Skills Mapping

When we follow good practice and conduct a comprehensive needs assessment, we learn about the goals and aspirations of the people in our classes. Some goals may be similar, some not. Generally, employment tends to be a common goal. As instructors, we are often very familiar with job search material and feel comfortable teaching it. Sometimes we may feel uncomfortable teaching material based on information that is less familiar or brand new to us. CanadaWorks will hopefully fill a gap for both you and your learners as it focuses on employability skills.

If you have learners wanting to enter the same job sector in similar positions, you and the learners can share all steps in the search to find the knowledge and skills required to be successful when they reach their goal. If, more likely, you have learners with very different goals and employment paths, the task becomes more difficult.

We are going to share with you a technique that is part of our planning process. It has been our experience that learners often don't know the language skills and levels needed for jobs they are doing or plan to do. If we ask a learner in a workplace class how much writing they do on the job, the answer is often "None". However, the job task analysis we do before developing a curriculum suggests that this is not true. So we set an assignment. Each learner is given a chart to document the times they use a pen, pencil, keyboard or other tool that generates information (e.g., a bar code scanner) This is also used to identify reading, listening and speaking patterns. The next page shows the information and skills needed in a common entry level position.