Introduction to Essential Skills
Transcript
00:00Essential Skills has been around
00:02since the late '80s, the early '90s.
00:06It was started as a national project, research project,
00:09by the federal government
00:11to discover what are those skills
00:14that people use every day
00:16at work, at home, and in their community lives.
00:20It started with workplace research.
00:22They trained some Essential Skills facilitators
00:26to go and interview hundreds of workers
00:29to discover what are those skills
00:31that are the essence or the essential bit
00:34that we need for everything that we do in our jobs?
00:36So not technical skills.
00:38If I'm looking at a welder,
00:40I'm not looking at how does he weld.
00:43I'm looking at what are the other skills he needs
00:45that are essential for him to do that job
00:48and to do any other job he's required to do
00:51if he decides not to become a welder.
00:54So they interviewed hundreds of workers,
00:55and they came up with nine essential skills.
00:58And Canada is not the only country with this framework.
01:02Most of the English-speaking industrialized nations
01:05also have a similar framework.
01:07They just might not have the same nine that we do.
01:11Essential Skills fits into Community Adult Learning Programs
01:15and a coordinator's life
01:16when they are looking at the learner who comes through the door.
01:19If a coordinator knows
01:21about the Essential Skills framework,
01:23and they're talking with a learner,
01:25they can start to notice what kinds of skills
01:28that person does well,
01:30and what kind of skills they might need more help with.
01:32They can ask them, "Okay, you're born in Canada,
01:36"so probably your English language skills are quite good,
01:40"but what of the other essential skills do you want to work on?"
01:44And often people will say things like, "Numeracy," or,
01:48"I don't do very well in digital technology,"
01:53for example, "and I would like to improve those skills."
01:56So a coordinator can use them to assess where a learner is at.
02:00Once the learner has been in a program for a while,
02:04you start to notice just by watching what they're doing,
02:06what kinds of essential skills
02:08they're practicing all the time,
02:10either in class with you or one-on-one tutoring.
02:14Or you can ask them, "Once you leave the tutoring,
02:16"or once you leave the class,
02:18"how else are you using those skills in your daily life?
02:22And what happens sometimes with learners in programs
02:25is they will bring their daily life into the classroom.
02:29They may come and say,
02:30"Oh, I got this letter from the school.
02:32"I have no idea what it says.
02:35"It looks like a permission form,
02:37"but I don't quite understand what's on the page."
02:41So their reading skills are good enough
02:43to figure out that it's a permission slip,
02:46but they don't really understand the content
02:48because their skill level is pretty basic.
02:51And they need to go to the next level
02:54to figure out what is this document all about.
02:56And a good Community Adult Learning Program
02:59is always looking at what do learners need
03:03from their daily life that we can teach them,
03:05would increase their skill development within the program itself
03:09so that they can then build on those skills,
03:12practice them and transfer those skills
03:14from the classroom back into their everyday life.