Skills to Pay the Bills

This resource from the United States Department of Labor was designed to teach “soft” or workforce readiness skills to young adults entering the workplace. The materials are organized according to six key skill areas: communication, enthusiasm and attitude, teamwork, networking, problem solving and critical thinking, and professionalism. The entire curriculum, as well as each individual module, can be downloaded in PDF.

The curriculum includes a number of “ready-to-go” activities that could be used in an Adult Education classroom with little to no prep. In one activity from the problem solving and critical thinking module, for example, students practice determining the differences between criticism, praise, and feedback by listening to statements that give examples of each. In addition to the written materials, there are also short, engaging videos to go with each of the six key skill areas. A link to the video series can be found at the top of the resource homepage.