Abstract:

Over the last decades there has been an increase in research based on a sociocultural approach that highlight the fundamental role communication skills play in children's learning and development. Studies suggest that communication skills improve motivation (Aukerman et al., 2011), reasoning and it is associated with both individual and collective learning (Mercer et al., 1999; Howe, 2010; Littleton et al., 2013; Rojas Drummond et al., 2006 and 2008). In addition, it is beneficial for learning mathematics, sciences, or research (Mercer et al., 2018).

Communication skills are essential to participate in the community’s public life, create committed and responsible citizens which also enables successfully entering the labour market. Moreover, in today's world, that is characterised by the information society, immediacy, and globalisation, requires citizens to hold exceptional communication skills. Likewise, developing these communication skills in schools is paramount to comply with educational principles including equity and equal opportunities. Nonetheless, there are students who complete secondary school without developing the communication skills that are required to face current challenges. Hence, it is necessary for schools to strive to include and promote the development of these competences across the curriculum including history or science courses. The research was specifically aligned to this purpose.

The objective of this research is to explore whether it is possible to improve communication skills in Economics and its impact on learning and motivation trough a case study. It also discusses the main role communication skills play in learning and education based on a sociocultural approach.

The research was conducted in the context of a training internship at Universidad Complutense de Madrid of students aged 15-16 years of an Economics class of a secondary education in Spain. A didactic innovation which included economic news, data and figures commentaries as well as presentations was implemented in order to promote student’s development of communication skills, learning and motivation.

Information was collected through an ad hoc survey design with Likert scale and open questions to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data was analysed by using the SPSS version 22.0.0.0 statistical package for Windows mainly performing descriptive and statistical analysis.

Results show 87,5% of students participating in the study considered the implemented didactic innovation had contributed to improve their communication skills by highlighting the ability to seek information and ask for clarifications as well as economic reasoning.

In addition, statistical evidence shows significant differences in the improvement of learning between those students who improved their communication skills and those who did not. This suggests a relationship between communication skills and learning in line with sociocultural theories.

In conclusion, findings have suggested teachers might contribute to improve students’ communication skills whilst teaching Economics by implementing activities such economic news and figures commentaries and presentations to reach learning improvements.

Keywords:

Communication skills, Oracy, Education, Language, Economics, Learning.