Building global skills through collaboration in the EFL classroom

Abstract

Empathy, mutual respect, curiosity, collaboration, awareness (of self, others and the world) and openness to new experiences are some of the skills the OECD (2019) has identified as being associated with academic success and better preparation for the challenges of an ever more global and interconnected world. As global skills grow in importance, educators are challenged to consider new pedagogical approaches and design learning experiences that foster the development of these skills. The aim of this poster is to present a collaborative project developed at the University of Aveiro, during the 1st term of the 2021/22 academic year, and involving students from two different departments and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) subjects. In addition to consolidating students’ intercultural awareness and language competences, this learner-centred project also aimed to foster the development of personal, social and learning-to-learn competences, as these are defined in the Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (Council of Europe, 2018), which establishes a framework of competences citizens need in ever more diverse, mobile, digital, and global societies. In addition to a description of the project and presentation of the outputs, this poster summarises students’ perceptions of the process. The data showed that students had a generally positive perception of the activity per se and that they engaged with the acquisition and expression of cognitive, social and intercultural competencies.