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15ФИЛОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
TEACHING SOFT SKILLS IN THE BUSINESS ENGLISH FOREIGN LANGUAGE
CLASS IN BULGARIA
KORNELIA BONCHEVA KOSTOVA
Ph.D. assistant professor Burgas University "Professor D-r Asen Zlatarov" the town of Burgas
Annotation: The current paper discusses the lack of predisposition for modern schools in Bulgaria to build "soft" skills to meet the demands of contemporary society in general. Teaching ESP as a foreign language offers a unique opportunity for soft skills acquisition. The analyzed research results of pedagogical experts, teachers, learners, parents, and employers provide outlines of soft skills teaching. The article shows ways to solve problems related to „soft" skills formation at school while using avant-garde strategies to teach Business English, thus preparing learners for the requirements of the ever-changing compatible market and allowing them more accessible employment, faster realization, and inclusion into the future society after University graduation or finishing secondary school.
Keywords: Bulgarian schools and Universities, „ soft skills," English for Specific Purposes as a Foreign Language Teaching, Business English, competitiveness
1. Introduction
Recently, English has acquired global status and has become the language of intercultural communication. Many occupations and job positions require an excellent command of English. Especially in tourism and management, it is an indispensable part of the employee's functional duties. That is why, while teaching ESP or Business English at university, schools, or the workplace, it is necessary to develop cultural, language, and soft skills because they are just as crucial for the learners' future careers. Based on the new educational digital realities of the 21 Century, we design Business English courses aiming at mastering intra- and interpersonal skills.
The public, businesses, scientists, and educators are looking for ways to bring the modern Bulgarian school into line with the European requirements and criteria, with the new trends in education and the needs set by the educational paradigm of the 21st century. The Bulgarian school does not meet the requirements for personnel training regarding the problem of building "soft skills" and digitization in education. Unlike teachers in Western Europe, the U.K., and the USA, Bulgarian academic and school authorities still do not recognize the need to teach soft schools at the educational establishment concerning the student's future careers and successful employment and retaining it. Educational organizations usually teach soft skills at the workplace, carrying out teamwork workshops. It is related to the labor market in Bulgaria, the high unemployment rate, and the fact that the best students either immigrate or get employment for companies situated abroad. Soft skills are not yet a straightforward necessity in the Bulgarian labor market and are not initiated to be taught at school. In Bulgaria, EFL teaching and learning is unique; teaching Business English and ESP is even more unique. Investigating soft skills acquisition and business English command in the Bulgarian context relates to particular educational establishments that do not necessarily serve Bulgarian labor market demands. Our most talented students and best managers are employed abroad, in foreign markets and services worldwide. There are various reasons - underpayment, lack of ethics, corruption, employers do not choose the most appropriate candidate for the job, the one with the best soft and hard skills but only ones recommended by friends. Nevertheless, English teachers cannot help teach Business English or ESP without covering soft skills education. Therefore learning "soft skills" will hopefully start with Business English teaching and will get a broader spread around Bulgaria.
Otherwise, teachers and employers worldwide find soft skills crucial for personal development and professional success, influencing social inclusion and improving people's ability to navigate their private and social lives effectively and efficiently. Administrative management of the educational establishment should do their best to integrate soft skills into the syllabi and organize workshops, training, and tutorials on soft skills as a part of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) as a foreign language in our country, supporting its growing development to other subj ects and fields. The teacher-designer should carefully select the activities building simultaneously progress making in Business English or ESP and soft skills as they are interrelated. Such activities include teamwork on various STEAM-based projects, programming, debates, workshops, art studios, interviews, discussions, presentations, debate theatre, role-playing, museum attendance, and other hands-on activities that recreate the natural business environment and teaching ethics, aesthetics, and proper behaviors for the actual situation, etc.
