The Future of Jobs: the Most Valuable Skills for 2021-2025

In the challenging economic scenario of a global pandemic, which has brought about confinements, telework, shop closures, furlough schemes, but also new business opportunities for pharmaceutical or computer companies, what are the top job skills that thriving companies are seeking in their new recruits? Here you have a collection of four articles that list the most highly demanded soft and tech skills in the corporate world.

The first article comes form HR Vision, it quotes the recently published World Economic Forum report, "The Future of Jobs", which predicts that by 2025, in the summit of a digital and biological revolution -the 4th Industrial Revolution- companies will be seeking candidates with communication and interpersonal skills, the so-called "soft skills", like "complex problem solving", "critical thinking", "creativity", "people management" or "emotional intelligence" to outperform robots and get things done in a changing business environment. The complexity of the vocabulary makes this article suitable for C2 students.

You will come across words like, self-driving cars, quantum computing, on the cusp of [the Fourth Industrial Revolution], lightning speed [advancements], [a] mind-bloggling [change], to earmark, genomics, to thrive [in this brave new world], to survey, leading [companies], to strap yourself, to rev up, flux capacitator, a balance beam, to swing, to leap, to twirl, back and forth, limber, to shed [new] light, nimble, to flex [our cognitive muscles], to take up, try your hand at [an art class], to glaze over, the comfort zone, to embrace, to flag, for the time being, to be high up [on the list], to shine a spotlight on [consumers], carbon footprint, food safety, labour standards, a grip on [service oritentation], to step into [the minds], the knack [for strong decision-making skills], to nab [seventh spot], sheer [volume], to amass, to sift through, to figure out, to set aside [time], overwhelming, skillsets, to give a boost, to play off, to piggyback, artsy, seemingly, to unleash, on a regular basis, to wander, to weigh up [the pros and cons], savvy, to give [humans] a run for their money, to top [the list], settings, in a nutshell, at breakneck speed, core [skills], to zero in, to be honed, the holy grail, to keep apace [with the changes].

ToolBox, quotes various sources to list the top 10 technical skills in demand for 2021: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) top the list, followed by Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing -dominated by market leader Amazon AWS, which is building three new data processing centres in Aragon- and Data Analytics. This article contains a lot of technical jargon, so it is classified above C2 and it is recommended for Experts (level Ex).

Here, you will find words such as [IT] openings, fierce [competition], high-paying [jobs], [the most] sought-after [tech skills], to grab [top-paying jobs], in-demand, pegged, core, to mine [data], insights, pro, neural networks, natural language processing, robotics, deep learning, chatbot, in the wake of [pandemic recovery], [top technology] trends, to range from, ethical hacker, a prospective [employer], a sexy [job], to rule the roost, to rely on [data], highly valued, to crown as [the top emerging in-demand role], data wrangling, k-means clustering technique, software developers, shortcomings, latency, edge computing, to bypass, the Internet of Things (IoT), to fit in, versed in, embedded systems, rampant, to focus on, scrum, to pursue [excellence], to reckon, to pair, to advance [a career], to open up, back-end [framework skills], the job [outlook], to spruce up, double-digit [growth], to qualify [for a position], to upgrade, to match [your career goals], 

LinkedIn Learning lists the top skills needed in 2020, and the courses where you can learn those skills (for free only up to February 2020). At the end of the article, you can also watch a short promotional video with automatic subtitles (1':00"). This text is slightly easier, so, it can be read by C1 students above.

In this article you will find words and expressions like: to surface, timely [data], in-demand, to stand out, to unlock, to hone, highly sought after [skills], to dive into [the list], to make or break, to take on [new opportunities], to top [the list], soft skills, [top] spots, evergreen, to gravitate towards, to fall off [the list], to advance [your career], to brush up, stakeholders, [follow your] lead, to embrace [reality], to show up, stressful, to underscore, blockchain, to highlight, workforce, asset, to be run, [to uncover] insights, to augment, to harness [the power of AI...], the [average] attention span], expertise, a must-have [hard skill], to leverage, [to be] hyper-targeted, to be hard pressed, [the sales] funnel, insatiable [appetite for video content], to cultivate [essential soft skills], to be empowered, 

Finally, here you can read the list of the top job skills for 2025 from the World Economic Forum webpage, and an estimate of how long it will take employees to reskill.  This article is suitable for C1 students.

In this article, you will encounter words like: to reskill, to top [the list], resilience, to require, double-disruption, to take hold, to map, to track, at our disposal, the bounty, to be leveraged, to unleash, to upskill, to deploy [safety nets], to be displaced, destitution, bespoke, to thrive, to estimate, a shift, in-demand [skills], gaps, core [skills], to track, granularity, cross-cutting [skills], to pick up [new skills], a sharp [rise], trend, a fourfold [increase], to seek out [opportunities], fivefold, ninefold, funding, to purse [new opportunities].

Abelone Kelley November 29, 2020 0

Louise Glück: "Landscape" and Other Poems

Poet Louise Glück has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Poetry must be read out loud to appreciate its sound and its music, the unique sound and music of a language, in this case English, which cannot be faithfully translated into any other language.

