Social and emotional learning is the process by which children, adolescents and adults acquire the necessary skills to develop empathy, manage emotions, maintain healthy interpersonal relationships and make responsible decisions. Research over the last decade shows that social and emotional learning helps to improve students’ social and emotional skills, and has a positive impact on their behavior, self-esteem and academic performance. Given the fact that today’s youth has to cope with the increasing demands of the market as well as society, this Master’s thesis aims to show why social and emotional learning is the approach to education that equips pupils and students with competences that enable them to successfully cope with the ever-changing world and the obstacles they encounter in their daily lives. Despite the fact that in the 21st century the “key skills for lifelong learning” are part of curricula throughout Europe, in Slovenia social and emotional learning is not widely extended nor given a considerable importance. The empirical part of the thesis sheds light on the representation of social and emotional competences in the main goals of Slovene primary and secondary education and in the syllabus for English and Spanish, while the analysis of the questionnaires presents how Slovene teachers of English and Spanish see social and emotional learning. The central empirical part consists of four didactic proposals for A2 ̶ B1 students which focus on promoting social and emotional learning through selected short films, and a self-reflection on their successfulness after they were carried out in the 9th grade of primary school and the 3rd year of secondary school.
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