AKITA – September 2013 –Hard Pressed to Succeed without Soft Skills? – Sarah Louisa Birchley, Toyo Gakuen University. Ideally, university students should learn the skills indispensable for business success before they graduate. This leads to the crucial questions of how can they learn the necessary skills, and is it possible to teach them? The presenter started the session with these very questions. In the first part of the workshop, the presenter explained how “soft skills” are necessary for success in international business. The presenter defined the term “soft skills”, and showed how they can be taught in the classroom. Soft Skills are those behavioral competencies that are also known as Interpersonal Skills, or people skills. She also showed how “soft skills” are connected with the Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach. She then defined awareness-raising assessment and showed how it relates to the topic. In the second half of the session, the presenter demonstrated various entertaining activities that she actually uses in her classroom. Each of the diverse components was seamlessly connected to the next and the session was very informative.

Reported by Mamoru “Bobby” Takahashi