Tolerance, social perception, empathy, emotional intelligence, cultural awareness, critical thinking and others are part of a set of crucial skills we all need to survive in a world filled with materialism and vanity. We all know these skills are essential to adapt to a rapidly changing world but, are we born with them? Can we learn to develop them? Can they be taught? And if so, can they be measured somehow?
The World Economic Forum, through its Future of Jobs Report 2018, suggests that by 2022 the top skills people must have will be: analytical thinking and innovation; active learning and active strategies; creativity, originality and initiative; technology design and programming; critical thinking and analysis. As we can see, most of them are soft skills. If the aim of education were to develop them, would it be possible to insert them in the context of a classroom? To be more precise, do they have a place in an EFL lesson?
Current knowledge on soft skills tells us that they are not really teachable –-that we are somehow born with them-– and that they are common to all human activity. It is also agreed that they are not easily measured because they are of a more qualitative and subjective nature. Therefore, it may seem that their application in an English classroom is not feasible. On the other hand, if asked, teachers would probably say they all develop these skills to a certain extent when they promote leadership, tolerance or empathy. I would argue that this is true, though the key word here is “promote”, which is different from “teach” and sounds a lot less overwhelming! This could be done on a daily basis and without any explicit instruction: a hidden curriculum for the benefit of students.
Given their importance, then, we should reflect on ways to promote soft skills in our daily work. An example could be how we encourage active listening: we could ask students to talk about something personal, and then ask their partners to report it to the whole class in as much detail as possible, including personal reactions to what they heard. It may sound rather obvious, but for some students this is quite challenging, as they are not used to paying too much attention to their peers. Furthermore, the next step would be to discuss ways to address soft skills with colleagues, in order to find common best practices and set criteria to assess them in a way as objective as possible. Perhaps, in our current world filled with emotionless technology, this could be the light at the end of the tunnel: a way to create the human beings the world needs.
Now it’s your turn
What do YOU think?
Do you promote soft skills in your lessons? How?
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 18 seconds
