Raquel Giménez Crespo Unit 20

UNIT 20. FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN THE CURRICULUM.

CRITERIA TO BE REFLECTED IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROJECT
AND IN THE CONCRETION OF THE CURRICULUM.

Good morning,

We are going to read unit number 20, entitled “Foreign languages in

the curriculum”.

We will be dealing with the other elements of this title along the
topic.

In order to develop this unit, we are going along the following

outline: to begin with, we’ll give a brief introduction. After that we will
consider the foreign language in the Spanish Educational System. In
the next section we will continue with the foreign language area in
the curriculum, where we will study the area objectives, key
competences and contents amongst others. We will tackle the
Educational Project and curricular criteria in the last area and the
documents that all schools must have. Finally, a conclusion of the
unit will be offered.

As a way of introduction, we can point out the relevance of this topic

since it is vital for teachers to not only have a knowledge of the
subject that they teach, but also have a knowledge of the educational
structures and the organisational bodies that affect their teaching.

In this way, the Spanish authorities have made a big emphasis on the
development of the law to be followed, starting from the official
curriculum set out in the R.D. 1513/2006 passed on the 7th of
December and Decree 22/2007 passed on the 10th of May which
establishes the curriculum for Primary Education in the Community of
Madrid.

It is later on personalized by each school to the concrete needs of its

environment and students, forming the school curriculum (School
Educational Project and Stage Curricular Project).

Finally the teaching planning is decided (the didactic units specifying

the curricular elements at a classroom level) focusing on the
objectives, contents and evaluation criteria to be reached at the end
of the course.

If the objectives can be achieved through the development of the four

basic communicative skills, communicative competence will be
accomplished. Moreover, by putting these skills into practice, actual
communication will take place.

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This concludes the introduction, but before starting with the content,
we will present the bibliography consulted to develop this topic:
Organic Law of Education 2/2006 3rd May, R.D. 1513/2006 7th
December, which establishes the Minimum Contents for Primary
Education, Decree 22/2007 10th May, which establishes the
Curriculum of Primary Education in the Community of Madrid, Order
3225/2008, 27th June, which establishes the guidelines for the
evaluation process in Primary Education in the Community of Madrid
and Order 3319/2007, 18th June, which establishes the guidelines of
the organisation and functioning of Primary Schools in the Community
of Madrid.

Let us begin by looking at the foreign languages in the Spanish

educational system.

Education in the Community of Madrid is based and adheres to the

laws currently in vigour in Spain and in particular this autonomous
community. The most relevant are: the Organic Law of Education
2/2006, passed on the 3rd of May, the Royal Decree 1513/2006,
passed on the 7th of December, which establishes the minimum
requirements for primary education and the Decree 22/2007,
passed on the 10th of May, which establishes the curriculum for
Primary Education in the Community of Madrid.

After looking at the foreign languages in the Spanish educational

system, now we are going to examine the foreign language area in
the curriculum.

The integration of Spain in the European Union means that the

knowledge of foreign languages is essential to facilitate
communication between the members of this community.

The teaching of English in primary education aims for pupils to

acquire communicative competence, this implies not only the
possibility of learning a new system of signs but also understanding
of the language itself. Let’s study the communicative competence in
more detail.

If traditionally the approach to teaching was grammatical, nowadays

the focus is communicative. Therefore, the global aim of foreign
language learning in the Primary Education Curriculum is the
acquisition of Communicative Competence.

Foreign language teachers’ aim should be to enable the pupils to

achieve communicative competence by helping them to gain the
mastery of five sub-competences, which are the following:
grammatical, that is the ability to use the units and rules of the
language system. It takes into account the need for the speaker to be

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able to make correct use of language features such as morphology,

syntactics, semantics, phonology and lexis. Discourse, that refers to
the combination of grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a
unified spoken or written text. Strategic, that is the mastery of
verbal and non-verbal communicative strategies to solve problems
during communication. Sociolinguistic, that is the appropriate use
of utterances in different sociolinguistic settings and contexts. And,
sociocultural, that is the degree of familiarity with the cultural and
social context within which a language is used.

It is important to bear in mind the Communicative Approach to

errors, which may be better termed as mistakes as they are not
conscious. Mistakes are seen as an integral part of the learning
process, as they are a sign that progress is being made.

Keeping this in mind, now we will consider the educational

curriculum.

