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Learning barrier- life skills
Life skills are essential skills for full participation in everyday life, enabling individuals to cope with challenges in personal, educational, and social contexts. Learners lacking life skills may struggle with respect, cultural understanding, creativity, and motivation, often due to inadequate supportive environments. Addressing life skills as a learning barrier can involve mentoring, integrating life skills into curricula, and fostering cooperative learning.
Learning barrier- life skills
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- 2. WHAT IS LIFESKILLS? source: rp.edu.sg
- 3. • There aremany different definitions of life skills. Different people give different definitions. An example is given below: Life skills Paraplegic Learning how to drive a motor car again after a car accident Informal settlement dweller The ability to build a secure house. Blind person Life skills may be the safe crossing of a busy street.
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- 5. • Life skillsis a skill that is necessary or desirable for full participation in everyday life (DoBE,2011a: 8). • Life skills can be seen a coping tool to survive everyday life. • To “cope” means to deal effectively or successfully with a challenge (Hutchinson, 2000: 180). • A “tool” can be defined as an implement that gives the user an advantage over a person who does not have such a tool (Hutchinson, 2000: 828).
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- 7. • Cope withdemands of modern life • Survive everyday emotional, social and cognitive onslaught • Insight into life tasks • Manage life tasks • Necessary for personal, educational, financial and socioeconomic realities • Learn more about themselves
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- 9. HOW TO IDENTIFYWHEN LIFE SKILLS IS A LEARNING BARRIER?
- 10. Learners that lacklife skills: • do not treat others with respect and understanding • do not respect other peoples cultures • do not exhibit creative thinking • do not exhibit critical thinking and effective problem solving • do not work hard, stay on task and be motivated According to Edge Research(2018)
- 11. However... • As Vygotsky(as cited in Kinginger, 2002: 240) has stated that all learners should be able to learn about themselves and their environments with guidance and the help of a mentor.
- 12. Some challenges inacquiring life skills: • Many learners grow up in non-caring, non-sharing environments (Lantieri, 2001: 33) • People are unaware of their contribution to learners’ developing antisocial behaviour(Morris, 2002: 66) • Schools do not always have time to focus on life skills. Schools may focus on the distribution of knowledge and not developing young minds.
- 13. How to supportlife skills as a learning barrier? • Mentoring is becoming a popular strategy for addressing the needs of young learner(Evans & Ave,2000). • life skills( Life orientation) is a subject at school which should be taken seriously. • Incorporate life skills themes and principles into other subjects • learners have the need to belong and to be appreciated (Elias, 2001: 20-33) • There are links between life skills and other impairments. Educators need to understand when learners may have non-verbal learning impairments • motivation • Cooperative learning (McLaughin, 2001:14)
- 14. References Department of BasicEducation (DoBE). 2011a. National Curriculum Statement (NCS). Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). English Life Skills. Foundation Phase Grades R-3. Pretoria: Department of Basic Education. Elias, M.J.2001. Easing transitions with social-emotional learning. Principal Leadership,1(7):20-25. Evans, I.M. Ave, K.T. 2000.Mentoring children and youth: principles, issues and policy implications for community programmes in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 29(1):41-49. Hutchinson Concise Encyclopaedic dictionary. 2000. London: Helicon. Kinginger, C. 2002. Defining the zone of proximal development in US foreign language education. Applied Linguistics, 23(2):240-261. Lantieri,L.2001. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound more than metal detectors. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 10(1):33-38. McLaughlin, M.W. 2001. Community counts. Educational Leadership, 58(7): 14-18. Morris, S. 2002. Promoting social skills among students with non-verbal learning disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 34(3): 66-70.