Confidence beyond the classroom: Soft skills for the future

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What do we, as teachers, need to teach effectively in these times? Well, as a teacher ¨C but also as an ESL learner?¨C?I¡¯ve always believed that English is not something to be studied, it¡¯s something to be lived: it's my mantra.?

Based on that idea, throughout my career, I¡¯ve been seeking not only academic tools that support my teaching, but also resources that turn teaching into an experience, not just a class. That¡¯s what I found when I first discovered the GSE, and what has drawn me so closely to ÃÛÌÒapp ¨C not just the textbooks, but the initiatives, research, projects, tools and more.

Adapting to technological change

Now, artificial intelligence was introduced into our lives not long ago, and it seems like it¡¯s here to stay. Whether you¡¯re a fan of it or not, we must accept that it¡¯s part of our present ¨C and our future. We need to learn how to use it wisely.?Living the language means understanding that the world changes ¨C and we must change with it. Technology is essential (and I love it), but there are things it simply cannot replace: creativity, communication and leadership. These are deeply human traits and, as teachers, we must not only teach them but also create environments where students connect with others and grow as people through language.

Then, both students and teachers will be able to use their language, collaborative, leadership and empathethic skills in English-speaking environments ¨C and these skills are crucial for thriving in the fast-paced world of technological progress.

The power of soft skills and confidence

There¡¯s one experience that changed my mindset years ago ¨C and it¡¯s directly connected to the title of this text. The moment my English fluency truly improved was the moment I began to believe in myself. It was when I projected the version of myself I wanted to become. It was when I realized I wanted to speak to the world, and my confidence extended far beyond the classroom.

Long story short, my perspective as a student shifted dramatically when I got my first job. That¡¯s when I realized the value of understanding the world, being able to communicate effectively, and developing essential soft skills ¨C skills I didn¡¯t even realize I was learning at the time, but which have been crucial to my personal and professional growth. Today, I¡¯m glad that education is starting to include these elements in the classroom.

ÃÛÌÒapp¡¯s support for educators and students

I¡¯m excited about ÃÛÌÒapp's latest research into GSE Soft Skills (report coming soon). The GSE provides a methodological framework and resources to enhance my teaching. It also offers answers to my long-standing questions, including tools to prepare my classes more effectively and support my colleagues in helping students master both language and professional skills.

We must prepare our students for life beyond the classroom. By offering clear goals, role models, opportunities to practice and consistent feedback, ÃÛÌÒapp helps us spend less time planning and more time engaging with our learners.

The world is moving fast ¨C and sometimes faster than we can keep up with. By integrating creativity, communication and leadership into our lessons, we give our students the skills that employers value most and that technology can¡¯t replace. These are the same skills that, without a doubt, helped me reach my goals.

In my case, I didn¡¯t learn these soft skills at a very young age ¨C but the sooner our students do, the better. The earlier they connect with their purpose, the deeper the impact.

When I think about myself as a teacher, I always try to remember what it was like to be a student. These tools remind me of the things I learned in my younger years ¨C and that I now want my students to experience too. Embracing these global changes and resources allows me to better reflect who I am ¨C not only as a teacher, but as a person.?

Read our blog posts 'Real-world English: How GSE Job Profiles bridge learning and work' and 'Balancing work, life, and learning: How adult learners navigate English language learning'.

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  • A young child sat at a desk in a classroom writing

    Grammar: how to tame the unruly beast

    By Simon Buckland

    ¡°Grammar, which knows how to control even kings¡±?- ²Ñ´Ç±ô¾±¨¨°ù±ð

    When you think of grammar, ¡°rule¡± is probably the first word that pops into your mind. Certainly the traditional view of grammar is that it¡¯s about the ¡°rules of language¡±. Indeed, not so long ago, teaching a language meant just teaching grammatical rules, plus perhaps a few vocabulary lists. However, I¡¯m going to suggest that there¡¯s actually no such thing as a grammatical rule.