Below you can watch a YouTube video of Louise Glück reading out loud several of her poems at a Lannan literary event.  After an introduction by Peter Streckfus, the poet reads "Mock Orange" (10:17), then two poems from her book "The Wild Iris" (10:29).  Next, two more poems from "Averno" (14:03): "Telescope" (14:27) and "Landscape", which is introduced at 15:50 and recited at 17:26.  Then, Ms Glück goes on to read two poems from "A Village Life" (29:24), and. finally, the poetic rendition ends with two texts form "Faithful & Virtous Night" (43:11).

You can read the words of "Landscape" while you listen to the poem on this link from "The Threepenny Review", you should listen to the poem several times before you can glimpse some kind of meaning.  Nevertheless, poetry is more than a factual message, poetry is the sound of words, poetry is tempo, so, you can enjoy, straightaway, the rhythmical patterns of English, the articulation of consonants, the quality and length of the vowels that the poet recites, slowly and carefully -which we tend to turn a deaf ear to, when we are engaged in our everyday communication exchanges- and that auditive perception is worthwhile in itself, even more so, if you are a mystified learner of a foreign language. After listening to the poet, you can try to recite the poem yourself, paying mindful attention to the pronunciation of phonemes, words and sentences -a pronunciation class in quest for poetic beauty! This poem is accessible to C1 students for the lexis is rather easy: [the sun] sets, bare, chestnut, quilt, damp, to trail, to rush, to strain the leash, path, sunset, precipice, to call out, faintly, twilight, to untie [his horse], to stir, to float, propitious [time], demure inviting [sounds], to vanish, to bleach, [an image] to fade, to set fire to [a field], wheat, tinder, for [the farmer's] sake, char, [a field] parched, failure, abiding, a memento, soil, a slot, complacent, harsh, obsolete, shallow, to soothe, the earth, to defeat, accurate, shelter, thickly, steadily, [sure] footing, a premonition.

If you want to read an introduction to the poetry of Louise Glück, you can follow this link to "The Poetry Foundation", where you will find an article with a dense collection of review extracts which is recommended for Experts, above C2 level.  Here you will find a lot of information about the recent Nobel Prize winner and about her poems.

One article that may strike you in "The Poetry Foundation" is this interview to Boston-based composer Harriett Staff, who has set the text of "Averno" to music. She describes the process of turning text into music in these terms: "To be set as music easily, the text needs to be concise. There has to be some sense of rhythm - even a single phrase that has a strong sense of long and short beats. And then the vowels need to be longer and the consonants leaning towards softer sounds, 'l', 'm', 'n', with fewer hard consonants. I don't think too much about meaning at the beginning. When I find a poem that seems to feel as if it could be music, I look for a single line that speaks to me musically, I memorise it, and I start saying it with various emphases and melodic lines. When something begins to emerge that sounds natural and musical, I write it down. Usually it is both melodic and rhythmic." This interview is suitable for C1 students.

Abelone Kelley October 09, 2020 0

"Shirley" Starring Elisabeth Moss

Elisabeth Moss plays the role of writer Shirley Jackson in the movie Shirley, which began to stream on virtual cinema platforms on June 5th.  Here you can read and listen to a 7 minute review of the film by Los Angeles Times critic Justin Chang, broadcast on NPR's Fresh Air. Film reviews are usually very rich in language, and when they are broadcast on the radio, they are particularly difficult to understand for the density of information, as they are usually literary essays read out loud, so both the audio and the text are classified as C2.  You will come across words like bond, fraught, glimpse, to chime, to deserve, script, loosely, insight, bout, to pursue, chore, vicious, to thrive, to get back on track, to root, wrinkle, muse, stand-in, layers, dizzyingly, jagged, close-up, to swerve, handheld, score, to pulse, to grapple with, conundrums, to blur, uncannily, to excel at, exertion, to tease out, odd, tenderness, prickly, to awe, to bind, to cheat on somebody, to endure to chafe against something, and snobbery. 

You can also do a listening comprehension exercise based on the interview that Elisabeth Moss gave to NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday when she was promoting her film The One I Love.  The pace of this 5 minute, 7 sec radio interview is fast, but natural, and the language is rather colloquial, you will find words like time-shifting, impressive, rom-com, widespread, to set up, plot, crossroads, to send off, retreat, to reset, hijinks (high jinks), to ensure, to end up doing something, boundaries, shooting, breakneck, naive, calculating, gullible, weird, show runner, roles, to get something down, to work on something.  In the file you will find a recording of the interview, the script, a multiple-choice listening task and the key.  You will also find a lesson plan for both the film review above and this radio interview. The listening and speaking task has been designed for C1 students.

If you still want to listen on, you can click here to find a 47 minute long interview to Elisabeth Moss from NPR's Bullseye with Jesse Thorn.  As there is no script, this interview is recommended for C2 students or for experts.

Abelone Kelley June 11, 2020 0