Strategies for Developing 21st Century Skills in the Context of Modern English Language Teaching Approaches

Abstract

The article focuses on integrating 21st century skills into the context of school education. It presents the generally accepted classification of skills; justifies the necessity of their formation in view of the socio-economic challenges of modern society; provides the strategies for their promotion in the framework of foreign language learning. The author carried out the analysis of current publications relevant to the topic of the research. Skills are traditionally grouped into four categories: 1) digital literacy (knowledge of science and technology; ability to receive, analyze, design, and visualize information; cultural awareness); 2) innovative thinking (adaptability, adequacy of response to the environment, self-organization, curiosity, creativity, ability to risk, analytical skills); 3) effective communication (team-building and leadership in a group, working in collaboration, interpersonal skills, social and civic responsibility, interactivity, e-learning and working through mutual development); 4) high productivity (ability to prioritize, programmatic planning and management, efficient use of resources, the ability to create the right quality product of their work). In practice, transformation in education system is expressed in changing learning models: 1) student-centered learning; 2) interactive teaching of "teacher-student" format; 3) the role of the teacher takes many forms: facilitator, curator, advisor, expert, who facilitates the task or project. To form cognitive and social skills while teaching English in secondary school, it is recommended to follow the didactic principle of students' consciousness development, to rely on a personalization and individual approach, to use problem-based learning technologies, to use interactive forms of learning. For the formation and development of personal competencies, it is recommended to carefully select authentic training materials facilitating the learners' curiousity and be problematic in nature. The results of the implementation of the proposed strategies provide for the creation of a success situation in the English language lesson, which allows the development of creative abilities, stimulates their expression, as well as promotes the expected learning outcomes.