    To show you what I mean, let¡¯s take the comparative of adjectives: ¡°bigger¡±, ¡°smaller¡±, ¡°more useful¡±, ¡°more interesting¡±, etc. We might start with a simple rule: for adjectives with one syllable, add -er, and for adjectives with two or more syllables, use more + adjective.

    But this doesn¡¯t quite work: yes, we say ¡°more useful¡±, but we also say ¡°cleverer¡±, and ¡°prettier¡±. OK then, suppose we modify the rule. Let¡¯s also say that for two-syllable adjectives ending in -y or -er you add -er.

    Unfortunately, this doesn¡¯t quite work either: we do say ¡°cleverer¡±, but we also say ¡°more sober¡± and ¡°more proper¡±. And there are problems with some of the one-syllable adjectives too: we say ¡°more real¡± and ¡°more whole¡± rather than ¡°realer¡± or ¡°wholer¡±. If we modify the rule to fit these exceptions, it will be half a page long, and anyway, if we keep looking we¡¯ll find yet more exceptions. This happens repeatedly in English grammar. Very often, rules seem so full of exceptions that they¡¯re just not all that helpful.

    And there¡¯s another big problem with the ¡°rule approach¡±: it doesn¡¯t tell you what the structure is actually used for, even with something as obvious as the comparative of adjectives. You might assume that it¡¯s used for comparing things: ¡°My house is smaller than Mary¡¯s¡±; ¡°John is more attractive than Stephen¡±. But look at this: ¡°The harder you work, the more money you make.¡± Or this: ¡°London is getting more and more crowded.¡± Both sentences use comparative adjectives, but they¡¯re not directly comparing two things.

    What we¡¯re actually looking at here is not a rule but several overlapping patterns, or paradigms to use the correct technical term:

    1. adjective + -er + than
    2. more + adjective + than
    3. parallel comparative adjectives: the + comparative adjective 1 ¡­ the + comparative adjective 2
    4. repeated comparative adjective: adjective + -er + and + adjective + -er/more and more + adjective

    This picture is more accurate, but it looks abstract and technical. It¡¯s a long way from what we actually teach these days and the way we teach it, which tends to be organized around learning objectives and measurable outcomes, such as: ¡°By the end of this lesson (or module) my students should be able to compare their own possessions with someone else¡¯s possessions¡±. So we¡¯re not teaching our students to memorize a rule or even to manipulate a pattern; we¡¯re teaching them to actually do something in the real world. And, of course, we¡¯re teaching it at a level appropriate for the student¡¯s level.

    So, to come back to grammar, once we¡¯ve established our overall lesson or module objective, here are some of the things we¡¯re going to need to know.

    • What grammatical forms (patterns) can be used to express this objective?
    • Which ones are appropriate for the level of my students? Are there some that they should already know, or should I teach them in this lesson?
    • What do the forms look like in practice? What would be some good examples?

    Existing grammar textbooks generally don¡¯t provide all this information; in particular, they¡¯re very vague about level. Often they don¡¯t even put grammar structures into specific CEFR levels but into a range, e.g. A1/A2 or A2/B1, and none fully integrates grammar with overall learning objectives.

    At ÃÛÌÒapp, we¡¯ve set ourselves the goal of addressing these issues by developing a new type of grammar resource for English teachers and learners that:

    • Is based on the Global Scale of English with its precise gradation of developing learner proficiency
    • Is built on the Council of Europe language syllabuses, linking grammar to CEFR level and to language functions
    • Uses international teams of language experts to review the structures and assess their levels

    We include grammar in the GSE Teacher Toolkit, and you can use it to:

    • Search for grammar structures either by GSE or CEFR level
    • Search for grammar structures by keyword or grammatical category/part of speech
    • Find out at which level a given grammar structure should be taught
    • Find out which grammar structures support a given learning objective
    • Find out which learning objectives are related to a given grammar structure
    • Get examples for any given grammar structure
    • Get free teaching materials for many of the grammar structures

    Think of it as an open-access resource for anyone teaching English and designing a curriculum.