Developing Social Competencies through Interaction in English Lessons

With the recent introduction of the Framework Education Programme into schools in the Czech Republic, a great attention is now paid to new concepts: Cross-curricular Subjects and Key Competencies. These also include training in personal and social skills, which should help the students to develop their personalities and to learn to cooperate with others. This work focuses on four related areas of Social Competencies, namely becoming acquainted with people, building positive relationships, social communication and cooperation. It aims to provide theoretical background and analyze possible ways of developing these competencies within English lessons at the second stage of basic education or lower secondary education, and also to offer sample activities. The questionnaire survey in the practical part explores the pupils' perception of Personal and Social Competencies in their current instruction, searches for their preferences and compares their viewpoint with that of the teachers