Teaching English in a Secondary School !

It is very difficult to understand the different basic competences our students have to achieve only having into account the ESO and Batxiller curriculums established by the Catalan Education Board: These curriculums do not take into account the four different skills the English teachers always have in mind: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. The basic competences are presented together for the Spanish, the Catalan and the foreign languages together and this does not help to understand them better beacuse it is obvious that these languages are not learnt at the same pace.

After studying the documents and articles [1][2][3] I personally think that it is easier to rely on the communicative competences established by Common Europen Framework of Reference than those mentioned in the curriculum of ESO and Batxiller. In that sense the Education Board literally says at the introduction of the foreign languages curriculum…

“El Consell de Europa estableix un marc europeu de referència per a l’ensenyamnet de llengües, el el qual proclama la necessitat que els aprenents desembolupin competencies suficients per tal de relacionar-se amb persones de llengua maternal different…”

The Basic competences established in the “Decret 143/2007, de 26 de juny, pel qual s’estableix l’ordenació dels ensenyaments de l’educació secundària obligatòria (ESO). DOGC núm. 4915 – 29/06/2007” are:

1. Communicative and Linguistic Competence.

2. Artistic and Cultural Competence.

3. Information dealing and Digital Competence.

4. Mathematical Competence.

5. Learning to Learn Competence.

6. Autonomy and Personal Initiative Competence.

7. Knowledge and Interaction with the Physical World Competence.

8. Social and Citizen Competence.

Apart from that, and among other things such as transversal competences shared with other subjects, this new curriculum also publishes a set of “SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH AT COMPULSORY SECONDARY EDUCATION (ESO)”

1. Acquire the ability to communicate both orally and in writing efficiently in every day communication situations through specific tasks.

2. Develop communicative skills, both receptive and productive, with the objective of performing information exchanges both in and outside the classroom.

3. Being able to read and understand various kinds of texts autonomously, with the aim of accessing various sources of information and as the means to learn about cultures and ways of life different from our own.

4. Transfer the communication strategies learnt in the acquisition of the mother tongue or in the process of learning other languages to the knowledge of the foreign language in order to carry out interactive tasks in real or simulated situations.

5. Reflect upon the working of the language as an element facilitating learning in the performance of tasks and as a tool for developing autonomy.

6. Use learning strategies and didactic resources (such as dictionaries, books, encyclopaedias, multimedia materials, etc.) to find information and solve learning situations in an autonomous way.

7. Reflect upon one’s own learning process and develop an interest for the incorporation of improvements which may lead to completing the tasks set successfully.

8. Access to knowledge of the foreign language’s culture, developing respect to the language and its speakers in order to achieve a better international understanding.

9. Appreciate the value of the foreign language as a means of communicating with people who belong to a different culture and as an element encouraging social and interpersonal relations.

In conclusion I would say that when comparing the CEFR competences with the recently launched LOE curriculums of ESO and still provisional Batxiller, I find they are much easier to understand, especially the one related to the communicative competence, than those from the LOGSE curriculums. However, they are still not as clear as those stated by the Common European Framework of Reference from above.

Finally the following chart is an attempt to establish some coherence among the different levels in the different studies a person who wants to get an “official” certificate in English can have.

[1] See article: Cambridge ESOL exams and the Comon E. Frameworkn Framework of Refence (CEFR) by Linda Taylor and Neil Jones in annex … and also www.cambridgeesol.org/what-we-do/research/cefr/common-scale-levels.html

[2] http://phobos.xtec.cat/eoiesplugues/ and http://phobos.xtec.cat/eoi/

[3]See the annex 2 from DOGC 4915 29/06/2007and also the new LOE curriculums inhttp://www.xtec.cat/estudis/batxillerat/curriculum_bat_loe.htm http://www.xtec.cat/estudis/eso/nou_curriculum_eso.htm

[4] See my own summary called “ Marc Comú de Referència per a les Lengües, un resum”