2. Defining Soft Skills
The hard skills are acquired by studying disciplines and subjects enlisted in the diploma or the Secondary school certificate. In contrast, soft skills are ways of non-verbal communication which influence one's relations with customers, colleagues, tourists, and bosses, such as facial expression, smile, eye contact, gestures, outfit /dress code observance, body position, stance, etc. Soft skills are the personality traits, ways of behaving, and interpersonal skills we use to interact with others. At school, they represent our ability to work effectively and harmoniously, develop personally and contribute to the teamwork to implement specific tasks. Recently employers have been seeking employees with well-built soft skills. Due to the constant improvement of ICT, requiring upgrading the employees' digital skills, soft skills are precious for the fast-changing job market as no Artificial intelligence or Robot can replace them. In 2021-2022 in the State of the Workplace report, the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) stated that 77% of HR professionals said that improving employees' soft skills were crucial to their organizations' plans. Fundamental soft skills for the workplace include creativity, persuasion, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and collaboration. Still, other researchers have been added to the list. Self-discovery should be an important goal for everyone: discovering something about themself. Most people associate self-discovery with taking a personality test. "Know thyself1' is a discovery of self to identify one's purpose and actualize one's potential. Integrating soft skills into education might mean teaching young people how to go through life, playing a role, wearing a mask in society, or becoming the one they want them to be.
"Soft skills" are a specific type of skill, strictly individually acquired. Unlike the "hard" ones, which give the studied subjects enlisted in the diploma, they are related to the general presentation of the personality in society, regardless of a specific specialty or field of activity. They are a fundamental prerequisite for the complete and comprehensive adaptation and students' realization and inclusion in society, finding a job in the labor market, retention, and success. Soft skills include emotional intelligence, creativity, analytical and critical thinking, self-awareness and self-evaluation, resilience, problem-solving skills, teamwork, collaboration, etc. Though we find various definitions of soft skills, we cannot consider which the most essential one is. Authors commonly view communication, problem-solving, decision-making, computer, leadership, teamwork, critical and creative thinking, presentation, reflection, and other skills as vital to aid people in employment and career development. Communication skills are among the most critical soft skills, and communication in English is crucial. Universities and secondary schools in Bulgaria teach ESP or Business English; students should have acquired B1 or B2 of General English before the course. Introducing soft skills education into the Business English course design and assessing soft skills during the evaluation process is supposed to bring added value to building lovely well- rounded personalities and excellent professionals.
3. Literature Review
Global Strategy Group analyzed a survey showing that nearly half (49%) of more than 500 surveyed business people believe modern school graduates are less prepared for work than those 15
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years ago. The survey shows that for business leaders, the three most important skills to have when starting employment for the business are: problem-solving (49%), collaboration (43%), and critical thinking (36%). Hodges and Burchell (2003), in their study of 52 different professions held with more than 8,000 American administrators, enumerate as top soft skills learning, communication, and problem-solving skills. The question of the development of soft skills has been treated in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Colombia, Georgia, Ghana, Kenya, Laos, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province in China was studied by the World Bank (2014). The research in Georgia (World Bank, 2013) and other countries showed that, although soft skills are to a certain level developed, they constitute a severe obstacle to practical work in companies. The study by Majid et al. (2012) revealed that only some soft skills (communication, leadership, persuasion, and negotiation skills) were chosen by all respondents in their study as necessary ones, and only 21% of students chose all soft skills offered for their attention. Glaittli (2018) found that students know the need for soft skills but are reluctant to hold activities regularly.
In 2014 Wainhouse Research interviewed 22 practicing experts and theorists of education from North America and Europe. Based on the obtained results, they interviewed a population of 1,030 teachers, administrators, parents, and students in the UK (537) and in North America (493), applying the "map of the quality of education." The analysis of the results shows that most surveyed believe schools focus too much on academic preparation, independent work, individual achievement, and other vital skills not covered in the classroom. Respondents believe that the essential skills the school should focus on are: 1. problem-solving, 2. collaboration ability, 3. resilience, 4. creativity, and 5. academic knowledge 6. leadership skills (Wainhouse Research:2014)
Teaching in the past was authoritative and teacher-centered; students worked individually and represented themselves; education was based on acquiring predominantly knowledge; since the 1970s, education has emphasized the need for skills, as reported in Learning to Be (Faure et al., 1972). Friedman (2006) was the first to distinguish soft and hard skills and initiate the term. Soft skills are as necessary as professional skills and can develop through education and experience.
