International Journal of Language and Translation Studies (Jun 2021)
THE CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS INTO ELT
Abstract
Education is presented as a basis of the development of a community. From the time when education emerges as a separate profession to the end of 19th century, it centered upon the acquisition of the content by learners rather than highlighting the function of the content. Learners had to adapt their background knowledge into their experiences at work; therefore, it revealed the distinctions between school experiences and real-life experiences that are elicited by 21st century pedagogies. So, in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT), the elaboration of teaching language skills and its integration with ever-changing needs of language learners and technologies have become primary focus. The growth of information with an unpredictable pace causes to the categorization of information in a specific area and necessitates the distinction of information in that specific area. In ELT, the development of language skills and material selection takes on a unique dimension on behalf of keeping up with that pace. Additionally, the possible outcomes of teaching ought to satisfy what has been demanded by the pedagogy and naturally by learners. As a consequence of the differences between theory and practice that are experienced in the process of sophisticatedly carrying out the 21st century skills in the field of education, the paper draws a conceptual sketch in order to illustrate the direct relation between ELT and the 21st century skills rooted in the info-technology, critical thinking and digital literacy that education looks for in keeping up with the innovations and developments. Besides, it will discuss the direct relations of project-based and task-based learning taking an important place with the 21st century skills, and will melt the different conceptual expressions such as Halverson’s 4Cs in the same pot with ELT. In the end, the paper will be able to conclude the necessity of the 21st century skills especially in the area of ELT thereby reviewing different sorts of the 21st century skills.
