The awareness of ELL students about their 21st century skills

Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 4, 1921 - 1938, 30.12.2020

Aydan Irgatoğlu , Gülsev Pakkan

https://doi.org/10.17263/jlls.851024

Abstract

This study investigates the 21st century skills of the third and fourth year students studying at the Department of English Language and Literature of two Turkish state universities. Additionally, this study reveals the levels of the 21st century skills of these students. To this end, a case study has been designed and conducted with 158 ELL students and 20 lecturers of the same department. The study has been conducted throughout the 2019-2020 academic year. In this study we review the related literature and we have chosen the two appropriate research instruments to collect the data. These instruments include a survey questionnaire for the students and a survey questionnaire for the lecturers are used to investigate the 21st century skills of ELL students. The quantitative analysis of the data reveals that the students in these ELL departments are aware of their own 21st century skills. Another conclusion of this study demonstrates that although most of the students stated that they already use most of the 21 century skills, the lecturers do not readily approve of them. The lecturers stated that the students did not use different thinking techniques to create original ideas in their lives, evaluate new ideas by using analysis, work patiently to produce solutions to the problems, and the students did not take steps to improve their skills. Additionally, the lecturers disagreed with the statements that the students listened to other’s opinion about a subject, had effective communication skills, adapted to different roles in their lives, were open to criticism, knew that learning was a lifelong process, knew that media was effective in directing people’s opinion, used appropriate media tools to get information and used technological tools to analyse information.

Keywords

21st century skills;, ELL students;, learning and innovation skills; life and career skills; information, media and technology skills

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