Skills for Employment, Life and Opportunity

Why improve your understanding of English and maths?

These days of word processors with their built-in grammar, spell-checkers and calculators, there seems to be no need to understand the rules of English grammar, punctuation and calculating figures in your head!

Here are some reasons why doing some of these exercises and improving your understanding of such things could turn out to be a shrewd investment for you.

Grammar checkers on computers are not fool proof. They sometimes try to correct things that are perfectly correct, and often miss silly errors.

Unlike you, the writer, they are totally unconcerned with the meaning of your sentence and are simply following a predefined set of rules. While there is no doubt that they are useful, relying on them is highly dangerous.

Calculators do not enter the numbers for you, you need to know what you are attempting to find out e.g. are of a wall you are painting – to make sure you have enough paint?

So why should you need to spend any time acquiring an understanding of grammar, punctuation and maths skills?

As you go through your life, there will be various people it would be good to impress, for example your possible employer. Poor punctuation and grammar may be important within the job you are looking for or if you calculate the figures incorrectly you may find you have ordered too much material?

Good punctuation, grammar and maths skills will not only improve your chances of securing a good position, but, used skill fully, can make your arguments more persuasive and engaging.

Almost all employers view effective written communication together with being able to apply maths in the workplace as highly desirable skills. There are also skills that many potential candidates lack; improving your understanding of grammar, punctuation, writing, reading and maths could help you in the career of your choice.

Once in your job, you will almost certainly be engaging with the written word in some way or another. Clearly-written, grammatically-correct, properly-punctuated information and accurate reports are likely to catch your manager’s eye for the right reasons.