A. Literacy Connections and Applications · Literacy for Life: Transferable Skills, Digital Media Literacy and Diverse Voices

The Seven Transferable Skills: Your Toolkit for Reading, Listening, Viewing and Creating

A1 A1.1About 65 minutes

Learning goals

I can name the seven transferable skills in the Ontario curriculum and explain each one in my own words.
I can tell the difference between receptive communication (reading, listening, viewing) and expressive communication (writing, speaking, creating).
I can analyze and explain how a transferable skill helps someone communicate in a particular context: at school, at work, online or in the community.
I can choose and apply transferable skills on purpose when I read, listen, view and create texts.

Words to know

transferable skill
A skill you can carry from one subject or situation to another, like a key that opens many doors. Ontario names seven of them.

receptive communication
Taking meaning in from a text: reading, listening and viewing.

expressive communication
Sending meaning out to an audience: writing, speaking and creating media or other texts.

text
In English class, anything that communicates meaning: a novel, a poem, a podcast, a speech, a video, an infographic, a social media post, a painting or a conversation.

context
The situation around communication: who is involved, where, when, why and through what medium.

literacy
The ability to understand, use, evaluate and create texts of many kinds, including digital and media texts.

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 your Language lessons kept tagging skills like critical thinking, collaboration and digital literacy while you listened, read, researched and wrote. In Grade 9 English (ENL1W), the curriculum asks you to step back and name those skills, explain how they work, and use them on purpose. This unit is the toolkit for the whole course: every other unit (Foundations of Language, Comprehension and Composition) uses it.

Let's start with a snow day

A freezing-rain warning closes school. Your neighbourhood group chat lights up: three older neighbours can't clear their driveways. In twenty minutes, four students have:

read the weather warning and the city's message about sidewalk clearing,
listened to a voice note from a neighbour explaining which driveway is steepest,
written a clear plan with times and names,
agreed who brings salt and who brings shovels, and
checked that a viral post saying "the city will fine anyone who shovels onto the road" actually came from the city (it didn't; the real rule was on the city's website).

None of that was "English homework", but every step used literacy and at least five of the seven transferable skills. That is what this lesson is about.

The seven transferable skills

The Ontario curriculum names seven transferable skills. They are called transferable because you can carry them from English to science, to a part-time job, to a sports team and to your community.

Critical thinking and problem solving: asking good questions, judging evidence, spotting bias, and working through a problem step by step.
Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship: coming up with new ideas and turning them into something real, like a new way to present a story or a plan for a school club.
Self-directed learning: setting goals, managing your time, checking your own understanding, and sticking with hard tasks.
Collaboration: working with others toward a shared goal: listening, sharing the work and handling disagreement respectfully.
Communication: understanding others and expressing yourself clearly in speech, writing and media, for different audiences and purposes.
Global citizenship and sustainability: understanding how people, communities and the environment are connected, and acting fairly and responsibly.
Digital literacy: finding, evaluating, using and creating digital information safely, responsibly and well.

The seven transferable skills all connect to language and literacy. You use several at once in almost every English task.

Taking meaning in and sending meaning out

Communication runs in two directions.

Receptive communication is how meaning comes in: reading a short story, listening to a podcast, viewing a film, an infographic or a meme.
Expressive communication is how meaning goes out: writing an essay or a text message, speaking in a discussion or presentation, creating a video, a poster or a slide deck.

The transferable skills work in both directions. Critical thinking helps you notice a weak argument in an ad (receptive) and avoid a weak argument in your own essay (expressive). Collaboration helps you understand a classmate's point in a discussion (receptive) and build a group presentation (expressive).

Receptive skills bring meaning in; expressive skills send it out. The transferable skills sit in the middle and power both directions.

Transferable skill	When you read, listen or view	When you write, speak or create
Critical thinking and problem solving	Ask: Who made this? What evidence is given? What is left out?	Choose strong evidence; test your argument against a counter-argument
Innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship	Notice a creator's unusual choices and why they work	Try a new form, such as telling a story as a series of text messages
Self-directed learning	Notice when you are confused and use a fix-up strategy (reread, look up a word)	Plan your drafting time; revise using a checklist
Collaboration	Listen to understand other group members' interpretations	Share roles, give useful feedback, combine ideas
Communication	Figure out the purpose and audience of the text	Adjust vocabulary and tone for your audience
Global citizenship and sustainability	Ask whose voices and communities are represented	Write about real issues fairly and respectfully
Digital literacy	Check where online information came from	Use digital tools well; cite sources; protect privacy

Each transferable skill, in both directions of communication.

Context changes which skills matter most

Context is the situation around communication: who, where, when, why and through which medium. The same skill looks different in different contexts:

At school: in a literature circle, collaboration means building on someone's idea ("I agree with Amira, and I'd add that...").
At work: at a part-time job at a grocery store, communication might mean reading a safety sign and explaining a return policy politely to a customer.
Online: digital literacy means checking a source before you share it and thinking about who can see your post.
In the community: global citizenship might mean writing a clear letter to your city councillor about a crosswalk near your school.

When you analyze a skill, you explain which skill, how it is used, and why it helps communication in that context.

