Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 48

common activity to develop these would be to ask them to deliver a three-to-five
minute speech on a given topic, either from a list or one the students choose
themselves. In order to make them get used to speaking in front of an audience,
the students might start by delivering their speech in front of a small group of five
or six students, then, after some classes they could be asked to do the same thing
in front of the whole class. A more challenging task would be to speak on a topic
prepared on the spot. This would be rather stressful, especially for very young
learners or beginners, no matter their age, but can be done successfully with
students who have practiced this a few times beforehand. At the level of a school
or community, these skills can be developed within a speaking club, which would
have the advantage of allowing students to choose this activity themselves, thus
getting more involved in it. A drawback would be the fact that the learners who are
more self-conscious might not choose to join the club and will not develop these
skills, either.
A must in today’s society would be to develop a growth mindset which refers to the
skills a person uses in order to deal with a stressful or challenging situation, which
enables people to learn and develop/ grow instead of just giving up or in. This
ability can be developed especially through self-evaluation and peer-assessment
as far as productive skills are concerned. Students might be asked to listen to a
presentation and then, based on a set of clearly-designed criteria, to try to (self-
)assess it as to identify its strong points and aspects to be improved. In short, they
will learn from their mistakes and will become aware of the fact that one makes
mistakes in order to grow and to develop.
Another soft skill the students are to develop in school and then to use all their life
is resilience, closely connected to patience and persistence and perseverance, all
being inherent and essential to a successful (working) life. An activity to develop
these skills is writing paragraphs, articles, essays, rewriting them as many times as
necessary in order to improve them. The students must be taught the benefits of
grit, the ability of someone not to give up, to show determination and courage even
after a setback in order to continue or start all over again.
Mentoring or coaching skills can also impact one’s life and should be developed as
early as high school. They are closely linked to peer-assessment and refer to the
ability of a person to provide constructive guidance, and/or feedback that can help
others improve their learning/ knowledge and further their career development. An
activity to develop these skills would be to ask the students at the end of a
presentation or a speech to give feedback to their colleagues, which could
contribute to their mates’ growth and development. A drawback would be the fact
that the students have to practise this a lot for it to be effective and efficient. The
students have to be taught how to do this correctly lest they should hurt their
colleagues’ feeling and do more harm than good.
Another soft skill to develop to high students is communication, which means not
merely talk to someone and achieve the goals you intended with that, but be able
to actively listen to others. Nowadays, there is a tendency among people to prefer
and choose digital communication over face-to-face interaction, doubled by a
proclivity to listen to reply rather than listen to consider your interlocutor’s ideas
carefully. A drawback of this would be the fact that people would be limited to their
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