The language of life skills

Gummidelli Mahender

The words ‘life skills’ refer to the skills we need to make the most of our lives. Life skills are usually connected with managing and living a healthier quality of life. They can be defined as a set of skills gained either from the classroom or the society which helps individuals or groups to successfully handle problems and questions commonly encountered in their daily life (Manglallan and Raskauskas, 2003; UNESCO, 2010).

UNICEF has expanded the concept and defines life skills as a group of psychosocial and interpersonal skills, which can help people make informed decisions, communicate effectively and develop coping and self-management skills (Maclang-Vicencio: World Scientific Conference p. 3).

For education to become meaningful and powerful enough to equip people with the strength to change their lives and the world around them, it has to impart life skills and not just information.

With the world now a global village, another equally important skill is learning the English language. Let’s see how we can combine the two and teach students both language and life skills.

Integrating life skills in the English classroom
The ten core life skills as laid down by WHO are:
1. Self-awareness
2. Empathy
3. Critical thinking
4. Creative thinking
5. Decision making
6. Problem solving
7. Effective communication
8. Interpersonal relationship
9. Coping with stress
10. Coping with emotions

Self-awareness
Self-awareness is to know one’s strengths, weaknesses, desires, feelings and character. This can be developed in the English classroom while teaching adjectives.

Activity
Ask students to write down adjectives that best describe them – courageous, brave, gorgeous, kind, timid, etc.

Empathy
Douglas H Brown (1994), professor of English, San Fransisco State University, describes empathy as “the projection of one’s own personality on to the personality of another in order to understand him or her better.” Brown holds that there are two necessary aspects to the development and exercise of empathy: first, awareness and knowledge of one’s own feelings, and second, identification with another person. According to him, empathy is probably the major factor in the harmonious coexistence of individuals in society, and it facilitates communication, since social communication requires people to “permeate” the boundaries of their ego so that they can send and receive messages clearly.

Activity
• Divide the classroom into groups.
• Give them a topic such as, “Should you help a stranger in need?”
• Give students time to prepare and then the two groups can debate.
• Each group defends their views for 10 minutes.
• Now, the teacher switches the roles. Then the teacher talks about empathetic skills.

Critical thinking skills
Raymond S. Nickerson, psychologist and author (1987) provides us with a whole list of abilities and attitudes which characterize the individual who thinks critically. This individual is someone who:
• Organizes thoughts and articulates them concisely and coherently.
• Can learn independently and has an abiding interest in doing so.

Activity
• The teacher provides a little bit of the beginning, middle and end of a story. For example,
– Once upon a time, there was a king…
– The daughter of the king disappeared…
– The ministers were punished…
• Gives them some time.
• Then asks the students to build on the story.

Effective communication
Effective communication skills are needed in everyday life, be it personal or professional. Effective communication skills include body language, being confident and using verbal and non-verbal communication. These can be improved through various language activities.

Activity
• The teacher divides the classroom into groups.
• Asks students to prepare advertisements for x, y and z products.
• Gives them 15 minutes for preparation.
• After 15 minutes, asks each group to present their advertisement in 2 minutes.

Coping and managing emotions
Coping with and managing emotions is a very important life skill. Students have to be trained to show or express their emotions when necessary with proper verbal and non-verbal communication.

Activity

• Teacher gives students words and meanings of emotions like happy, sad, angry, fear, love, hatred, etc., and asks students to draw these emotions.
• Then asks them to express these emotions in front of the class one by one with oral and facial expressions. The teacher can also ask the students to write stories using these emotions.

Interpersonal relationships
Interpersonal relationship is maintaining a healthy relationship with the people around us. Language plays a major role in keeping good relationships with people.

Team building activities help in improving interpersonal relationships. The teacher can do language energizers with the students at the beginning and end of a class. Here is an example.

Activity
Divide the class into groups. The first student in the group starts the activity with a sentence. For instance,
Yesterday I went to the market and bought some vegetables.

The next person in the group repeats the first sentence and adds another item to it.
Yesterday I went to the market and bought some vegetables and some bananas.
Yesterday I went to the market and bought some vegetables, bananas and mangoes.

Note: The language focus is on past tense.

Students have to concentrate and remember all the items in the correct order.
If any student forgets any item/order of the list, he/she is out of the game.

Problem solving
Problem solving skills can be developed through word puzzles, jumbled words and sentences.

Creative thinking
The ability to think creatively helps one look at problems anew and find innovative ways of solving them.

Activity
• Teacher divides the classroom into groups.
• Gives them newspapers.
• Gives them some time for preparation.
• Asks them to make something out of newspapers like boats, home, birds, animals, etc.

Verbal skills will improve with this activity as students discuss with each other what they can make and how with the newspapers.

Decision making
Decision-making skills can be developed again by using word puzzles, jumbled words and sentences, especially if you have a time limit to finish the tasks.

Conclusion
There is a need to equip children with life skills to make them successful in their lives and careers. Life skills can be taught in a language classroom effectively since language learning is one of the major life skills and the teacher’s role is immense in teaching life skills. When a teacher of language has a broad idea and ability to understand life skills, then there will be no difficulty in imparting these skills to the students. Life skills education has long-term benefits to the society which include educational, social, health, cultural and economic growth of the learner and help him/her become a good citizen of the country.

References

• Brown, H. Douglas. (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. (Third Edition) New Jersey: Prentice Hall Regents, Englewood Cliffs.
• Mangrulkan, L., C. V. Whitman and M. Posner. 2001. Life Skills Approach to Child and Adolescent Healthy Human Development. Washington, DC: Pan American Health Organization.
• Richard, J. C. and T. S. Rodgers. 2001. Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• WHO (1997) Life skills education for Children and Adolescents in Schools: Introduction and Guidelines to Facilitate the Development and Implementation of Life Skills Programmes, Programme on Mental Health, WHO/MNH/PSF/93.7A.

The author is a Research Scholar in the Department of English in Osmania University, and a Post Graduate Teacher at Telangana Social Welfare Residential Junior College at Yellareddy, Kamareddy District. He has worked as a life skills and English trainer at Ignis Careers Privated Limited. He can be reached at mahienglish52@gmail.com.