
  of the United States.
• (This reflects the cultural value that choosing a
  career is considered an important decision.)

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What is career education?

• To understand modern definitions of career
  education, it is useful to look back on very old
  perspectives of how people chose jobs and careers.

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Old view of career choices 1(really old)

• You have no real choice
• In ancient times, there werent that many jobs. A
  man might become a farmer, a tradesperson, an
  artisan, a soldier, a scholar, a religious person
  or a ruler.
• Women became wives and mothers and were
  responsible for raising the young.
• What job you got often depended on what your
  father did.

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Old view of career choices 2 (slightly old)

• Your job is solely based on your ability
• The idea used to be that what you are good at
  automatically determines your job. If you were
  good at math, everyone assumed you would be an
  engineer even if you didnt want to.
• Currently, ability still plays a role, but less
  of one.

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Old view of career choices 3(slightly old)

• Once you pick a career,
• the hard part is over.
• Up to a few years ago, a popular idea was that
  you got a job with one company and stayed with it
  until you retired.
• Now, in the US, many people change jobs or
  careers 2-3 times throughout his/her working life.

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Definitions Jobs, Occupations, Careers

• JOB A JOB is a paid position requiring a group
  of specific attributes and skills that enable a
  person to perform tasks in an organization either
  part-time or full-time for a short or long
  duration.

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Definitions Jobs, Occupations, Careers

• OCCUPATION An OCCUPATION is defined as a group
  of similar jobs found in different industries or
  organizations.

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Definitions Jobs, Occupations, Careers

• CAREER A CAREER is the sequence and variety of
  occupations (paid and unpaid) which one
  undertakes throughout a lifetime. More broadly,
  career includes life roles, leisure activities,
  learning and work.

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Example Sue Sroda

• My Career is as scholar and researcher in
  Linguistics, specifically in the area of second
  language acquisition.
• My Occupation is teaching linguistics and
  training people to be English Teachers.
• My Job is to teach courses at Murray State
  University in Murray, Kentucky, and direct the
  Graduate Program in Teaching English to Speakers
  of other Languages.

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The new reality in choosing careers

• (1) There are many options.
• Young people face a vast number of choices in
  occupations and careers.
• One website called Career Matters lists 513
  very different possible occupations and careers.
• (http//www.ilc.org/cfmx/CM/index.cfm)

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The new reality in choosing careers

• (2) Modern society considers career choice
  important.
• We cite statistics such as 36 percent of all
  your waking time as an adult will be spent at
  work.
• This can lead to great stress for students as
  they go through the school system. They feel
  pressured.

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The new reality in choosing careers

• (3) It is a long process.
• Choosing a career is seen as a complicated
  process, involving understanding who you are and
  being able to make decisions in a changing world.

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What do you want to do when you grow up?
I dont know!!!
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The solution

• Integrating career education as part of
  traditional education.

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What is Career Education?

• Instruction which assists students in making
  decisions about careers and in having a happy and
  productive working life.

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Career Education can be

• SCHOOL-WIDE Activities or programs in which all
  students in all grades participate
  (exampleCareer Day fairs or Guest Speakers)
• OR
• CLASSROOM-BASED Activities or lessons for a
  specific grade or class (example8th grade
  English).

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Career Education can be

• SEPARATEgiven as a unit or an entire class
  alone.
• OR
• INTEGRATEDused as part of the content for a
  different class, e.g. English, Math, or Social
  sciences.

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What is necessary in order to have quality career
education in your school?

• (1) Support from everyone (administration,
  teachers, students, parents, etc).
• (2) Up-to-date information
• (3) Active student participation

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(1) Support from Everyone

• Even though career education is a mandate, you
  must believe in it and agree that it can help
  students.
• Playing its not my problem is not productive.
• Explaining to students the purpose of career
  education activities can be helpful.

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(2) Up-to-date information

• There are many resources such as books and
  websites which explain new approaches to career
  education.

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(3) Active student participation

• This is a process for students, so activities
  should be communicative and expressive.

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So...what is next?

