Got resources? Scaffolding, checklists, etc....

I'm an ESL teacher for adults in Northern Virginia and have just started to teach a workplace communication class.  Rather belatedly, I've decided to create an extension project for each of my learners to work on at their own pace on what I'm calling a Career Warm-Up.  I'm hoping students can be engaged in the process of taking an inventory of their English language/hard/soft skills, education, experience and values and develop some 5-10 year goals on how they'd like to develop their career pathway.   I'm interested in developing a checklist, some guidance and some language scaffolding to make more resources accessible to my learners.  If anyone else in engaged in such an activity or has developed similar resources, I'd love to hear from you!   Any direction or links would also be greatly appreciated.   I'm new to this career-oriented language teaching and want to ensure a success.

Ellen 

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Ellen Clore-Patron, ESL Teacher

Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP)

Literacy Council of Northern Virginia

ellenpatron@gmail.com

Comments

Hi Ellen, I love your idea for this learner-centered project. I'm wondering what level of learners you are working with. The Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE and ESOL Classroom is a great resource, but in my experience it needs to be adapted for lower level English learners.

I'm very interested in resources that can be used with lower level learners.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition CoP

Good morning all.

Thank you so much to Sayyid, Amy and Susan for passing along links to resources for my Career Warm-Ups project.  I'm working with intermediate level learners who would be hard pressed to use most of the online resources as is.  So, I'm endeavoring to adapt them. 

I've developed a couple of documents including a personal technology inventory and another resource that asks students to inventory their educational background, work values, English proficiency, and soft and hard skills.  I'm using a few resources from the Cambridge Career and Education Pathways series to elicit student understanding of their values and soft skills.  On the main inventory, students are directed to the Northstar website, www.digitalliteracyassessment.org, and have space to record their test scores for Northstar  assessments.  My technology inventory would certainly be suitable for lower level learners since I've used check boxes with short descriptions of skills and emojis to circle that indicate how they feel about using those individual skills.  

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to see a resource or talk shop about career awareness. I'm new to the task but would love to share experiences.  

Ellen 

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Ellen Clore-Patron

ellenpatron@gmail.com

 

Hello Ellen and all, If you have not already checked out the LINCS ESL Pro resources on Preparing English Learners for Work and Career Pathways, I would strongly recommend that you do. The ESL Pro resources include an issue brief, a self-paced online module, and a companion learning resource, which is like a digital magazine. This digital magazine is chock full of links to resources and practical teaching suggestions to engage learners at different levels in career awareness/career readiness/career pathways.

If members have drawn upon these resources, please share your experience with us here!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, English Language Acquisition