|
I finished my degree in English language and literature at the University of Barcelona six years ago, and I have been teaching adults since then. This year, La Farga School, near Barcelona, asked me to join the staff. This is a big school with more than 1 600 students and 110 teachers teaching at different levels: kindergarten, primary, secondary and post-compulsory pre-university studies.
 The first thing I saw in my first days was that working with teenagers was much harder than working with adults. With adults I only had to teach English: grammar rules, vocabulary and so on. The adults I taught were motivated to learn English because they liked it or needed it for their jobs.
With teenagers, teaching is something completely different. I immediately realised that teaching English was important to them, too, but apart from this, I also deal with pedagogical issues such as teaching the kids respect for others and life values. Working in a secondary school means being more dynamic, serious and demanding. You also have to demonstrate kindness more often then when dealing with adults.
 Two official languages are taught in our school: Catalan and Spanish. Some of our classes have English as a third study language, for English and History lessons.
The myEUROPE Project provides us with school contacts, European activities and resources. For example, by taking part in the myEUROPE Chats, students realise that English is a language spoken all around the world, and not only a series of grammar rules they have to learn.
This school year we are planning to take part in some myEUROPE activities as we did last June, debating on-line about the Fifth Enlargement. We are also preparing our students for external English exams organised by the University of Cambridge and the Official Language School.
I would like to involve my students in the Year of Literature. My pedagogical goal is to encourage them to read books and to write stories in Catalan, Spanish and English. Other plans include doing a Comenius project, and taking part in "Diada", a day on which the students' families organise lots of entertaining activities.
Our schedule for this school year is full of curricular and extra-curricular activities. The aim is to broaden the horizons for our students who, I am sure, are aware of the efforts we make to improve our teaching and learning methods through new technologies.
David Valle Cazorla, Spain, Dvalle.lafarga@institucio.org |
Privacy policy
Top