Soft skills help people adapt to the environment, especially the workplace (Kechagias, 2011). Patacsil and Tablatin (2017) emphasized the role of IT skills among the soft skills, as any profession nowadays requires searching for information on the internet and using a computer and mobile devices for communication. Teamwork is also often done via IT. Glaittli (2018) provides a long list of soft skills, including "adaptability, critical thinking, empathy, integrity, optimism, problem-solving, decision making, goal setting, self-advocacy, proactivity, resilience, grit, teamwork, self-motivation, communication, positive attitude leadership, independence, self-regulation, creativity, time management, organization, professionalism in dress, work ethic, and punctuality" (p.4). " (as cited in (Doghondaze, N. and Zoranyan, M.:2021). Musa et al. (2012) consider soft skills to include "communication skills, problem-solving skills, computer literacy, information literacy, ability and willingness to learn, and teamwork" (p.565). Direito et al. (2012) mentioned that they involve "information literacy, ability and willingness to learn, and teamwork" (p. 844). Pachauri and Yadav (2014) defined soft skills as "personality traits, social gracefulness, fluency in the language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism to varying degrees" (p.22). (.....)
In the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, and Australia, there is a consistent educational policy regarding building creative skills at school. In China, creativity is recognized as a general skill to be developed, and general principles are proposed for its inclusion in curricula. In Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, curriculum reforms have also been made to emphasize the acquisition of creative skills. (Lin, Yu-Sien, 2011). There are well-established practices for developing emotional intelligence in the USA and Europe, primarily based on Salovey and Mayer's concept. (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) Made famous by Goleman. (Goleman, 2011). The U.K. and the U.S. A. educational establishments carry out large-scale research, implementation, and evaluation of various school-based social-emotional education programs. The Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) movement is widespread in the USA and the UK. Its basic principles are offered as an
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integrating framework to coordinate all specific programs at school (www.CASEL.org). (The U.K. "Secretariat of State for Children, Schools and Families" (http://www.dfes.gov.uk/).
4. I Application of Soft Skills in Learning and Life. Most-Preferred Soft Skills The Council of Europe (2001) defines various competencies necessary for learning and achieving educational goals: communicative competence involves linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic competencies. Linguistic competence requires lexical, grammatical, semantic, phonological, orthographic, and orthoepic competencies; sociolinguistic competence "is concerned with the knowledge and skills required to deal with the social dimension of language use," and pragmatic competence is based on gaining personal knowledge of utterance organization and structure and communicative functions (p. 123). While students learn to achieve foreign language acquisition, they should develop communicative competence. By "teaching a foreign/second language, we develop problem-solving (decision-making), computer, leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, presentation, reflection skills through reading/writing projects, preparing and delivering by students of PowerPoint presentations, discussions, debates, keeping portfolios, writing reflective diaries, role play and business games" (Abd Azis, & Vaidez, 2016; Harizaj, & Hajrulla, 2017; Rani, 2017; Rao, 2019). Project-based learning, discussions, debates, educational and practical training games, theatre, and role-play develop problem-solving skills. Preparing presentations on a project topic makes learners seek information, work in a team, provoke their imagination and critical and creative thinking, and demonstrate their presentative skills by applying eye contact, dressing up and postures, and orator's skills. Many concepts and approaches to "soft" skills seek reliable ways to build them in school. Innovative models and technologies, programs, and courses are being experimented with and tested in practice worldwide. Inquiry-Based Science Education (IBSE) stands out, including project-based, research-based, and collaborative learning. In these approaches, "soft" skills are learned in the activity process and are both a prerequisite and a result. Innovative learning approaches successfully develop analytical thinking, reflection skills, self-control and self-evaluation (emotional intelligence), creativity, teamwork, networking, sharing responsibility, and problem-solving. The most significant achievements in the research and development of "soft" skills are from creative pedagogy and the pedagogy of cooperation.
