Professional contexts for modern languages:work experience and academic reflection in a multilingual context

In the second year module ‘Professional Contexts for Modern Languages’ at Lancaster University, students take 20-25 hour placements, and using a multimodal forum, they articulate their challenges, development and understanding of the varying contexts in which they are working. In summative assessment, students across languages and types of activity communicate and learn from each other so as to foster a broad, cross cultural understanding of language-based professional and business contexts (mainly in educational, digital marketing and translation sectors both in the UK and abroad). The module establishes a mutually productive engagement between a university languages department, faculty employability and central careers staff, the Lancaster University Students Union (that source teaching placements) and local and European employers. Inspired by a vision of modern languages degrees as fostering a global mind-set and cultural intelligence, the course allows us to rethink language learning within a framework of skills for employability

Is developing employability skills relevant to adult language students?

Open University (OU) students are typically mature students who combine studying part-time with work or caring responsibilities; the average age of OU language students has been dropping, and about 30% of our new students are now under 25. The traditional view of adult learners who study languages is that they often study for pleasure or personal development, rather than for clear career goals. The current study investigated whether adult students found the development of employability skills as part of their language courses useful, and, if so, the development of which particularly key employability skills they valued most

The political economy of high skills:Higher Education in knowledge-based labour markets

<p>A successful transition into the knowledge economy depends upon higher level skills, creating unprecedented pressure on university systems to provide labour markets with the skills needed. But what are the political economy dynamics underlying national patterns of high skill formation? The article proposes a framework to theorize the relationship between higher education systems and knowledge-based labour markets based on two dimensions: the type of knowledge economy predominant in a given country and the extent of inter-university competition. It is argued that the former explains what type of higher level skills will be sought by employers and cultivated by governments, while the latter helps us understanding why some higher education systems are more open to satisfying labour market demands compared to others. A set of diverse country case studies (Britain, Germany, South Korea and the Netherlands) is employed to illustrate the theory.</p

Enhancing employability skills through the use of film in the language classroom

Employability is increasingly becoming a central aspect of higher education in the United Kingdom and it is becoming imperative that modern foreign languages teachers engage directly and sincerely with the employability agenda. This article proposes the use of feature films as a successful method for developing and promoting employability skills in the language classroom, an approach which has not thus far been adopted. I begin by discussing different models for the delivery of employability skills and I provide an overview of employability initiatives that have been undertaken by languages departments. The key issues of embedding versus stand-alone modules and the role of academics are addressed. While many employability initiatives focus on the development of transferable skills, I argue that the development of commercial awareness among undergraduate students has been neglected and that film is a suitable medium to rectify this. In the final section of the article, I provide some sample activities which use clips from feature films to develop employability skills at all levels of proficiency, focusing on linguistic competency and the development of commercial awareness.7/8/2013 SB