Elements for a redefinition of TEFL in Spanish Secondary Education

This paper introduces a framework to redefine TEFL in Spanish Secondary Education. In spite of the undeniable progress of language education in Spain, there are a number of problems which frustrate teachers and learners provoking poor results. Some of the problems involve decisions about language and methodology taken by teachers who are still too concerned about form and grammar. This redefinition of TEFL is based on four pillars: the task-based approach, the content-based approach, language awareness and intercultural competence. The task-based approach is the framework in which academic contents are dealt with. Language awareness represents a new perspective on form and grammar within a communicative approach. Finally, the intercultural competence is the educational objective of language education. Each of these four concepts have theoretical and practical implications which may help redefine the curricular design of English teaching in Spain.Este trabajo presenta un marco para redefinir la enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera en la educación secundaria española. A pesar del innegable progreso de la educación lingüística en España, hay ciertos problemas que frustran a profesores y estudiantes provocando malos resultados. Algunos de estos problemas incluyen decisiones tomadas por los profesores en relación con la lengua y la metodología, demasiado preocupados aún por la forma y la gramática. Esta redefinición de la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera se basa en cuatro pilares: el enfoque basado en tareas, el enfoque basado en contenidos, la conciencia lingüística y la competencia intercultural. El enfoque basado en tareas es el marco en el cual tratar contenidos académicos. La conciencia lingüística representa una nueva perspectiva acerca de la forma y la gramática dentro de un enfoque comunicativo. Por último, la competencia intercultural es el objetivo educativo de la educación lingüística. Cada uno de estos cuatro conceptos tiene implicaciones teóricas y prácticas que pueden ayudar a redefinir el diseño curricular de la enseñanza del inglés en España

Culture in Writing: Discourse Markers in English and Spanish Student Writing

Taking into account the Relevance Theory and Contrastive Rhetoric as frameworks, discourse markers are studied in this research from a functional-communicative perspective. Discourse Markers are examined from a corpus of student writing and analysed considering the number and typology of discourse markers used in these texts. Finally, some pedagogical conclusions are established considering the results of the research

Teaching Languages to Young Learners: A Historical Perspective

Our main hypothesis is that the history of language teaching to young learners has been marked by two questions: (1) Which is the optimal age for starting to learn a language? (2) Is the effort and expense used worth the results? Our objective, then, is to review the history of language teaching to young learners. To trace its history an international approach will be assumed, as mutual influences are quite frequent in this field among several countries. Furthermore, we will also try to encompass the teaching practice concerning young learners as well as the theories and researches on the question on the optimal starting age, as both theory and practice has been closely tied together in this occasion

An analysis of argumentative texts for contrastive rhetoric

Contrastive Rhetoric has been an outstanding line of research of Writing across Cultures in the United States for over thirty years. Despite the criticism it has received, it is enjoying a revival favoured by a new approach to writing, text analysis and culture itself. In this paper a model of analysis for argumentative texts in Spanish and English is introduced in accordance with recent tendencies in Contrastive Rhetoric. Apart from a traditional quantitative text analysis, we propose an analysis of discourse markers and Rhetorical Structure Theory. These linguistic data are correlated with an evaluation of the texts to study the possible relationship between culture, writing style and evaluation. As a consequence of the results obtained, possible research follow-ups will be exposed for argumentative and other text types

The school year 2020-2021 in Spain during the pandemic

This technical report describes the educational response to COVID-19 in Spain during the 2020-2021 academic year, a Spanish version of the research results is included in the annex. The study focused on compulsory education and it was designed as a qualitative research with a sample of 34 participants, including school leaders, teachers, families and students from different types of schools and regions in Spain. The main conclusions describe an uncertain start of the school year, but gradually, the choice of face-to-face teaching as the main instruction mode revealed successful in general terms. However, some problems appeared concerning students with special needs, relevant changes in teaching methodology and about the use of blended learning in Secondary Education, which is considered to have been quite problematic or even unsuccessful. On the positive side, a deep revision of the curriculum by schools and teachers, and the reduced ratio of students per teacher to keep interpersonal distance, may have compensated the difficulties during this academic year. This report also includes a Spanish version of the research results in its annex

Cómo hacer un proyecto

Guía para el diseño de proyectos de aprendizaje. Guide to design learning project

Propuesta de utilización de modelos textuales definidos culturalmente para la enseñanza de la lectura en inglés y español

En este texto se pretende profundizar en la utilización de lo que llamaremos “modelos textuales” en la enseñanza de la lectura en inglés y en español. LA intención no es sólo añadir algún dato al debate sobre la utilidad de estos modelos textuales, estudiada y confirmada por diversos autores, sino considerar, por un lado, la necesidad de investigar la posible vinculación cultural de estos modelos y, por otro lado, ofrecer modelos textuales válidos para ambas lenguas

La competencia en comunicación lingüística como proyecto de centro: retos, posibilidades y ejemplificaciones

El desarrollo de la competencia en comunicación lingüística no puede estar restringido al espacio del aula. El Proyecto Lingüístico de Centro permite articular todas las medidas dispuestas en el centro educativo y disponer de los recursos apropiados para su puesta en práctica. En este artículo se ofrece una propuesta de diseño del Proyecto Lingüístico de Centro que permita tener en cuenta todos los ámbitos donde la competencia en comunicación lingüística es relevante.Development of competence in language communication cannot be restricted to the classroom. The School Language Project sets out all the measures taken by the school and provides the appropriate resources for implementation. This article describes a proposal to design a School Language Project to cater for every area where linguistic communication is relevant

Lectura e Internet: ¿Qué aportan las TIC a la lectura?

Publicación sobre la relación entre lectura y tecnología, con propuestas prácticas para el trabajo en contextos familiares y escolares