2016 english and soft skills

Creation of resources to develop soft skills

in a foreign language classroom

with Grzegorz Spiewak

Connect these dots by drawing four straight lines, without lifting your pencil off the paper and without going back over a line. You have 2 minutes.

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So, it’s the famiar true-false reading exercise format, applied to a new type of content and thus smuggling in an

element of thinking skills training

Learning English for No Obvious Reason

In order to reduce this …

07/03/2016 7

Vocabulary

Grammar

Tenses prepositions

nouns

verbs

punctuation

Sentence structure

gerunds

reading

writing

listening

Speaking

prefixes

suffixes

phonics

pronunciation

This (i.e. teaching English as a body of linguistic knowledge) is no loger attractive enough…

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E E

“… as English becomes more generally available, little or no competitive advantage is gained by adopting it.

Rather, it has become a new baseline: without English you are not even in the race.”

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“without English you are not even in the race.”

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E E

07/03/2016 14 Emma Sue Prince, web talk at Macmillan Life Skills Day May 2014

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Arguably, some of these are hardly teachable

– but some indeed are!

an example …

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spam, router favourites home browser download social network

another example …

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EUYMCABCWHODVD

EUY MCAB CWH ODVD

EU YMCA BC WHO DVD

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and another one …

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Your friend has some new clothes. They don’t look good. You say they look good.

Your mum cooks dinner and it isn’t very nice. You say you’re not hungry.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tracyclayton/moral-dilemmas-that-will-break-your-brain#.sajy8zLvV

“In a globalised, postmodern world a rather different model of education has emerged. An individual, to participate fully in the new economy – as worker, consumer and responsible citizen – needs to be even better informed and needs higher-order and more flexible skills.”

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“higher-order and more flexible skills.”

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07/03/2016 33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRxPJcd0zDw

07/03/2016 35 http://thoughtfullearning.com/resources/what-are-21st-century-skills

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INFLUENCE

LEARN THINK

RELATE

to-self

to-people

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THINK

EUYMCABCWHODVD

EUY MCAB CWH ODVD

EU YMCA BC WHO DVD

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LEARN

RELATE

some

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INFLUENCE

O J E

• Teenage boys waste their lives playing online games all day long.

vs.

• Online gaming is going to be one of the most attractive career tracks in very near future.

Opinion Justification Example

F R E E

Fact Reason Example 1 Example 2

Controversy workout

• Voting should be compulsory.

• There are many stupid men in politics.

• The political world is changing because there are more women in it.

Controversy workout

* AGREE

** DISAGREE

*** APPLY TO YOURSELF

**** GIVE AN EXAMPLE

***** FOR & AGAINST

****** GIVE TWO EXAMPLES AND

CONTRAST

some

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RELATE

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procedure: Three deliveries of one talk; Ss work in pairs with one acting as the speaker and the other as listener, The speaker speaks for 3 minutes on a topic while their partner listens; Then the pairs change, with each speaker giving the same information to a new partner in 2 minutes, followed by a further exchange and a 1-minute talk

some

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THINK

six-word-

memoirs

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some

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THINK

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THINK

THINK sofa

chair

bed

cupboard

coffee table

mirror

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Odd ONE out - Odd TWO out - Odd THREE out – etc. (Lindsay Clandfield’s CT technique: „creating an environment of uncertainty. With MANY possible right answers!”)

shortage opinion food

rest of the world

‘Discussions are an excellent tool for developing students’ reasoning skills because they give you access to their thought processes and guide students to a higher level of thinking.’

acknowledgement: Prof. Rob Reich, Stanford University 60

some

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LEARN

LEARN

‘Only … % of learners use learning

strategies and memory techniques’

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‘Teachers would be more prepared to suggest these techniques to their learners if they themselves have had more experience of them.’

increase I SOLATE

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I SOLATE

red blue green

thick - thin

R E D D A L

head bas

mouth auyz

shoulders iyk

belly ish

foot ayak

……… ……………

http://www.tagxedo.com

One authentic example produced by a teenage student

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LEARN

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LEARN

In what order…?!

Overwhelming…

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How will I know they’ve got it?!

http://www.macmillanenglish.com/searchresultstemplate.aspx

acknowledgement: Marta Rosinska

DOS-ELTEA

contact: grzegorz@e-dos.org