In-demand soft skills and employability during and post COVID-19: Evidence from EFL teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47750/pegegog.11.04.21Keywords:
Soft Skills, COVID-19, EFL teachers, EmployabilityAbstract
The Interest in blending soft skills along with the cognitive ones in the EFL teaching field originates from dimensioning the drastic changes facing the world with the hit of the COVID-19. Eventually, EFL teachers are confronted with hostile situations that challenge individuals' ability to adapt to the work environment. Employers and teachers in this particular field need to recognize this reality because they should be prepared to transform the classical approaches of education and respond by teaching strategies to mitigate these difficulties. Through the quantitative method, a questionnaire and a survey that 121 experienced employers and 250 teachers have responded to, this paper provides EFL teachers with a clear perception about their required soft skills acquisition degrees that are demanded by employers in the EFL teaching field. The results showed a strong availability degree in Communication and Time management. It also showed a significantly positive correlation between the acquisition of the in-demand soft skills and the EFL teachers’ performance. Moreover, this paper contributes in providing employers some practical strategies and tools to be utilized to enhance their EFL teachers’ soft skills acquisition, thus, enhancing the teaching-learning process.
Downloads
References
Asif, M., Zhiyong, D., Raisinghani, M. S., & Hassan, A. (2021). Rhetoric Situation of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Social Media and its Impact on Pedagogy. International Journal of Online Pedagogy and Course Design (IJOPCD), 11(3), 62-77. http://doi.org/10.4018/IJOPCD.2021070105
Buheji, M., & Buheji, A. (2020). Planning Competency in the New Normal– Employability Competency in Post- COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 10(2), 237. https://doi.org/10.5296/ijhrs.v10i2.17085
Cacciolatti, L., Lee, S. H., & Molinero, C. M. (2017). Clashing institutional interests in skills between government and industry: An analysis of demand for technical and soft skills of graduates in the UK. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 119, 139–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.03.024
Cimatti, B. (2016). Definition, development, assessment of soft skills, and their role for the quality of organizations and enterprises. International Journal for Quality Research, 10(1), 97–130. https://doi.org/10.18421/IJQR10.01-05
Cornali, F. (2018). Training and developing soft skills in higher education. 961–967. https://doi.org/10.4995/head18.2018.8127
Editor, C., & Medriano, R. (2021). Tesol international journal. 16(4).
Fixsen, A., & Ridge, D. (2019). Shades of Communitas: A Study of Soft Skills Programs. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 48(4), 510–537. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891241618792075
Garcia, E. (2014). The Need To Address No cognitive Skills in the Education Policy. Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper #386, 1–36. Retrieved from www.epi.org, May 1, 2015
Immanuel, G., Sankar, G., Saravanan, V., & Jose, M. (2021). Materials Today : Proceedings Significance of interpersonal skills and english language teaching. xxxx.
Jaser Khalaf Mahasneh. (2016). A Theoretical Framework for Implementing Soft Skills in Construction Education Utilizing Design for Six Sigma. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0670/3c706beb903185969b2cb41a7aaeb5c1054a.pdf
Mishra, D. L., Gupta, D. T., & Shree, D. A. (2020). Online Teaching-Learning in Higher Education during Lockdown Period of COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 100012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedro.2020.100012
Patel, P. C., & Rietveld, C. A. (2020). The impact of financial insecurity on the self-employed's short-term psychological distress: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 14(August), e00206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbvi.2020.e00206
Pisoni, G., Gaio, L., & Rossi, A. (2019). Investigating Soft Skills Development through Peer Reviews Assessments in an Entrepreneurship Course. Proceedings - 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Multimedia, ISM 2019, 291–296. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISM46123.2019.00065
Robertson, P., & Adamson, J. (2020). The Asian EFL Journal January 2020 Volume 24 Issue 1. 24(1).
Robertson, P. (2021). Asian EFL Journal, Asian EFL Journal Volume 28 Issue 2.2 April 2021.
Singh Dubey, R., & Tiwari, V. (2020). Operationalization of soft skill attributes and determining the existing gap in novice ICT professionals. International Journal of Information Management, 50(September 2019), 375–386. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.09.006
Succi, C., & Canovi, M. (2020). Soft skills to enhance graduate employability: comparing students' and employers' perceptions. Studies in Higher Education, 45(9), 1834–1847. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1585420
Tseng, H., Yi, X., & Yeh, H. Te. (2019). Learning-related soft skills among online business students in higher education: Grade level and managerial role differences in self-regulation, motivation, and social skill. In Computers in Human Behavior (Vol. 95). Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.11.035
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Pegem Journal of Education and Instruction

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.