Integrating 21st Century Skills into Language Teaching Curricula

Abstract

Language teaching is a field that has experienced significant changes over the past three decades, especially with the advent of the communicative language teaching approach. Globalisation has assigned the language teacher new tasks. The latter has become tasked with helping the learner develop the ability to communicate, collaborate, think critically and be creative. The aforementioned skills, which are referred to as 21^st century skills, have become an integral part of language teaching curricula. Helping students acquire the skills they will need in their future requires that language teachers fully understand what these skills entail, so that they can create learning environment conducive to their development. The aim of this paper is twofold. One the one hand, it seeks to shed light on the competences and skills language learners should develop. On the other hand, it seeks to explain how the teacher can go about introducing these skills and helping the learner experiment with them.

Key words: Language teaching; Twenty first Century Skills; Globalisation; Curricula