According to Decree 22/2007, an educational curriculum is a

document that guides teaching and learning practice. It must answer
six questions: what to teach?, when to teach?, how to teach?, what
to evaluate?, when to evaluate?, how to evaluate?

The article 6 of LOE 2/2006 establishes that a curriculum is

composed by objectives, key competences, contents, teaching
methods and evaluation criteria at each level, cycle, grade, and
modality within the educational system that regulate the teaching
practice.

However there are four different levels of curricular concretion that

make reference to the gradual configuration of the curriculum.

In order to guarantee a common education, the Government will

establish the basic aspects of the curriculum as far as objectives, key
competences, contents, teaching methods and evaluation criteria are
concerned.

The pertinent educational administrations will develop the

educational prescriptions, suggestions, orientations and pedagogical
strategies for this basic curriculum.

The schools making use of its Autonomy (art.120 LOE) adapt the
different curricular elements to their specific characteristics, students
and environment, which are established in the Educational Project.

The teachers making use of their pedagogical autonomy design the

Annual programme, which contains the necessary didactic units.

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Having examined the curriculum we will study how the teaching of

foreign languages is approached in the current curricula. We will start
with the Area Objectives.

The objectives are expressed in terms of the capacities that the

students should acquire or achieve through the teaching-learning
process in the English Area. We are going to pay attention to the
objectives as they are stated in the LOE. For this, we are going to
take the Decree 22/2007. They state that students should be able to:

1. Listen to and understand oral messages and use the information

in specific tasks related to their experience.

2. Express themselves orally in simple and habitual situations that

are familiar for them, using verbal and non-verbal procedures
and showing a respectful and cooperative attitude.

3. Write texts with varied purposes on topics that they have

previously seen in the classroom and using the help of samples.

4. Read in a comprehensive way texts that are connected to their

experiences and interests, and be able to extract general and
specific information to complete tasks.

5. Learn how to use the resources around autonomously, including

new technology, in order to obtain information and to
communicate in the foreign language.

6. Value the foreign language and all languages in general, as a

means of communication and understanding between people of
different origins and cultures and as a tool to learn different
contents.

7. Develop a receptive and confident attitude over their own

capacity to learn and to use the foreign language.

8. Use their previous knowledge and experience with other

languages in the acquisition of the foreign language in order to
promote a quicker, more effective and autonomous learning.

9. Identify aspects such as pronunciation, rhythm, stress and

intonation, as well as linguistic structures and lexical aspects of
the foreign language and be able to use them as basic elements
of communication.

In addition to the objectives, the students should acquire some

competences. We are going to look at this area in the next section.

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These basic or key competences were proposed by the European

Union and adapted and included in the curriculum for primary
education in the R.D. 1513/2006 and in the curriculum for the
Community of Madrid D 22/2007.

They will contribute essentially to the integral development of the

student. Given the appropriate amount of work, they will allow
students to interact with more possibilities of success.

The European Union defines key competences as the pack of

knowledge, skills and attitudes which is both multifunctional and
transferable. These skills and knowledge are required by individuals
for their personal development, inclusion and working life. Being
competent means to show that one can do something, and not only
possesses knowledge about it.

The concept of competence is very related to some other educational

well known theories, such as Ausubel’s “significant or meaningful
learning” and “previous knowledge”, to Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal
development” or John Dewey’s “learn by doing”, to mention a few.

The eight competences as laid out by the European Council are the
following:

Linguistic competence: it means the use of language as an

instrument both for oral and written communication and for learning
and adjusting behaviours and emotions.

Mathematical competence is the ability to use numbers and basic

operations, their symbols, and forms of expression, and mathematical
reasoning.

Competence in knowledge and interaction with the world is the

ability to interact with the physical world, addressing both natural
aspects and those generated by human actions, to understand those
phenomena, predict them, improve them and preserve living
conditions.

Digital Competence is the ability to find, obtain, process and

communicate information and transform it into knowledge.

Learning to Learn. It helps students to take their first steps in

learning and provides a foundation for them to be able to continue it
autonomously over time.

Interpersonal, social and civic competence is the ability to live in

society, understand our social reality and act as democratic citizens.

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Autonomy and Personal Initiative. It refers to the ability to foster

changes and to accept and support changes produced by external
factors. It also means assuming responsibility of their own actions
(positive or negative), setting up goals and attaining them and being
motivated towards success.