• Once you have decided that Career education will
  help your students, you need to decide how best
  to implement it.

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Classroom-based Integrated Career Education

• Most of the rest of the workshop will focus on
  this type of teaching, since it can be the
  easiest to implement.
• We will start with four areas of career education
  and discuss sample activities and projects.

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Four Areas of Career Education

• Knowledge of own personality and strengths
• Awareness of many possible career options
• Decision-making skills
• Transition skills

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1) Knowledge of own personality and strengths

• 1a) Activities which help students identify and
  understand their own strengths.
• Example Who Are You and Meet Your Match
  worksheets.
• Source http//www.vaview.vt.edu/activities/6-8/in
  dex.cfm?searchLevel68

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1) Knowledge of own personality and strengths

• 1b) Activities which help communication skills
  (needed to be successful in any job).
• Communication games like The messenger and the
  Scribe.

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• Problem solving games Simulations in groups
• The new bicycle you bought has just fallen apart.
  Decide what you would like the company to do
  about it and then write them a letter.
• Then groups can compare letters. Which one is the
  most effective, why? What is the best way to
  discuss a problem? Etc.

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2) Awareness of many possible career options

• 2a) What is a job?
• Students can have a discussion about what it
  means to have a job. How is having a job
  different that being a student? Do you have a
  job? What kind of job would you like in the
  future?
• How would you define a good job?

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• 2b) Students explore types of career options (in
  addition to the ones they already know).
• What can you do in?
• Students make a list (they can research or do as
  homework) all the jobs they can think of which
  involve a field such as biology or history or
  math. Students should be ready to describe any
  job their classmates or teacher want to know more
  about.

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• 2c) What does a ____ do?
• Give students selections from possible job lists.
  They have to make a list of what a person in that
  job does, what the requirements of the job are,
  what are typical working hours, etc.

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• 2d) Job interview
• Students interview someone who has a job which
  they are interested in learning more about
  (interview sheet may be used).

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3) Decision-making skills

• One very important aspect of being successful in
  any career is being able to make decisions when
  the answer isnt completely clear.
• Choosing a job can involve many factorssee the
  individual variables sheet for more details.
• Activities should help students be good
  decision-makers.

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• 3a) Pros and Cons
• This simple activity involves presenting an
  action to a class (It does not have to be job
  related at first) and then having them list the
  pros (good reasons or results) and cons (bad
  reasons or results) about that action.
• Example Spending 3000NT on a new bicycle.

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• 3b) Make a plan.
• Students use worksheets to make decisions about
  what their ideal job is and what they need to do
  to get it.
• Examples If lifes a game, play it well and
  Dream it, plan it, do it.

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4) Transition skills

• This is the newest area in Career Education.
  Transition skills allow students to effectively
  cope with new situations, both desired and
  undesired.
• Learning how to deal with change in a changing
  world

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• 4a) Who moved my cheese?

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• 4b) Happy Ending.
• Students tell or write about a time when
  something very unexpected happened to them, but
  the result was better than they planned
• The teacher can start by telling his/her own
  story.

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• 4c) New Job Market
• Some studies say that in the year 2060, over half
  of all the jobs that will be available havent
  been invented yet.
• Have students imagine a job that hasnt been
  invented yet that they would like to have. What
  is it like? How is it different?
• Have students write a classified ad for that job.

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• 4d) New Job Markethistory lesson.
• Find the classified ads from a newspaper 55 years
  ago. Compare to the classified ads from the same
  (or similar) newspaper today.
• Have students discuss differences in the jobs
  that were available then and those that are
  available today.

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Your turn!

• Get into groups of three or four and plan some
  career education activities that you could do in
  your classes.
• Then well share our ideas!

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More resources

• Virginia Career View--http//www.vaview.vt.edu/act
  ivities/6-8/index.cfm?searchLevel68
• Career Mattershttp//www.ilc.org/cfmx/CM/Careers/
  cm_faq.cfm
• Careers.org--http//www.careers.org/

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Any Questions?

• Thank you for your kind attention and
  participation!