Abstract:

Personal improvement skills are necessary to asses our abilities and qualities, consider our aims in life and set goals in order to realize and maximize our potentials. When students start learning a second language is necessary to master personal improvement skills to be able to meet needs, strengths and weaknesses in language learning. This paper will firstly focus on defining what is meant by personal improvement skills by making a distinction of being empowered and empowering students own language learning process. Secondly, the necessary skills, situational factors, tasks, students and instructors roles will be explained in order to motivate students empowerment. This conceptual clarification will be helpful to understand what is expected from personal improvement skills and students empowerment. Finally, this paper will describe the experience of the development of a personal improvement goal project to encourage students’ empowerment in the integrated English courses at Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica, Campus Sarapiqui.

Keywords:

Personal improvement skills, empowered pedagogy, empowering students, empowered learner, personal empowerement.