Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a process through which we “acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions” (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, n.d.). SEL focuses on five essential competencies.

• Self-awareness: understanding our emotions, goals, and values
• Self-management: skills that help learners reach their goals including managing stress and challenges
• Social awareness: understanding social norms and developing ability to empathize with people from different cultures and backgrounds
• Relationship skills: skills required to have healthy and rewarding relationships including listening actively, negotiation, and asking for help when need be
• Responsible decision making: considering ethics, social norms, and well-being of others to make constructive choices

CASEL’s framework provides educational communities with paths for developing these competencies.

During our day together, we will explore SEL through this framework and work together to apply it to our teaching and learning spaces via experiences and practical uses within our language teaching community.

References

Weissburg, R. 2016, Feb 15. Why Social and Emotional Learning Is Essential for Students. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-sel-essential-for-students-weissberg-durlak-domitrovich-gullotta

What is SEL? n.d. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. https://casel.org/what-is-sel/

To give you a sense of the day you’re attending, here is an overview of what to expect. Details will follow when speakers are confirmed.

In this talk, I aim at presenting a programme designed to promote the development of students’ social and emotional competences at a non-profit language institution. Although this is a rather specific context, I will refer to studies showing that emotional engagement is key to learning, corroborating its relevance in any scenario. Next, I will describe some of the activities involved focusing on the competences each one aims at developing, and feedback from teachers and students will be shared. Finally, I will invite participants to reflect upon how to create effective SEL programmes in different contexts.

Akemi Iwasa is a materials writer and editor, currently working as an academic consultant at Troika, Brazil. She holds the Cambridge Delta 1, a BA in Languages (UFRJ), a postgraduate degree in Neuroscience (UFRJ), and she is undertaking postgraduate studies in Human Rights and Corporate Social Responsibility (PUCRS).

The ESL curriculum focuses mainly on academic standards; however, research indicates that promoting social and emotional learning skills leads to improved academic outcomes and wellbeing. By resorting to stories that draw on strong social-emotional content, teachers can address emergent literacy and social-emotional learning. Stories make a wonderful medium with which to explore self-awareness, self- management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. This talk is designed to help teachers include stories that give space to teach academics and model social and emotional learning. They will take fail-proof strategies to forge more powerful learning experiences in both domains.

Romina Muse is a teacher of English with more than 20 years of experience. She works as a remote teacher for the British Council in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Romina holds a Bachelor’s in English and a Diploma in Child Neuropsychology. She lived in the UK, where she specialised in ESL and taught Spanish as a foreign language. She has lectured for TESOL, IATEFL, and FAAPI. Romina is writing a dissertation for a postgraduate degree in English Literature and Film Studies.

We have one more guest involved, but who will it be? Tune in to find out!  ❤️