Getting started on KRA’s (Key Result Areas). My interest in KRA’s first came about from listening to a fascinating (In my humble opinion) interview: When Failure is Caused by Leadership by the folks at Entreleadership. (Podcast #8 Minute 6:14 to 7:40.).

Problem: the worker didn’t perform according to expectation and was about to be fired because HE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO.

Application to teaching: What are your KRA’s for each of your students? What are your student’s KRA’s outside your classroom? (You HAVE to know what their key result areas are in relation to their use of English so that you can help them achieve those result areas. Right?)

Question for teachers: While this podcast is directed to businesses and business leaders, I think it’s pretty easy to connect it to teaching. How often are business English students failing because of their teachers? Something valuable to think about and consider.

I don’t think I pointed to this useful pdf report about Key Result Areas (KRA’s) during the previous post about Designing a More Effective Approach to Teaching Business English,  but I think it’s well worth your time to review it, and then reflect on how KRA’s could/should/would apply to you as a teacher and how you plan and execute your classes. Here’s the link: Highlight: Key Result Areas .

Where I have been finding a lot of help has been in the ‘Process’ section of the pdf.

“Individuals undertake the following
steps to determine the KRAs for their
roles:
1. They list their main day-to-day
responsibilities/activities.
2. For each activity, they ask “Why do
I do this?”
3. They review the answers to their
“why” questions, looking for
common themes or areas.
4. They identify their KRAs from
these themes. ” (Highlight: Key Result Areas )

How I have been applying this to develop my classes:

1. I invite students to list their daily activities where they are directly involved in using English.

2. For each activity they list, as the Highlight article suggests, I get them to describe why they do that activity. What’s the goal of it. (That activity in itself has been eye opening even for them at times!)

3. When they identify the ‘why’ behind what they are trying to do, we begin talking about how they need to/want to be able to accomplish that goal in English.

The answers to these questions, and you sometimes really need to encourage your students to dig and explore, will give you YOUR KRA’s as a teacher. What results do you need to help your student produce? (Did you catch that switch? Your students have KRA’s to meet for their jobs, but have you ever thought about what YOUR KRA’s are?)

Example: This week I started interviewing one of my students along these lines. We identified that one of his frequent activities is to hold a one on one conference call with an English speaking coworker in another country. The why? To report information and invite feedback, and eventually gain approval for project they’ve been working on.

Next we spoke about HOW he needs to be able to do this. This is what we identified: 1) clearly explaining key steps in a process they were performing. 2. Explain that info in a way that the other person could understand and offer feedback. 3. Finally, he needs to explain this to other stakeholders in order to get approval – but only in 5 minutes.

Now I have KRA’s. I need to help my student be able to effectively use the language of explaining a step by step process. (First of all….secondly, and then, having done that, you can then….etc.) Currently, this helpful language is not showing up for him in his presentation. (I recorded a first go at it for reference.)

Another KRA:  Help bring clarity to each point, so that a non expert could have a good idea of what is going on. (End stakeholders are not deeply involved in the process – they just want to hear what had been done.)

Final KRA: Help student explain their process and findings in five minutes or less.

Finding these answers took us about 45 minutes of class. It’s important to look for specific objectives here. “Developing fluency”  is a very common response to ‘What would you like our classes to do for you?’ – but it’s not specific. It’s hard to measure. It’s VERY hard to do. Try using a few of the questions above and mentioned in the Highlight article to help you out.

What would happen to your teaching style if you tried identifying your KRA’s? How have you done this in your classes?

(Photo by ItzaFineDay)