Integrating Major, Career, and Future through the JOBS Model: A Pathway to Diverse Careers for English Education Majors

This study explores the application of the JOBS 4-stage model in pre-service English teacher education, emphasizing digital pedagogy and career-major alignment. Participants initially mapped their envisioned career trajectories for 2030 within English education and analyzed a 2020 secondary English teacher certification exam question to ground their instructional materials in discipline-specific pedagogy. Building on these foundations, participants leveraged AI tools to generate customized reading passages tailored to their prospective student demographic, developed lesson plans incorporating multimodal content, and conducted teaching demonstrations. The effectiveness of this JOBS model was evaluated through a mixed-methods design, including pre-post surveys and reflective feedback. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated a statistically significant improvement in career goal clarity (W = 0.00, p = 0.02). Additionally, the ability to envision future career images showed the highest post-survey mean (M = 4.56, SD = 0.63), albeit without statistical significance (W = 23.50, p = 0.12). Reflective feedback indicated that integrating AI into instructional design strengthened their digital competencies. These findings suggest that teacher education programs can adopt a more flexible and multi-faceted approach to career preparation, enabling pre-service teachers to explore diverse career pathways beyond the teaching profession.