LinkedIn analyzed their survey, which found that 92% of talented professionals consider soft skills more important than hard skills for hiring the right person or retaining the employees who work for you. (LinkedIn 2022 Workplace Learning Report). Even state managers tended to "supercharge" soft skills exceeding 50 %. "Besides the knowledge and skills directly related to the profession, soft or transferable skills are essential for future specialists in all areas. Soft skills involve communication, problem-solving, decision-making, computer, leadership, teamwork, critical and creative thinking, presentation, reflection, and other skills that help people be employed and develop a successful career. To develop these skills while teaching English at University, the following activities are useful: projects, presentations, discussions, debates, keeping portfolios, writing reflective diaries, role play, and business games."( 1) Natela Doghonadze*/ Marina Zoranyan, : 2019)
Developing soft skills improves one's chances for employment, strengthens their C.V., and facilitates change of careers, positions, or professional roles. Teachers should aid students in developing soft skills at school, explain the necessity for acquiring them and make them understand the importance of their future inclusion into society, and apply creativity and competitiveness properly when the actual situation allows it, so boosting their effectiveness. Soft skills could include how we move, proper and adequate facial expressions, body language, sustaining eye contact, smiling, speaking effectively and attentively in public, digital skills, command of foreign languages, ability to absorb information, etc. It also involves verbal, non-verbal, written, and listening skills, showing understanding and humane appreciation, i.e., the focus is laid on building efficient communication skills and navigating positive collaboration, reducing stress and anxiety, and gaining a better understanding of work matters and employee issues. Empathy and self-awareness are not innate; the experience can teach and enrich them. Emotional intelligence is one's ability to understand
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and control emotions while at the same time recognizing and empathizing with the feelings of those around; it can be improved as it is supposed to lead to more harmonious and productive relationships. Soft skills are applied to avoid conflicts or peaceful solutions. Otherwise, the employees' emotions may work against them, leading to undesirable outcomes.
Employing critical thinking improves time management by solving problems quickly and extracting value better. It is related to creativity. Creativity is a crucial soft skill. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs report ranks it as one of the five most vital skills required for one's future presentation and the most valuable asset of 50,000 skills appropriate for the workplace. (LinkedIn) It involves thinking creatively, seeking innovative practices, and finding the most suitable, the best solutions for the establishment one works for. While most people work switched on "autopilot," carrying out repetitive tasks like an automaton, a creative personality who improves the task implementation or comes up with ideas for improving the work process is a breath of fresh air and deserves admiration.
The teacher should do their best to stimulate students to learn adaptability and flexibility in the Business English course; the latter is related to embracing challenges with a positive, resourceful attitude in case the learner faces unexpected issues in the future workplace. In the long run, it is worth the effort as it finds the employee the most desired job and adds to his CV assets, making him a much-favored candidate. Solid adaptability skills can approach conflicts calmly and find solutions quicker than those needing to be more flexible. Formative soft skills are building up features of character based on being Resourceful, curious, resilient, hard-working, and persistent. Therefore, adaptability, flexibility, and resilience are essential soft skills for a corporate organization.
Effective communication under high stress, empathizing with or encouraging a team member who might be struggling, and working collaboratively to meet a deadline are all examples of soft skills that are most important to any organization. A Business English teacher can use them in class, developing tasks, projecting films, case-solving, or applying strategy games to use this approach to develop empathy and demonstrate it. Communicating efficiently and effectively during your work process requires business-like abilities: leading a dialogue productively, expressing empathy to what customers, classmates, or colleagues tell you, speaking sympathetically, clearly, and politely and for proper soft skills, remaining cool and calm when leading negotiations, understanding the opposite side, performing diplomatically, and sticking up to ethics and aesthetics in behavior and interior. Teachers must explore learners' motivation carefully to raise it and teach them never to take anything at face value. They must learn how to evaluate information effectively, understand the essentials of the definite subject for discussion, participate in debates and discussions, evolve critical thinking, and solve complex problems with strategic thinking.
