Top tips on how to implement 21st century skills in the ELT classroom

In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, equipping students with 21^st century skills is essential for their success. Integrating these skills into the English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom can enhance learning and foster the 4 C’s of critical thinking, collaboration, communication and creativity.

In this blog post, we’ll explore practical strategies educators can use to effectively implement 21^st century skills, ensuring that students not only enhance their English language skills but also thrive in an increasingly complex global landscape.

What are 21^st century skills?

Ask yourself this: is it important that young people can work together, communicate clearly, and make the best decisions possible to achieve success in their studies and work? Definitely, I hear you say. And most educators would agree with you and add that the 4 C’s (communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity), among other life skills like leadership and digital literacy, are the key 21^st century skills our students need now and in the future.

Why are 21^st century skills important?

The 4 C’s are seen as pivotal for those beginning courses and launching careers in the 2020s and beyond, according to leading educators and industry heads. As industries transform with advancements in technology and globalization, having a command of these skills not only enhances employability, but also fosters innovation and problem-solving abilities.

Furthermore, in a globalized 21^st century world, English language skills are crucial. Yet, simply knowing English is no longer enough to get by. Crucial skills might mean knowing how to check, confirm and correct vital information, or how to manage those difficult discussions that form part of everyday work communication. Whatever it is, it’s vital to have a sound knowledge of English and ability to use the 4 C’s.

How to implement 21^st century skills in the ELT classroom

The good news is that English language students already practise many of these 21^st century skills in the ELT classroom, albeit in ad hoc fashion. They communicate through discussion, collaborate through groupwork, create stories and presentations, and cast critical eyes over texts to make evidence-based judgements.

But as ELT teachers, we can do more. By adding timely and well-chosen activities to our courses, we can develop our students’ 21^st century skills in incremental steps. Here are a few ideas to help you bring the 4 C’s into your ELT classroom now.

1. Collaboration

Someone once said: no one can whistle a symphony; it takes a whole orchestra to play it. The point being, we need to work together to get things done. Getting students to actively listen to the ideas of others without interrupting or being rude, as well as being open to changing their minds for the greater good, is often not easy. There are always those learners who don’t work well together, but classmates and work colleagues need to learn how to compromise, value others and collaborate to be an effective team. That’s why we use cooperative activities in class to facilitate this collaboration.

Garnet’s C21 English for the 21^st Century series has a whole host of great activities which help foster collaboration. These include asking students to plan a class event in teams, with each student taking responsibility for one aspect, such as the food, the venue or the entertainment. They then discuss their ideas and make compromises based on their team’s feedback. Other effective collaborative activities include sorting, matching and ranking in groups, which all require the learners to listen and react. Drama and role-plays also get students cooperating, and even simple information-exchange activities involve listening and working together towards a common goal.

2. Communication

There’s an urban myth about an Italian tourist that walks into a Turkish restaurant and orders ‘pasta’ from the menu, but is sorely disappointed when a cake arrives at the table. (‘Pasta’ means ‘cake’ in Turkish, by the way). The point is to show how important good communication skills are. This includes using appropriate language and tools to overcome misunderstandings, cultural or otherwise.

So, what activities facilitate good communication in an ELT classroom? Having the students speaking and listening with purpose is a good way to start. In this case, you could set them a research activity where they have to find out information in groups and present it to the rest of the class. Likewise, you could set them a problem-solving task, and put them in small groups to work on it.  

Developing negotiating skills is also a crucial aspect of communication in the 21^st century. So, you could have students do negotiation role-plays, such as buying and selling items by haggling over prices.

What’s more, a fun game like Alibi works well by getting students to role-play detectives and suspects, and by using their communication skills they solve a crime as a class. Holding class debates on a range of current topics is effective, too, as these get the whole class working together and implementing language to get their point across effectively and persuasively.

3. Critical thinking

One analogy goes that critical thinking is like a car with headlights, brakes, a steering wheel and airbags. Why? Well, it allows you to see clearly in the dark, stop and change direction when you see something wrong, and it protects you from harm or bad decisions. We need to make sure we’re equipping students with the skills to navigate critical thinking in English confidently.

One activity in C21 English for 21^st Century asks students to scrutinize photos in articles and use their visual literacy to describe what images are really saying. They then apply what they’ve learned to image searches for inclusion in their own work.

Another useful critical-thinking activity for the ELT classroom is getting students to share their ideas and opinions about a topic and then having them ask each other ‘Why do you think that?’, so that they have to give facts and reasons to support their opinions.

Problem mazes in which teams make decisions together to find solutions can also be very effective. Another option could be to get classes to analyze ads and news articles, which always makes for lively discussions around meaning, viewpoints and bias, as they learn to distinguish facts from fiction, or even fake news.

4. Creativity  

The past, present and future walk into a bar. It was tense! Obviously, creativity covers much more than bad dad jokes, such as thinking outside the box and coming up with new ways to do and make things. As such, it is an increasingly valued skill in the workplace, because roles often ask people to find better solutions to old problems. Employers are often looking for innovation to give their companies the edge. But, like the other skills, it takes time and practice to develop through a series of activities that steadily grow our students’ confidence in their creative abilities.

It’s important that we create a safe space in our classrooms for our students to feel protected from judgement or negativity, thus allowing their creativity to blossom. One activity that works especially well for creative thinking is guided visualizations. For example, these tasks take students on a teacher-led journey using cues, which allows them to create a world in their minds that they then describe to others.

Other fun ways to practise creative skills include getting students to design their perfect phone, video game or whatever interests them, and then explain it to others. Student dramas written collaboratively and then acted out for the class always work well, and of course, coming up with and telling jokes (hopefully better than mine) is a winner, too.

Resources for implementing 21^st century skills in ELT

There’s a whole internet of ELT resources for you to search and find well-crafted activities to suit your students’ level and context perfectly, such as dramas, discussions, debates and projects. Putting it neatly into your course is another matter. That’s when a resource like 21^st Century Skills in the ELT Classroom – a guide for teachers is invaluable. It helps you to integrate and apply these skills in your courses and everyday teaching. Or you could reach for a ready-made course such as the C21 English for the 21^st Century series, which builds the 4 C’s incrementally across five levels.

The bottom line

It’s hard to imagine any young person starting work or university without the essential skills of communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity, and every educator needs to prepare them as best as possible by incorporating these 21^st century skills into ELT courses to help them succeed.

So, what are you waiting for? Get inspired and put the 4 C’s at the heart of what you do in the classroom by taking a look at the C21 series of course books and the 21^st century skills teacher’s guide from Garnet today and learn more.