Ten skills have been identified (by the World Economic Forum) as necessary for one to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): cognitive flexibility, negotiation, service orientation, judgement and decision-making, emotional intelligence, coordinating with others, people management, creativity, critical thinking, and complex problem solving, listed here in reverse order of importance. Generally, this subsumes the fact that language communication skills in the 21st century are and will remain critically important. Thus, it is argued that we should revisit the old notion of ‘communicative competence' in Applied Linguistics and perhaps view it in a new light as the eleventh skill necessary for professionals in real as well as in technology mediated interactions. Now that English has become the global language, making inroads to regions/countries where it was not that important before (witness global tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. establishing new plants in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc), might it not be time to reconsider communicative competence in English as a global language as an eleventh skill?

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics,1, 1–47.

Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Palo Alto, CA: Institute for the Future for

the University of Phoenix Research Institute

Schwab, K., & Davis, N. (2018). Shaping the future of the fourth industrial revolution: A guide to building a better world. London, UK: Portfolio Penguin