Teachers should make students accept building resilience by using examples and case-solving, showing videos, and defining as a final educational outcome changing their viewpoint, namely considering resilience as an opportunity rather than obstacles, hardship sent people by God to try their love and patience. That is how resilience acquired can be turned into a positive asset in overcoming the oncoming changes and coping with the problems life presents us with. As learning how to add this to your skill set takes practice, teachers should carefully plan soft skills in the Business English class. They can instruct students by giving examples and train these character features by presenting examples or visualizing by films employees perceived as incredibly flexible or whose workplace attitude students would like and try to replicate. Teachers should make them take notes on the protagonists' behaviors or give learners direct guidance. Teachers should show students how to overcome problems, find positives in every problematic situation, solve problems peacefully, face challenges without fear, and boost the learner's creativity to apply new, original ideas to tangled situations."
Collaboration is the ability to work effectively with your classmates or colleagues. It requires various other critical soft skills, such as emotional intelligence, adaptability, communication, solving problems quickly, relying on the group and vice versa, and readiness to share your strengths with the
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rest, understanding your weaknesses, and polishing the problem zones. It encompassed building a set of the latter features, a sense of belonging to the group, and contributing to the teamwork by playing a pre-defined role in fostering a healthy work environment of learning and sharing between colleagues. Working with others towards a common goal is a crucial skill worth investing in. Teaching students how to work collaboratively requires teaching them autonomy. Self-awareness, including a self-analysis of their performance in the team and a self-assessment based on which the learner could improve. Swapping the roles in the team while teaching collaboration is a must. Teachers should distribute the roles to the learners unevenly to ensure better training, with each learner taking a role he has not been used to, thus developing a wealth of collaborative working skills that could be applied in various future situations.
5. Applied Teaching Business English as ESP at Universities, Schools, at the Workplace in the Bulgarian Context
In the post-Covid reality, soft skills are considered most valuable for implementing compensation strategies in Bulgaria's education, health care, organizations, and industries, mainly in densely populated cities and areas. Secondary schools and universities in such regions teach soft skills in EFL classes. Teachers appreciate and simulate skills demanding to keep open-minded and farfetched while enforcing a task or looking for a solution, utilizing creative techniques like mind maps, and role-playing. They encourage learners to use emotional intelligence to resolve conflict and build better relationships. As soft skills are not related to specific occupations but rather personality traits, researchers consider them to be highly transferable skills. Although they are less vital than hard skills, employers highly appreciate employees' willingness to improve them. Building up the proper soft skills well-rated by employers requires versatility. English teachers who design a Business English course should help students develop a full spectrum of collaborative working skills and learn how to work effectively and collaboratively with their team in the classroom or at the workplace. Therefore, currently, we recommend a teaching strategy to facilitate acquiring soft skills while teaching ESP or Business English. The Business English course reported here contained 30 units, organized into three modules, including lectures, films, videos, exercises, games, etc., 18 quizzes, and 12 assignments, which will introduce students to the Business English practice craft. They are supposed to finally realize as an expected educational result what business English is, how to use spoken and written business skills in their job, and how to attend and conduct business dates, negotiations, sales, workshops, and meetings using the appropriate for each situation soft skills. The course examined the different types of business English and the all-important needs analysis. Units focused on teaching meetings, presentations, telephoning, emailing, soft skills usage, and socializing. Lessons were demonstrated and shared as good practices with other teachers. We used the background methodology of communicative language teaching, including the methods of PPP (Present, Practice, Produce), TTT (Test, Teach, Test, and Task-based Lessons, TBL) museum-based learning, the STEAM technology approach, and inquiry-based research tasks, analysis of the results and error correction, self-assessment methods. Quizzes and assignments supplemented the videos to deepen students' understanding, insight, and self-awareness. Various resources were used depending on the teacher's creative incorporation into the curriculum, thus initiating the learners into business English and soft skills experience and application in real-life situations. To tackle the problem of successfully teaching soft skills during the Business English classes, the researcher implying the soft skill strategy in EFL teaching and for the sake of improving the problems Bulgarian EFL education faces at schools, put forward the following two research questions: 1. Are the activities designed for soft skills development applied during ESP/ Business English classes in the 2 Universities? 2. How do you rate the activities to develop your soft skills? The population of the participants consisted of 40 students from Academician "Nedelcho Nedelchev "Secondary School for Tourism and Food Industries, the town of Sliven, and 20 students from the Tourism Faculty of "Professor Dr. Asen Zlatarov" University Burgas. They were interviewed in December 2022 concerning the benefits of teaching soft skills during their ESP English class. They filled out a questionnaire based on the 5-fold Likert scale,
