Integrating soft skills into language assessment: a pragmatic approach for 21st century learners

The era of technological advancements requires 21st-century learners and educators to keep up with emerging trends for both professional and personal growth. Today, many language learners can easily obtain linguistic knowledge across various fields. In the global labor market, however, there is a growing demand for individuals who is able not only apply acquired linguistic knowledge, but also cooperate effectively with others, solve complex problems, and show emotional and pragmatic awareness in real-life contexts. Even though communicative competence is emphasized, many language tests still give more weight to linguistic accuracy rather than practical communication abilities. In a globalized environment, this causes a disconnect between the goals of instruction and assessment the real needs of learners. These expectations highlight the need for language material development to move beyond a narrow focus on the cognitive domain and include social and communicative dimensions of language use. Therefore, in an attempt to align with global frameworks such as OECD’s Education 2030 and the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21), this thesis explores methods of integrating soft skills into reading and listening tasks.