Promoting EFL Students' Teaching Skills and Academic Engagement Through Integrating Life Skills in Classroom Activities

Abstract

The EFL (English as a foreign language) students at colleges of education ,during their academic years, are provided with a variety of subjects which qualify them to graduate as language teachers. Thus, in addition to linguistic abilities, they need to be effectively equipped with all the skills necessary to face the challenges they may encounter in their future work. Therefore, learning a variety of life skills, such as effective communication, problem solving, stress management, time management, critical thinking, etc., is necessary for achieving success. Moreover, integrating life skills is critical for increasing students' engagement in class activities as they can experience things that are relevant to their future goals and real life situations. Accordingly, the present study is designed to assess the effectiveness of integrating life skills- based activities in promoting students' teaching skills and engagement. To conduct the study, a sample of 70 participants from the college of Basic Education is assigned to represent the experimental and control groups of the study. The experiment, which incorporates life skills- based activities, has lasted for 9 weeks. After collecting and analyzing data, findings reveal that a noticeable improvement has been achieved for both teaching skills and level of academic engagement.