CAREER SCOPE  IN FUNCTIONAL ENGLISH

Mrs. POOJA BAIRAG ( MA, B.Ed., Ph.D , NET ,JRF  English )

Lect. inFunctionalEnglish

Functional English is usage of the English language required to perform a specific function like academic study or career progression. Functional English provide the essential knowledge, skills and understanding that will enable the user to operate confidently, effectively and independently in life and at work.

For some time employers and universities have been calling for young people to leave education with the skills needed to operate confidently, effectively and independently.

It is more important than ever that young people of all academic abilities can manage the demands of the workplace, and of further and higher education. Functional skills are the essential elements of English that help people to develop higher levels of practical skill, which they can apply to real life contexts. Rather than being taught as separate curriculum subjects, functional skills are applied to the teaching and learning in embedded way. Teachers have provided opportunities for pupils to apply their knowledge and skills to real lifesituations. Pupils have been enthusiastic about learning academic subjects in the context of real life, which gives more relevance to what they are studying.

The main components of functional English are listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Listening: Listening activity doesn’t mean just to listen and respond.

A large part of communication is listening, but it's the part that most people forget to do. In order to listen effectively, a person must put aside her own opinions while the other person is talking. This is the only way to truly hear what he's saying, even if you don't end up agreeing

with him completely. The best way to know if you've understood the other person correctly is to repeat back to her what she said and what you think she meant.The listener must identify the tone of voice of the speaker. Tone of voice plays an even bigger part when we are on the phone and cannot see the other person

Speaking: Learn to speak by speaking.

The two main sub-skills of speaking are linguistic skills and communicative skills. Linguistic skills are the language skills which include phonology, grammar, syntax and vocabulary on the other hand communication skills are the social skills.

Writing:

Writing on any topic should be  coherent.

• Unified:

All of the sentences in a single paragraph should be related to a single

controlling idea (often expressed in the topic sentence of the paragraph).

• Relevant:

Each sentence should be clearly related to the topic.

All the sentences

should refer to the central idea.

• Coherent:

The sentences should be arranged in a logical manner and should follow a definite plan for development

• Well-developed:

Every idea discussed in the paragraph should be adequately

explained and supported through evidence and details that work together to explain the paragraph’s controlling idea.

Reading: comprehension encompasses several skills. Basically, comprehension is achieved when the reader understands what he's read.

In functional English you could start your career with a lot objectives

1. You could go for a typical media and journalism industry and choose film, television, newspapers or news blogs. Even event, shows, food and game reviewing are lucrative options.

2. You could see publishing houses and with much emphasis on digital publishing such as e-books, electronic journal, online magazines and websites this industry booming.

3. You could take up teaching a lecturing as well but you might have to take up teacher training courses.

4. Another very exciting opportunity could in advertising, PR and marketing Industry which demands high levels of creativity and excellent communication skills and various mediums of marketing.

5. You could also take become a write and use your creativity to write novels, articles and movie/drama scripts.

6. You could also take up a job as a language translator. In the wake of this technological revolution linguistic abilities are gaining lot of importance. You could work as a freelancer or take up jobs with government and non-government agencies, universities, training centers and multi-national companies.
 

These are various future scope you can consider right after completing the course in Functional English:

1. Language Translators / Transcribers

You can always consider this as one of the career possibilities when you are an Indian because you are bound to know three languages- your mother tongue, Hindi and English. You also tend to be proficient in two of them. And if you also happen to be deft in English, you could use it to your advantage and build a super cool career based on it- translators, language specialists, editors. Knowing an (or a couple of) foreign language  will always add to the benefit.

2.Content Writer + Editor

If you have a knack for pouring your mind out on a piece of paper or your computer screen, your English Honors degree can entitle you with being a Writer. In this digital era, you can always work on niches like education, lifestyle, health, fashion. Or if you really fancy the corporate world, the e-business firms and MNCs are always offering jobs for professional write-ups and web pages.

3.Social Media Marketing

If you love to scroll through your Facebook and Instagram news feed time and again, you can make a career out of this lethal habit! As you can both read and write well, use your skills to market brands on these social media platforms. Plus, your addiction helps you take it as a no-brainer.

4.Event Management

One can always find some kind of event happening around. If you love to organise such events for people, you can always join an event management firm or start one on your own. You will always have a plethora of options to market the one you like- from corporate to Bollywood. These companies always give preference to the ones who can speak and write well.

5.Mass Communication

Become aware of the technical and creative aspects of a medium through which communication exists- from radio in the yesteryears to the trendy social media. With an advantage of your skill, this area can be highly functional for you to build a career on.