Anticipation Quiz
Directions: Answer these questions as completely as possible. You may revise your answers as you watch the video.
1. Name three of the most important skills that all employers look for in their employees?
2. What are some of the differences between soft skills and job-specific skills?
3. Who uses soft skills at work?
4. True or false: Knowing how to dress appropriately is a soft skill?
Answer Key
1. Dependability, reliability, adaptability (answers may vary)
2. Soft skills are necessary in almost every job and are easily transferable. Job-specific skills are targeted to a particular occupation.
3. Everyone
4. True
Activities
Activity #1
Title: Assessing Your Skills
Format: Individual/Group
Time: 20-30 minutes
Materials: Worksheet, pen
Procedure:
1. Use the worksheet on the last page of this study guide to get students thinking about their soft skills. Have them circle if each skill is a personal strength or if it needs improvement. For each skill that needs improvement, have students brainstorm one or two strategies for improving that skill.
2. Have students work in groups to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and share positive strategies for improving their soft skills.
3. Come together as a whole class and go down the list of soft skills, compiling a "playbook" of strategies for improving each of them.
Activity #2
Title: Story swap
Format: Pairs
Time: 20-25 minutes
Materials: Paper, pen
Procedure:
1. Have each student pick one soft skill from the list below and recall a story about a coworker or supervisor who didn't have or didn't use that skill in a specific situation.
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2. Give students time to write the story (10 minutes or so). Then have students trade their stories with each other.
3. Have students take the new stories they were given and rewrite them, this time changing the story so that the coworker or supervisor had the required soft skills to handle the situation.
4. When students have finished, come together as a whole class and have volunteers read their stories to the class. Discuss what changed from one version to the next.