Side Step Workshops: Career Ready English for Art Schools
Art & Design Schools Need a School-Wide Career English Strategy
True Voice English are specialists of Career Ready English for Art Schools. We can consult with your institution to design a complete school-wide career English strategy, or deliver key elements of it through live workshops, online training, multidisciplinary projects, practice-led coaching, and/or interview training.
Why Side Step Workshops Matter for Art Students
Art graduates leave with their degree an extraordinary range of skills — but often struggle to communicate their value outside obvious art contexts.
Potential employers and collaborators across industries don’t know how those skills can match their requirements.
Most graduates have too little training in communicating this information: it’s not just language skills they need, it’s experience to understand their worth.
Art schools with training to bridge this gap leave their undergraduates in a much healthier position in the job market.
Side Step Workshops (in the form of charettes) that are designed to bridge the knowledge gap and English skills gap concurrently, so the students never feel like they are taking time out from their important practice to ‘do English’.
They allow students to step outside their discipline, test their skills in unexpected contexts, and practice communicating their contribution, using English as part of real-world collaborations.
What Are Side Step Workshops?
A Side Step Workshop is a short, intensive residency (3–7 days) where students:
Understand a real-world problem
An expert introduces this problem in all its aspects and complexities.
Collaborate in mixed teams
Supported by a domain expert (e.g. architect, filmmaker, product designer, social innovator).
Speak to members of the public or industry specialists
Supported by a domain expert (e.g. architect, filmmaker, product designer, social innovator).
Work with a language coach
Each group has meetings with a coach who offers tips on how to express ideas clearly through the three stages: problem exploration, collaboration, and final presentation. The coach does not provide answers, but helps students find their own voice in English.
Real world experience managing teamwork processes
Breaking down tasks, coordinating roles, and preparing a final presentation.
Present and reflect
Partly on the solutions they uncovered, but also on what they learned about teamwork, communication, and their own creative resilience.
Examples of Side Step Workshop Themes
A medical doctor guiding students through the complexities of tackling obesity.
A disability advocate leading a workshop on safer, more inclusive urban spaces.
An independent farm exploring new markets for their dairy products.
These challenges are not about producing polished solutions, but about developing the process skills that graduates will need for lifelong creative careers.
Why This Matters for English Learning
Side Step Workshops are run in English, with real conversations at the core.
Students aren’t sitting in a classroom practicing abstract vocabulary — they are:
-
Negotiating meaning across borders.
-
Explaining creative decisions to non-specialists.
-
Developing confidence in the language of collaboration and problem-solving.
This is a far more memorable way to build language skills for creative careers, including lasting confidence as a professional (not a student).
With a language coach embedded in the process, English support is responsive and immediate — helping students express themselves when it matters most.
The Coaching Component
Experience alone isn’t enough.
Students also need help translating what they’ve learned into skills that have long-term application.
How can they convert this experience into an answer in a job interview?
That’s why each Side Step Workshop includes a personal real time coaching element and follow-up, guiding students through reflective questions such as:
-
How was this process for you?
-
What was frustrating?
-
What went well?
-
How have you changed through this collaboration?
-
What strengths and weaknesses did you notice in yourself?
By embedding both language coaching and personal reflection coaching, students develop two lifelong habits: how to articulate their contribution and value clearly, and how to strategically evaluate their own growth.
International Collaboration for Art Students
Side Step Workshops can be run in partnership with a UK art school, creating cross-border teams. This gives students the experience of:
-
Collaborating with international peers.
-
Navigating cultural differences.
-
Using English as the working language in mixed, global groups.
Outcomes for Students
Confidence communicating their value beyond artwork.
Real world practice in teamwork and project management.
Exposure to diverse industries and potential career pathways.
Resilience, adaptability, and problem-solving.
Outcomes: Career Ready English for Art School Graduates
First-hand and memorable experience of the transferable power of their creative skills.
A personal framework for reflection that will support them throughout their careers.
Part of a Bigger School-Wide Strategy
True Voice English are specialists of Career Ready English for Art Schools.
Side Step Workshops are one element of our School-Wide English Strategy.
Together with studio-to-studio conversations (our Sketchbook English model) and redesigned English touchpoints across the curriculum, they ensure English is not a separate, time-consuming burden — but a living, integrated part of the art school experience.