Fostering Entrepreneurial Spirit in English Lessons
Key Competences. Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurial Spirit Competence. The purpose of this essay is to develop the sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence in English lessons. To achieve this, I will first relate this issue within a framework. Secondly, I will discuss the importance of key competences in English lessons. After that, I will propose different activities, and finally, I will compile the main conclusions and the bibliography used to develop this practical case. In the ECD/65/2015 Order, key competences are those that all individuals need for personal fulfillment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion, and employment. Furthermore, The Organic Law 2/2006 of Education, 3rd May, the Organic Law 8/2013, 9th December for the Improvement in Educational Quality, the Royal Decree 126/2014, 28th February, and in Castilla y León the Order EDU/519/2014, 17th of June, define that competences are the capacities to apply contents in an integrated manner to perform activities properly and solve complex problems efficiently. However, for the European Parliament, they are a combination of knowledge, skills, and attitudes appropriate to the context. Sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence refers to the ability to make decisions resulting from reflection on one’s own learning processes, favoring autonomy. This competence requires social skills to effectively interact, cooperate, and work in teams. The sense of initiative and the spirit of entrepreneurship both involve the ability to imagine, develop, and assess actions or individual/collective projects with creativity, confidence, responsibility, and critical thinking. Therefore, it requires the ability to elaborate further on previous ideas or produce new ideas, seeking solutions and putting them into practice to achieve the objectives. On the other hand, motivation is one of the factors that should be taken into account while learning a language, as it makes the learning process more effective. Therefore, encouraging Sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence should be developed by providing children with activities of their interests. So, to encourage this competence in the foreign language area, I will set the layout in small groups, allowing pupils to be more independent and communicate better with each other. In addition, I will carry out activities individually, in pairs, in small or class groups, which allow meaningful and varied communicative interactions among the pupils. Moreover, I will use didactic materials that encourage the interest and attention of the students, contributing to making them feel comfortable in their work, and which allows them to develop their own capacities.
I will use not only those materials designed specifically for learning a foreign language, such as textbooks and visual and auditory aids, but also authentic materials, such as stories, magazines, songs, rhymes, games, posters, web pages, or other materials.
Last but not least, I will use the computer as an object of study, as a didactic resource, and as a tool to facilitate access to the curriculum for students with specific educational support needs. My role as teacher will be an independent participant within the group, a monitor guiding the children, and I will also encourage my students, making sure that everyone is involved in the activities. Once every student is involved in the activity, they are responsible for their learning too. So, to develop the Sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence, the learner’s role can be defined as a helper, contributing to class discussions; a participant, which allows the student to make decisions and construct their own knowledge; an evaluator, by checking themselves in terms of tasks, study time, noise level, and quality of work; and finally, a material designer. He or she should be responsible for gathering materials needed for an assignment. All of these characteristics require the learner to be an active and autonomous agent in the learning process. Following these aspects, I will encourage this competence in the Foreign Language Area by proposing several activities that promote creativity, the capacity to cooperate, and decision-making among students. Activity 1:…………………. Activity 2:……………………. Activity 3:………………………. These are motivating activities, and they aim for students to make decisions based on their own criteria. These exercises force children to cooperate, appreciate, and accept their classmates’ ideas. So, they can acquire a greater social and emotional competence and facilitate personal strategies to cope in different contexts, providing a feeling of well-being. All this will ensure that students have good self-esteem, self-criticism, and initiative, so they will be able to deal with new challenges more easily. To conclude, I would like to mention that the effort and interest each pupil puts into the activities proposed in class is very important because it is reflected in the result of the same and in the development of each student’s Sense of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit competence. In addition, all these theoretical frameworks and practical strategies will help me to improve my teaching practice when encouraging my students to be autonomous.