What are life skills? Essay

Learners around the world need to cope with the increasing pace of change in the modern life. Thus, students need different skills which will help them to deal with the stress and changes of their daily lives. These skills are known as "life skills". The concept has been defined in several resources. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), life skills are the different abilities that an individual can acquire to deal with different life' demands and to adapt a positive behavior to deal with the challenges of this life (qtd. in MACMILLAN 2015). Another definition of life skills is "Life skills are the skills we need to deal effectively with the challenges in everyday life, whether at school, at work or in our personal lives" (Carol Higho 2015). All the several explanations and definitions shape the idea that life skills are abilities that help a person to learn, overcome and progress over the problems that he/she will face in his/her daily life. Life skills are also referred to as "21st century skills"," life-long learning skills" and "cognition skills". UNICEF clarifies that
This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of teaching two of life skills, Agility and Adaptability, on EFL (English Foreign Language) students' academic Achievement and future progress. Agility is "is the ability and willingness to learn from experience, and then apply that learning to perform successfully under new situations (Assessing and Developing, 2010), where Adaptability is to embrace change. The gravity of these two skills is to create students who are able to adapt and have a good agility have often critical thinking, Handle tough situations and find solutions to tough problems and Handle change well. In addition, they deliver results in first-time situations, communicate well and understand others (group work). Not to mention, one of the interesting features to teach Agility and Adaptability to student is to secure a job offer and succeed in a career one must be flexible in terms of jobs and locations. Good opportunities are often presented to those who are willing to move from one city to another and/or from one functional or operational area to another (Kwok 2010).
Key terms Life skills, adaptability and agility
The Literature Review
Sometimes our expectations are too high to experience, and such expectations are the reason for failure. College is not always as expected. Therefore, students should be tough how to deal with this reality because most of them will face hard times to adapt. Several researchers had investigated the effectiveness of Agility and Adaptability in one's life, and found that being adaptable helps developing a person's managerial and leadership skills (group work and socio-effective skills). In contrast, those who cannot adapt and learn from their past experiences will face hard time achieving their goals or being an effective member of the community. Insufficient literature and studies were conducted in the EFL field and answered the question of to what extent is the effectiveness of teaching these skills in the students' lives and academic achievements?