Abstract:

The modern world presents a lot of challenges to university graduates as it demands from them various skills that go far beyond the scope of their content area knowledge. It is widely accepted that soft skills are gaining importance in the context of higher education in general and in foreign language teaching in particular. To mention but a few, they include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication, which are often referred to as ‘The 4 C’s of the 21st century skills’. Literacy skills and life skills categories should not be overlooked either. This paper is aimed at distinguishing between hard and soft skills and discussing the different taxonomies of soft skills. The paper also provides arguments in favor of teaching 21st century soft skills to undergraduate language students and offers some suggestions for teaching strategies as well as a range of activities based on the metacognitive approach to skill formation that will help graduates meet the requirements of the modern labor market.

Keywords:

Soft skills, hard skills, 21st century skills, the metacognitive approach.