Blog 8: Global Skills Activity (GSA)

Hello, everyone ✌

For this new entry, I will describe one of the most important characteristics in the CCA class curriculum: Global Skills Activity (GSA). Firstly, I will write about what GSA is and its role in the CCA curriculum. Secondly, I will describe how these activities are represented on a daily basis inside a class and their purpose. Thirdly, I will select two global skills and explain why I would like to strengthen them in my TB1 1.1 and TB1 1.3 classes. Finally, I will reflect on the importance of these activities not as a simple addition to class planning, but as a differentiating factor of the CCA that seeks not only to teach English, but also to develop 21st-century skills for the personal growth of its students.

The guiding questions for this entry are:

How are global skills evident in class?

Which global skill would you like to strengthen in your groups?

What are Global Skills?

Global skills are part of the learning process at the CCA. They can be defined as those abilities that are learned and then continue to be developed as a lifelong learning process. They go beyond the classroom and have a pivotal impact on the student’s life. At the CCA, it is important to boost and reinforce these skills continually as part of the personal and academic growth of the students. This reinforcement has to be done according to the needs of the class, the curriculum, and the population (students). Likewise, these skills must be updated and provided wisely by the teacher, as they are in charge of planning and modeling the activity, while involving students constantly.

There are various global skills for teachers to choose from for their classes. However, at the CCA, some of the most relevant for KTP students include:

• Communication and Collaboration: These abilities are related to the expression of ideas, active listening, and assertive communication within different contexts and audiences. They include teamwork, negotiation, conflict resolution, and building trust to achieve common goals.
• Creativity and Critical Thinking: These abilities are related to the capacity to generate original ideas, explore multiple solutions, and approach challenges with imagination. They involve analyzing information, questioning assumptions, and solving problems in innovative and logical ways.
• Intercultural Competence and Citizenship: These abilities include understanding, respecting, and engaging with people from diverse cultural ad social backgrounds. They allow students to create cultural awareness based on openness, tolerance, and empathy, as well as acting responsibly as global citizens by contributing positively to communities and society.
• Emotional Self-regulation and Wellbeing: These abilities aim at the recognition, management, and expression of emotions in healthy and responsible ways. They involve coping with stress and unpleasant emotions, showing resilience, practicing self-care, and maintaining balance in personal, social, and academic/professional life.
• Digital Literacies: These abilities are related to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to use digital tools effectively and responsibly. They cover information literacy, online communication, content creation, critical evaluation of digital sources, and awareness of digital safety, ethics, and identity.

How are GS evident in my classes?

My team teacher is always looking to include global skills in our classes. She likes to call them superpowers as a way to reinforce the impact they would have on students’ lifelong learning process. This Saturday, the global skills for TB1 1.1 were communication and digital literacy. The teacher made these goals evident from the reading of objectives, and they were developed throughout the class. On one hand, for communication skills, I was in charge of the language cycle, so for the free practice I promoted communication by inviting students to share their favorite/least favorite movie and explain to their classmates why they liked or disliked it. In this way, I wanted to help my students express their ideas and practice active listening. On the other hand, regarding digital literacy, the teacher arranged a mediation called Pandora’s Box, which focused on the prosumer role and the invitation to become active users in digital settings, addressing the control and regulation of potentially harmful content.

Regarding TB1 1.3, the global skills were critical thinking, communication, and digital literacy. The latter was the same as the mediation for TB1 1.1. Nonetheless, this class also included another global skill: critical thinking, combined with communication. In this case, critical thinking was developed throughout the session in the language cycle as part of the context and practice. The topic for that day was “things that make us feel embarrassed and how we would react to them.” I included activities for students to think critically about possible scenarios and communicate their insights and solutions. For instance, in one activity students had to imagine a situation that made or would make them feel embarrassed. Then, they shared their situations and explained to their classmates why they would feel embarrassed and what they would do in that situation. In the end, students were able to express their ideas and find possible solutions based on the context of their situations, while also working on their emotional intelligence and responses to embarrassment.

What skills would I include in my classes?

I believe that all skills are equally important and serve multiple purposes in the students’ lives. However, two skills that I want to boost in my courses are emotional self-regulation and wellbeing, and creativity and critical thinking. I consider these skills crucial when developing interpersonal and intrapersonal competences regarding self-image, motivation, resilience, and learning from errors. I believe that these skills are a big part of the learning process, as they are not only part of global skills but also part of how students receive feedback in the assessment cycle, interact with others in communicative moments, and plan strategies to constantly improve from their mistakes.

In my case, as part of my intervention requirement from the university, I am planning to boost these skills through Growth Mindset Interactions (GMI) in exercises where students develop their communicative competences while learning new strategies related to resilience, personal growth, and SMART goal setting.

Reflection:

Honestly, I believe that global skills play a pivotal role in the learning process of students inside and outside classroom settings. These skills represent not only a differentiating factor in the CCA’s English teaching approach but also benefit students by not only acquiring English as a foreign language, but doing so while creating beneficial skills for their growth and development in different social settings. Every skill is equally important, and as teachers, we must seek the wellbeing of our students through all the activities and classes we design during our time at the CCA.