21st Century Educational Challenges in EFL: Learners' Creativity and Innovation

Today’s fast-changing world demands that people, wherever they live, be equipped with 21st century skills. In the EFL context, appropriate support is needed to achieve meaningful learning outcomes. The qualitative study described below investigated 21st century educational challenges in EFL regarding students’ creativity, innovation and self-efficacy via project-based learning. One hundred and two undergraduate students at a university in Thailand participated in the study as part of a course in English for tourist guides. Data were obtained from students’ group projects and logs as well as presentation observations and focus group interviews. The findings illustrate the students’ creativity, innovations and self-efficacy In addition, the teachers’ roles were found to be crucial to fostering students’ success. Findings also show that the types of projects and available online information played significant roles in the students’ success. Finally, the study provides evidence that all students viewed online information as an important source of knowledge with adequate and feasible access despite the fact that they were not familiar with this new learning context. The present paper ends with a discussion of future interventions in EFL classrooms.