Language/Literature Education & Transferable Skills

Overview & Rationale 

This resource is designed to help language and literature faculty and staff assess and/or emphasize transferable skills into their classrooms and programs. 

Transferable skills, broadly speaking, are competencies developed through academic study, extracurricular activities, and campus life that can be applied across settings.

A focus on transferable skills in the language/literature classroom serves multiple purposes: 

  • Bridging the Professional/Personal Gap: Helps students articulate the connections between their language/literature coursework and their post-university personal and professional trajectories, a long-standing challenge.

  • Advocating for the Language & Literature Programs: Emphasizes the competencies already being cultivated within language, literature and culture programs (e.g., critical thinking, analytical thinking).

  • Strengthening Enrollment and Retention: Addresses contemporary challenges in humanities departments, such as budget constraints, by targeting enrollment and retention.

  • Repositioning the Humanities: Reaffirms humanistic study and inquiry as essential to answering society’s toughest questions.

This resource provides a broad overview of transferable skills, common frameworks of transferable skills, and general examples of application/integration into language/literature courses/programs. A more detailed resource is also available, with further details and examples.

What are transferable skills?

Transferable skills, broadly speaking, are competencies and personal attributes developed through academic study, extracurricular activities, and campus life that can be applied across diverse professional, social, and cultural settings.

Common transferable skills include:

  • Critical Thinking & Analysis: Solving complex problems and evaluating information.

  • Communication: Proficiency in written and oral expression.

  • Intercultural Competence: Engaging with global contexts and diverse backgrounds.

  • Adaptability: Flexibility and initiative in uncertain environments.

  • Professionalism & Collaboration: Working effectively in teams and managing interpersonal dynamics.

In emphasizing or integrating transferable skills into your courses or programs, it can be helpful to draw on specific frameworks and resources. Here we have curated a list of established frameworks. 

Classroom & Program Applications

Highlighted below are broad strategies on how to emphasize or integrate transferable skills into your language/literature classroom or program. You can find additional details and more in depth examples in the companion resource to this website

Program-Level Advocacy

  • Publicity & Advocacy: Use flyers and departmental materials to highlight the "hidden" skills inherent in language programs.

  • Alumni Connections: Leverage alumni profiles and interviews to create a clear personal/professional trajectories for students. Connecting current students with alumni who use their language skills in personal/professional capacities provides powerful, tangible examples of transferability.

  • Multiple Majors Spotlight: Identify and spotlight common additional majors students in your program choose, along with how students combine these majors. Many programs will find data on common additional majors via Berkeley Data Digest’s co-occurrences by major.

Classroom-Level Integration

  • Updating Objectives: Map your existing course learning objectives to specific transferable skills. Frame your units not just around language proficiency, but around the competencies developed while achieving that proficiency.

  • Awareness-Raising Activities: Incorporate reflection prompts throughout the semester that encourage students to connect specific class tasks (e.g., a debate or a group project) to broader professional skills like "collaboration" or "intercultural communication".

  • Articulating Transfer: Create opportunities for students to practice articulating the transferable skills they’re learning and how they transfer to other contexts. This student-facing activity worksheet offers a step-by-step guide that can be adapted or integrated as is.

Expanded Resource on Transferable Skills

Additional Resources on Benefits of Language Learning

Additional OER Resources from the BLC