Worked example

Let's analyze the skills in a group podcast

Your class must make a 3-minute podcast episode about one way to make your school more welcoming for new students. Analyze which transferable skills support communication at each stage, and explain how.

Stage 1: Choosing a topic. The group brainstorms ideas: a buddy program, signs in several languages, a welcome video. Innovation and creativity generate options; collaboration means everyone's ideas are heard before voting.
Stage 2: Research (receptive). Members read the school website and listen to two short interviews with students who arrived recently. Critical thinking helps them separate opinions ("lunch is boring") from useful evidence ("I didn't know where the guidance office was for two weeks").
Stage 3: Scripting (expressive). They write for listeners, not readers: short sentences, a hook in the first 15 seconds, and signposts like "Our second idea is...". That is communication adjusted to the audio medium.
Stage 4: Recording and editing. They use a free audio editor, ask permission before recording anyone's voice, and add music they are allowed to use. That is digital literacy.
Stage 5: Reflecting. Each member writes what they would change next time. That is self-directed learning.
Explain the 'why': Each skill solved a communication problem: too many ideas (collaboration), unclear evidence (critical thinking), an audience that can't see the text (communication), rules about voices and music (digital literacy).

At least five skills support communication here: innovation and creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication and digital literacy, plus self-directed learning in the reflection. A strong analysis names the skill, gives the evidence (what the group did) and explains why it made the podcast communicate better.

Skill, action, effect

A strong "skills" answer has three parts: skill (name it), action (what you or the person did), effect (how it improved understanding or expression). For example: "Critical thinking (skill): I compared the ad's claim with the nutrition label (action), so I understood the ad was exaggerating (effect)."

Just for fun

Funny-but-true: the word skill comes from an Old Norse word, skil, which meant "discernment" or "knowing the difference". So the oldest meaning of skill is basically critical thinking!

Hands-on activity

Skills spotting at home

You need: paper and a pencil, and one everyday text from home (a recipe, a bus or transit schedule, an appliance instruction booklet, a grocery flyer, or a family calendar).

Receptive: use your text for a real purpose (for example, figure out how long a recipe will take from start to finish, or which bus gets you to the library by 10:00).
Write down every step you took. Next to each step, write which transferable skill you used.
Expressive: explain the text to someone at home in under one minute, as if they had never seen it. Ask them to tell you one thing that was clear and one thing that was confusing.
Write two skill, action, effect sentences: one about understanding the text and one about explaining it.

What to look for: at least one receptive and one expressive skill, each with a real action and an effect, such as "Critical thinking: I noticed the flyer price was 'per 100 g' not per package, so I knew the real cost was higher."

Your turn

List the seven transferable skills named in the Ontario curriculum.

Sort these into receptive or expressive: watching a documentary, writing a blog post, listening to a classmate's speech, recording a video review, reading a poem.

Why are these skills called transferable?

Name the skill: "Before sharing a post about a school closure, Leo checked the school board's official website."

Name the skill: "Priya noticed she had read the same paragraph three times without understanding it, so she slowed down and looked up two words."

Write one skill, action, effect sentence about a time you used collaboration in a group task.

What is context, and why does it matter when you analyze a skill?

More practice: warm-up

Is viewing an infographic receptive or expressive?

Is giving a presentation receptive or expressive?

Which transferable skill includes setting goals and managing your time?

Which transferable skill includes evaluating where online information came from?

True or false: in English class, a podcast counts as a text.

More practice: on your own

Explain how critical thinking helps in both reading and writing an opinion piece.

A student working at a hardware store must explain how to use a snow blower safely to a customer. Which two skills matter most, and why?

How might global citizenship and sustainability show up when reading a novel?

Your group's slideshow has too much text. Which skill helps fix this, and how?

Give an example of innovation and creativity in an English assignment.

Challenge

Analyze the snow-day story at the start of the lesson. Identify four transferable skills, and for each give the action and the effect on communication.

Some people say communication is the "main" transferable skill because all the others depend on it. Argue for or against this idea with two reasons.

Choose a context outside school (a job, a team, a club, a faith or cultural community, a family business). Explain how two transferable skills support communication there, and how the skills would look different in an English class.

Check your understanding

Quiz

Which list contains only transferable skills from the Ontario curriculum?

Which activity is receptive communication?

A student realizes she doesn't understand a chapter and makes a plan to reread it with notes. Which skill is she using most?

What makes an analysis of a skill strong?

Which is the best example of digital literacy?

Why does context matter when you explain a skill?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: Strand A of Grade 9 English (ENL1W) asks students to understand how the seven transferable skills are used in language and literacy (A1), and to analyze and explain how those skills support communication in different contexts, applying them when reading, listening, viewing and creating texts (A1.1). In class, this strand is usually taught through the other strands; this unit gives it a dedicated home.

How to help: Point out the skills in everyday life: "You just used critical thinking when you noticed that ad's fine print." Ask your teen to explain a skill with skill, action, effect. Share how you use these skills at work.

Common difficulties: Listing skills without explaining how they helped; mixing up receptive and expressive; thinking a "text" must be printed (videos, podcasts and posts count).