sato
Junior Member
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2010
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- English
- Home Country
- Australia
- Current Location
- Japan
Teaching an ESL class earlier this week, The expression "job experience" came up in the textbook, and my immediate reaction was that it was not correct, although there is no doubt as to the meaning of the expression.
I have a co-teacher who objects strongly to any disagreement with the textbook, and so I looked up as much as I could online. A quick Google search gave me approximate values as to common usage - "work experience" returned around 15 million hits, whereas "job experience" returned a few less than 1 million. Searching the online dictionary on the Oxford website turned up no results for "job experience", neither did a consultation with the biggest English-Japanese dictionary in our library.
All this led me to conclude that "job experience" is a term in current use but not strictly correct English, perhaps analogous to (but certainly not on par with!) "should of", or any other recent expression used in absence of knowledge of the proper term.
Also whereas "work experience" can be expressed as "I experienced work" or "My work experience", the same cannot be said of "job experience", although "on-the-job experience" is a valid usage.
I'd be interested to know what anyone else has to say, specifically regarding the 'technically accurate' side of things rather than common usage, since my students are studying for university entrance exams.
I have a co-teacher who objects strongly to any disagreement with the textbook, and so I looked up as much as I could online. A quick Google search gave me approximate values as to common usage - "work experience" returned around 15 million hits, whereas "job experience" returned a few less than 1 million. Searching the online dictionary on the Oxford website turned up no results for "job experience", neither did a consultation with the biggest English-Japanese dictionary in our library.
All this led me to conclude that "job experience" is a term in current use but not strictly correct English, perhaps analogous to (but certainly not on par with!) "should of", or any other recent expression used in absence of knowledge of the proper term.
Also whereas "work experience" can be expressed as "I experienced work" or "My work experience", the same cannot be said of "job experience", although "on-the-job experience" is a valid usage.
I'd be interested to know what anyone else has to say, specifically regarding the 'technically accurate' side of things rather than common usage, since my students are studying for university entrance exams.