Revista simpozionului Eficienta si calitate in educatie 2018 Revista simpozionului | Page 49

ideas and points of view, while, if they actively listened to the others, they would
have the opportunity to broaden their mind. An activity to develop these skills
would be to ask the students to interview a real person participating in a real event:
a festival, a marathon, a fair, etc. and then report to the class. This real-life
situation would make them get really involved and participate actively in the
conversation.
Self-confidence is something everybody needs and is, to a certain extent, linked to
self-awareness skills. One cannot develop these easily, especially during English
classes as students sometimes lack the confidence to learn and use a foreign
language, especially when it comes to speaking. Though, the learners can easily
be taught how to assess themselves, which in time will lead to them being able to
realize and understand how they act and react in different situations, which will
obviously help them manage themselves under challenging circumstances. Self-
awareness, together with self-confidence and resilience, are extremely important,
especially before exams or job interviews, enabling the students to identify their
strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly. A typical activity to develop these
would be an “I can do” list at the end of each unit, comprising, besides grammar
and vocabulary items attitude points and soft skills. The students might even write
such a list at the beginning of the school year, semester, unit, etc., which includes
both the things they expect to learn and the skills they would like to develop, thus
rendering the teaching-learning activity more effective.
Although they seem unimportant and easy to develop at first sight, soft skills prove
to be more than that: they are and will always remain an asset of the students, no
matter what career path they choose to follow or what other hard skills they
develop throughout their life. Soft skills are to be carefully considered and
developed during English classes so as to enable people to navigate their
environment, work well with the others, perform well, and achieve their goals along
with hard skills and acquired knowledge.
Bibliography:
Canale, M. and M. Swain. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to
second language teaching and testing, 2002. In: RICHARDS, Jack and
RENANDYA, Willy, eds. Methodology in Language Teaching. An Anthology of
Current Practice. USA: CUP. pp. 206-208.
Lindsay, Cora, Knight, Paul Learning and Teaching English. OUP, 2006.
Moss, D., Ross-Feldman, L. Second language acquisition in adults: From research
to practice, 2003. May 15, 2011 http://www.cal.org/caela/esl_resources/digests/
Sesnan, Barry, How to Teach English, Oxford University Press, 2004
*** Innovations in learning technologies for English language teaching, British
Council, 2013,
https://youtu.be/Tiy2LONr050
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/list-of-soft-skills-2063770
http://bemycareercoach.com/soft-skills/list-soft-skills.html
https://www.wikijob.co.uk/content/interview-advice/competencies/soft-skills
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/soft-skills-you-need
(links last accessed on 29 September 2018)
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