| 摘要: | In 2010, the American Management Association conducted a survey study and found that four skills (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity) are considered by a majority of business executives as the most important skills for their organizations today as well as in the future. These four skills are now known as the ＂Four Cs＂ of 21^(st) century learning, and many educators all over the world have tried to incorporate the ＂Four Cs＂ into their instruction. In this study, the researcher collaborated with an elementary school teacher in Taiwan to design three forty-minute lessons for 6^(th)-grade students based on a picture book (How to Lose All Your Friends) with the attempt to teach the ＂Four Cs＂ and English at the same time. A variety of teaching activities were implemented, including a riddle, video viewing, reading aloud, discussion, finding the antonyms, word sorting activity, sentence completion activity, role playing, a guessing game, peer assessment, etc. To examine the impact of the lessons, the researcher collected data through teacher-made language tests administered before and after the instruction, questionnaires, worksheets, students' written reactions and interviews with the teacher. The data indicated that the lessons not only helped students learn English but also promoted their skills of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. Based on the findings, the researcher offers some teaching suggestions to educators who are interested in designing and implementing similar lessons. |
