1. Exploring Essential Skills
Sarah Sampara, Curriculum Developer
Exploring Essential Skills

2. Introduction A bit about me A bit about you
What is your experience with Essential Skills?
What interests you about them?
What brings you here today?

3. Essential Skills Definitions
What are the 9 Essential Skills?
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning
With a partner, define each.

4. Essential Skills Definitions
What are your definitions?
Read the definitions. Which definition belongs to which skill?
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning

5. Essential Skills Definitions
These are the skills in order of the handout.
Reading
Writing
Document Use
Oral Communication
Working with Others
Digital Technology
Thinking
Numeracy
Continuous Learning

6. Essential Skills Definitions
Reflect on the definitions.
Was there anything that surprised you?
Was there anything you disagreed with?
Was there anything you thought should be added?
All definitions were taken from:

7. Essential Skills Definitions
Which skills relate to language?
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning

8. Essential Skills & Language
Which skills relate to language?
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning
Relating CLB to Essential Skills: A Comparative Framework (free download on

9. Essential Skills & Language
Which skills relate to language?
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning
All of them!

10. Essential Skills Tasks
Essential Skills Profiles list:
Specific tasks for
Specific occupations for
Each specific Essential Skill

11. Essential Skills Tasks
Your job is to take each task and decide which Essential Skill it relates to.
Reading
Document Use
Writing
Numeracy
Oral Communication
Thinking
Digital Technology
Working with Others
Continuous Learning
Write the Essential Skill you think each task relates to next to the task itself.

12. Essential Skills Tasks
The answers might surprise you… Each task relates to a “non-language” Essential Skill. However, each task has a distinctive language component.

13. Essential Skill: Numeracy
The following were Numeracy tasks.
Receive cash, credit and debit card payments for cash-on-delivery (COD) and make change.
Record expenses incurred during travel against categories of budgets.
Schedule tour events and adjust as necessary.
Estimate timing of tour activities.

14. Essential Skill: Thinking
The following were Thinking tasks.
Encounter delays due to weather, traffic conditions and equipment malfunctions. They phone dispatchers and loading dock personnel to arrange for late arrivals.
Locate road and weather conditions by contacting travel hotlines, speaking with other drivers and reading advisories accessed using the Internet.
Solve problems regarding dissatisfied customers or co-workers and relating to interpersonal conflicts.
Prepare commentary, deciding what to include in it and how to present it.

15. Essential Skill: Digital Technology
The following were Digital Technology tasks.
Use browsers and search engines to learn about road conditions and access weather advisories.
Use intranets and the Internet to access training courses and seminars offered by trainers, suppliers, employers, associations and sector councils.
Carry out research using Internet resources.
Send and receive s.

16. Essential Skill: Working with Others
The following were Working with Others tasks.
May work as members of a team when loading and unloading large cargoes and also with dispatchers, office and maintenance staff.
Have a considerable degree of interaction with customers and supervisors.
Participate in formal group discussions with coworkers, supervisors and/or supervisees concerning methods for improving work processes or product quality and the allocation of responsibilities.

17. Essential Skill: Continuous Learning
The following were Continuous Learning tasks.
Participate in a number of courses, such as Transportation of Dangerous Goods (TDG), Air Brakes Class 1, defensive driving and forklift training.
May attend information sessions to learn about safety regulations and new machinery and trucks purchased by the company.
Take courses and read journals, trade magazines, history books, almanacs, children's books, encyclopedias, etc. to acquire new or updated information for their commentary and information about new sites and places. 
Talk to experts or co-workers by joining industry associations or participating in historical societies meetings.

18. Essential Skills Tasks
In short, all tasks, regardless of whether or not they are overtly language-related, have language-related components in them and should be taken into consideration when teaching or developing.

19. Essential Skills Goal Setting Activity
Review the goal-setting activity.
How could you use this with your learners?
What do you see as the advantages of using it?
What do you see as the disadvantages of using it?
How can you help learners with widely varying profiles meet their goals?

20. Essential Skills Goal Setting Activity
Imagine you’re learners for a minute.
Individually pick one task each that interests you. This is your goal.
Put all the goals in a pile.
Put all the unused tasks away.
Be the instructor.
How can you meet these widely diverse goals in your EAL classroom?
What strategies would you use?
How would you incorporate them?

21. Essential Skills Goal Setting Activity
With all EAL tasks, the focus is:
Connecting our content to
Our learner’s needs and interests with
General scaffolding that applies to everyone and
Specific assignments that learners can customize to their own unique needs and contexts

22. Essential Skills Goal Setting Activity
First example of two goals:
Solve problems regarding dissatisfied customers or co-workers and relating to interpersonal conflicts.
Send s.
We could:
Do a unit on conflict resolution.
Focus on oral and written language and strategies.
Do role-plays and mock s.

23. Essential Skills Goal Setting Activity
Second example of two goals:
Encounter delays due to weather, traffic and malfunctions and phone dispatchers and loading dock personnel to arrange for late arrivals.
Have considerable interaction with customers and supervisors.
We could:
Do a unit on telephone language.
Focus on oral language and strategies for customer and colleagues.
Do role-plays noting differences of formality, audience and purpose.

24. Before we wrap up, are there…
Any questions?

25. Thank you for coming!