Twenty-First Century Learning Skills in Vietnamese Higher Education: Students' Practices

Introduction

It is undoubtedly acknowledged that human beings have been confronting a variety of severe threats and risks such as climate change, natural disasters, diseases, economic crises, etc. On the other hand, twenty-first-century education has witnessed a dramatic shift alongside technological advances all over the world, i.e., teaching and learning approaches by means of advanced technology have been applied to facilitate the teaching and learning process. As a result, 21st century learners need to get prepared for such opportunities and challenges in the future. In other words, potential laborers have to possess 21^st century skills to adapt to the current competitive labor market. The Central Board of Secondary Education [CBSE] (2020) determined that global citizens in the 21^st century are required to equip themselves with learning skills, ICT literacy skills, and life skills. The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills [P21] (2019), an association of business leaders and educators, offered a framework for 21^st century learning identifying vital competencies and skills for future success in the global workplace. The eleven competencies are grouped into three sets of skills: (i) “learning and innovation skills” (e.g., creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem-solving, communication and collaboration), (ii) “information, media, and technological skills” (e.g., information literacy, media literacy, ICT), and (iii) “life and career skills” (e.g., flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and accountability, leadership and responsibility) (ibid., p. 1). Recently, CBSE (2020) proposed a classification of the 21^st century skills components including learning skills (hereafter referred to as 4Cs), literacy skills (IMT), and life skills (FLIPS). While the learning skills refer to critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication, the literacy skills include information literacy, media literacy, and technology literacy, and the life skills are associated with flexibility and adaptability, leadership and responsibility, initiative and self-direction, productivity and accountability, and social and cross-cultural interaction. Within the scope of the study, 21^st century learning skills involving critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication are under investigation. This urges educators and administrators to take the 21^st century learning skills into consideration during the training for global citizens (National Education Association [NEA], 2012).

At the research site, it is noteworthy that students have experienced a positive education in a dynamic learning environment because the university’s missions are to educate qualified human resources to meet the rapidly growing demands, to provide an all-round education for boosting students’ holistic and creative development, and to develop students’ employability and professional skills through field trips, seminars, job fair, on-site internship, etc. In addition to active learning skills like creating presentations, working in a team, and learning from peers/teammates, the students are equipped with project-related skills such as conducting research or working with peers on projects during the courses called ‘Project Design 1’ and ‘Project Design 2’.

This study was conducted to shed new light on the extent to which third-year English majors at a private university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam employed 4Cs and how differently they used these skills. Accordingly, two research questions are formulated as follows.

• 1.

  To what extent do third-year English majors at a Vietnamese university use 4Cs?

• 2.

  Do the 4Cs employment significantly vary in terms of students’ prior learning experiences? If so, how?