Life Skills Day
The Life Skills Day
Watch the entire day of talks and workshops from Life Skills Day! We have the full video recording along with complete handouts and slides.
Workshops: Critical thinking, time management, and organisation are just a few of the life skills educationalists and employers claim today's students are lacking. How will acquiring these skills benefit the students? At what age can we begin to help students develop these soft skills? Starting from life skills for young learners, Jeanne Perrett and Dorothy Zemach offer practical lesson ideas on how to deliver life skills content in the classroom.
Talks: While there is a lot of research around life skills, what evidence is there to suggest that teachers should put in time and effort to teach life skills in the classroom? How will including these skills in class help students find employment or become successful? Watch sessions from Rebecca Robb Benne, Robert Campbell, Rob Metcalf and more as they explore the academic validity of teaching life skills and where the greatest benefits lie.
The speakers and their presentations
Emma Sue Prince: Why are life skills important?
Talk
The importance of life skills cannot be underestimated and having life skills can help you accomplish your ambitions and reach your full potential. Ranging from reflective skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, to personal skills such as self-awareness, life skills enable you to take responsibility for your own learning and decisions during your academic development, while helping you to be pro-active in seeking out opportunities once in the workplace.
In this opening session, Emma Sue uses research-based data to highlight the significance of life skills and provides practical examples to illustrate how life skills apply to you, your learning and your career.
Jeanne Perrett: Developing life skills at pre-primary and primary level
Practical Workshop
For our very young learners, life skills fall into two major categories: learning about acceptable and good behaviour and learning to become independent and responsible. Most of the skills can be taught by example; some need more reinforcement than others. In this workshop we will look at which life skills our little ones need to learn and what games and activities we can play in the classroom to help them on their way.
Rebecca Robb Benne, Robert Campbell and Rob Metcalf: I'm an English teacher. Why should I teach life skills?
Talk
We often teach life skills such as active listening and empathy to primary children and then assume that secondary age students have them at their disposal. But in a changing world, with changing influences on students' behaviour, there are strong arguments in favour of helping teenagers to develop essential 21st century skills in order to cope with daily life and future challenges.
Join Rebecca, Rob and Robert as we consider why teaching overt life skills as part of a general English course can not only give teenagers a strong foundation for life, but also boost their English skills.
Jonathan Marks: Not just what you say, but the way that you say it
Talk
How do the words people say and the way they say them influence our actions? Communication is an essential life skill and people don't talk for the sake of practising grammar or demonstrating their knowledge of vocabulary. They talk to get things done: to suggest, invite, agree, disagree, apologise, complain, negotiate, give explanations and so on. In order to do all these things effectively, they need to have a stock of conventional fixed and semi-fixed expressions at their disposal, to make appropriate choices from this stock and to speak with appropriate intonation and tone of voice. In this webinar Jonathan Marks explores examples of language to help learners practise getting things done in English.
Dorothy Zemach: Teaching study skills at university
Practical Workshop
"They should have learned study skills in high school." Yes — but what if they didn't? University students sometimes arrive with brain power and drive, but without the organization, habits and necessary study skills for academic success. In fact, students might not even realize that their study skills are insufficient. Instead, they may think the class is too hard, the professor doesn't grade fairly, their English isn't strong enough, or even that they simply aren't smart enough. In this workshop, Dorothy explores common student weaknesses and challenges and offers practical ideas for the language classroom to help students improve at their most important university tasks — studying and learning.
Carol Higho: Life Skills with Macmillan Education
Talk
Every teacher aims to give their students the best chances to succeed, in school and in life. With youth unemployment hitting the headlines globally what can we do in the ELT classroom to help our students succeed in the future?
In the final webinar to conclude our Macmillan Life Skills Day, Carol Higho (Head of Product Marketing) explains why life skills are an important part of the Macmillan approach to language teaching and helping students develop in all facets of their lives. Using examples from our Life Skills Resources, this session will look at practical ideas for warm ups, wrap ups, gap fills and using textbook materials to deliver life skills without increasing your workload or timetable. Join us for Carol's webinar and see what teaching inspiration we can offer you for your next lesson.