Integrating life skills into English language programmes Ben Knight Cambridge University Press
Text for submission to IATEFL 2018 Conference Selections Introduction As English teachers, we know our classes are about more than just the language – the grammar, vocabulary, language skills. We’re also developing our students’ ability to express themselves effectively, to think critically, and to collaborate successfully. But as this becomes a major part of 21st century educational requirements, can we be sure that we’re doing this as well as we could be?
Models and approaches to life skills At Cambridge, we have been researching different approaches to life skills, to work out how we could integrate these skills into English language courses better. We looked at a wide range of models, from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, to the OECD, WHO and UNICEF, and the ACT College and Career Readiness Standards. All of these provide excellent insights into life skills, but we decided that we needed a framework that covered the full range of skills and competencies that are relevant to education, that showed how these develop across the learning journey, from pre-primary to adulthood, and that provided a level of detail that helps teachers and students to understand what exactly they should be focusing on at each stage of education.
The Cambridge Framework for Life Competencies We set out to create a model or framework which had those features. We examined research into skills required by employers, changes in skills needed at work and college, and academic research into different areas of competency. The framework is organised around eight main areas of competency: creativity & innovation, critical thinking, digital literacy, learning to learn, communication, collaboration, emotional development and social responsibilities.
Each of these eight areas contains a number of ‘competencies’. So, for example, Collaboration includes competencies such as ‘taking turns in shared activities’ and ‘managing the sharing of tasks in a project’. We then analyse each competency into its Component Skills. For example, ‘managing the sharing of tasks in a project’ consists of Component Skills such : identifying tasks and subtasks that can be shared, ensuring the allocation of tasks is fair, offering to help when others need it.
Life skills and the learning journey The framework looks at the learning journey in five broad stages: pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher education and learning at work. For each of those stages, we have developed Can Do Statements which describe what a student completing that level might be expected to be able to do in relation to that competency, in terms of observable behaviours. For example, in the area of Critical Thinking, there is a competency ‘Evaluating texts, ideas and arguments’, and for Primary school students, some of the Can Do Statements for this are:
Says whether something is true or not, and gives a reason
Explains why they believe or not what a character says in a story
Identifies inconsistencies in stories
Identifies missing key events from short narrative summaries
More information on the Cambridge Framework for Life Competencies can be found here: http://languageresearch.cambridge.org/cflc
Integration with English language programmes Any course based on communicative language learning will already include elements of developing life skills. The focus on communication, on working in pairs or groups, on thinking critically or working imaginatively with texts and tasks all go beyond pure language learning. However, the approach is usually unsystematic in how it plans the development of life skills. We have found that the Framework has helped us integrate life skills in a more systematic way: we look at the component skills for a particular competency and create a planned progression through those component skills. We also use the can do statements to think more carefully about the design of tasks, making sure that we have helping students to focus on a specific skill in an explicit way. For example, one aspect of collaboration is being
able to give constructive feedback to others in the group. We have designed lessons where we begin by highlighting the language used to express feedback in a constructive, positive way, then provide scaffolded activities for the students to make use of that language. We have also been developing ‘assessment checklists’, based on the Can Do Statements, that teachers can use to evaluate how well their students are progressing on abstract-sounding skills such as ‘creativity’. The Framework is freely available for teachers and schools to use when trying to think more systematically about integrating life skills into their English language programmes.
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References National Research Council: Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century . NRC, 2012 Suto, Irenka: 21st Century skills: Ancient, ubiquitous, enigmatic? in Research Matters Issue 15, Cambridge Assessment, Jan 2015 Trilling, Bernie, and Charles Fadel: 21st Century Skills: learning for life in our times. Josey-Bass, 2009
