Secondary success stories: Developing 21st century skills

Explore ideas for using project-based learning to help learners develop 21st century skills.

South Asian teacher with her learners in school library

Saima from Pakistan explains how she uses project-based learning to develop 21st century skills such as critical and creative thinking, collaboration, social responsibility, problem-solving, communication skills and media literacy.

By developing these skills in English, Saima feels she is increasing her students’ chances of employability while giving them the confidence to ‘stand on their own two feet’.

Plant Peace for Prosperity is a recent example of such a project where learners gathered information, designed and carried out an online survey, prepared posters and invited parents to awareness sessions on topics such as domestic violence and nurturing peaceful behaviour in the home. Saima argues that it is not enough just to teach English, we need to equip our students for 21st century life.

Watch 'Secondary success stories: Developing 21st century skills'

Reflection and discussion

One of the purposes of these resources is to help you with your own teacher development in related contexts. If possible, discuss these questions with colleagues. 

  • What sort of project work do you do with your learners?
  • How do you help learners develop 21st century skills in your context?

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The video was first published in 2016.

Comments

Submitted by NawalIbrahimAboud on Mon, 12/08/2025 - 11:43

I introduced to New areas of stratgies and how to encouarge and support the students with benefical methods

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