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which showed that the most desirable soft skills developed during the Business English class were the development of Communicative Competence - linguistic, socio-linguistic, pragmatic, and compensatory; sustaining business relations, flexibility, adaptability, expressing empathy, teamwork, leadership, resilience building, creativity, and application of critical thinking, problem-solving, decision making, working under stress, peaceful conflict management and reflection ( analysis of the results). The preferable activities and tasks leading to the achievement of the set goals in the ESP class were: STEAM- technologies and Gamification (20 %); Theatre and Role-play ( 20 %); Debates and Discussions ( 15 %); Inquiry-Based learning( 15 %); Business projects and Presentations ( 10 %); Museum-based learning ( 10 %); Application of negotiation skills, persuasion ( 10%).
The experiment proved to facilitate the learners' progress in Business English and raise their motivation to develop occupationally, building a bridge between the classroom and global communication, addressing target, national, and international cross-cultural issues. Porter, 2007 comments on acquiring soft skills in modern education: in his view, while most employers expect employees to possess a compelling mix of hard and soft skills, students often need to realize the need to have soft skills in their curricula. (Porter, 2007). While simultaneously teaching Business English/ ESP and soft skills, the teacher should use digital technologies to apply various methods and strategies: PP oral presentation, discussion, debates, observation, and demonstration with interactive methods. The oral presentation is a short lecture in which the main concepts - business etiquette and business protocol - are distinguished. Debates and interactive role-play follow as new vocabulary, and foreign language expressions are introduced and reinforced in dialogue. The teacher presents an authentic language situation through a video for conducting a business meeting. Students become participants in an authentic, interactive communicative language exchange, taking role-play and applying gamification or simulation. The combination of presentation, explanation, interactive exercises, discussion, debate, and role-playing activities, introducing the gradual inclusion of more tasks and authentic spoken and written texts, creates conditions for the development of linguistic and communicative competencies of learners in typical English business situations by exhibiting behavior appropriate to the situation. The approach complements the introductory Business English textbook with audio recordings, adds case-solving with video recordings of real-life situations, examines actual professional events, and inserts online simulations to put learners in different business situations requiring various decision-making and involving typical and non-typical communication strategies. With language and communication skills, the student's critical thinking and problem-solving skills are developed, and their knowledge of culture, self-knowledge, communicativeness, leadership, and teamwork are expanded. Students get predisposed to openness, flexibility, and empathy. Finally, a self-assessment is made of the soft skills used and developed.
6. Conclusion:
The article reviews some issues related to teaching soft skills while selecting linguistic content for teaching business intercourse or ESP to Secondary school students, University students, or workplace learners in Bulgaria. It also analyzes the essentials of using the proper methodology to shape the course content properly, requiring soft skills application. The problem demands further in-depth research. In particular, selecting appropriate vocabularies and grammatical patterns and classifying them depending on the communicative purposes of teaching and soft skills acquisition; streamlining essential professional topics and communication scenarios based on the target or world cultural background; developing a simulation exercise and case study system among them, etc. This leads to ESP as a foreign language and soft skills acquisition. Business English is a beautiful ticket to work in many countries and is a fascinating field with many opportunities. If the people with that kind of EFL acquisition have the proper soft skills, they are most favored by employees worldwide. Educational institutions of the 21 Century in the Bulgarian context should develop further teaching soft skills better, thus satisfying the learners' employability needs and raising their chances for success.
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