And finally the Artistic and Cultural Competence. This involves the
appreciation of the importance of the creative expression of ideas,
experiences and emotions in different media as an important
representation of human history. It also involves critically assessing
different cultural and artistic manifestations.

Once we have tackled the key competences, now we are going to

examine the contents. They are distributed into four areas of blocks
(D 22/2007).

The first BLOCK is entitled “Listening, Speaking and

Conversing”. It comprises oral communication. These skills are very
important at this stage. Students do not have much access to the
foreign language in their environments, so the school provides them
with the main linguistic model and source of the second language. On
the other hand, the linguistic model must come from a number of
speakers in order for the students to get as much variety as possible.
This is the reason why we need to use audiovisual resources and new
technology in the classroom.

The second BLOCK is entitled “READING AND WRITING”.

Written texts in the foreign language are also a model of text
formation and a good way to acquire and practice linguistic elements.
Reading and writing will obviously follow the command of the oral
form. They will use the written code progressively by encouraging
them to use the dictionaries, computers, and other strategies and
resources that will improve their comprehension.

The third BLOCK is entitled “KNOWLEDGE OF THE LANGUAGE”.

Learning and using a foreign language in different situations allows
the learner to elaborate a basic conceptual system about its
functioning and its changes. This block includes both linguistic
knowledge and reflection on the language. The teachers must start
from those practical situations that allow the students to infer the
rules of the language and also to relate them to those languages they
already know.

The fourth BLOCK is entitled “SOCIO-CULTURAL ASPECTS AND

INTERCULTURAL AWARENESS”. These will be exploited through
the use of children’s literature, traditional music, etc. of the English
speaking countries. Emphasis should be laid on the European Union.
They can use the language in many different contexts, and they

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should also learn about the location of countries where the language
is spoken, their flags, their music, etc.

Whether or not the general objectives have been achieved, they will
need to be assessed. With this in mind, the curriculum lays out the
following criteria:

“The aim of the evaluation is to know the level of competence

attained by the students in the development of basic skills of oral
expression and comprehension, reading, writing and calculation as
well as the development of social skills, working and studying habits,
artistic sensitivity, creativity and affectivity”.

In addition to this, the teacher must evaluate the teaching and the
learning process, as well as the curricular programme. It should be
varied and allow the evaluation of the transference of learned subject
matter to different contexts. Tools and techniques for evaluation
include standardised texts of various sorts, questionnaires,
observation schedules of classroom interaction, and diaries that the
learners keep themselves. In an overcrowded classroom it may be
difficult for the teacher to carry out an effective evaluation, however,
he should try to make the evaluation as individual as possible, as well
as covering as many of the four skills as time will allow.

An initial evaluation should be carried out at the beginning of each

cycle in order to determine the level of the student. This can take into
account many other factors, such as the family background of the
student and the social class to which he belongs, as these areas can
have an effect on his learning.

This evaluation should be formative in order to allow the teacher to

judge the students’ needs. This can be done throughout each of the
didactic units as well as throughout the year.

There should be a summative evaluation at the end of the cycle to

ensure that the goals have been achieved. From this the teacher can
decide what follow up work is needed.

The evaluation criteria are comprised of a list of suggestions that

correspond to the general objectives. If the students are able to
perform tasks that equate to these criteria, then the general
objectives have been achieved. These evaluation criteria are divided
for the different cycles. The usage of ICTs will be evaluated along the
four blocks of contents not having one specific criterion for this one.

The 1st & 4th criteria deal with the oral evaluation criteria that
fosters the fact of grasping global and specific information in oral
texts related to pupils’ interests and background supported by verbal

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and non-verbal elements in eventually less guided oral interactions

respecting the basic rules of interchange (listening, looking at the
speaker...).

The 2nd & 3rd refer to the written criteria: read and grasp global and
specific meaning from varied and simple texts on familiar topics
adapted to the pupils, using models with specific purposes and
layouts on paper or digital support.

The 5th deals with the linguistic system: use forms and structures
typical in the FL where rhythm, stress and intonation are related to
meanings in communicative contexts participating actively.

The 6th refers to Learning: use strategies to learn to learn such as

requesting, models, gestures, association, dictionaries, searching and
gathering information on different supports, relating the knowledge to
personal experiences/knowledge to learn better.

The 7th & 8th deal with Socio-Cultural criteria: value the FL as a
vehicle to communicate with other people being curious and
interested towards foreign-language speakers. Identify routines,
habits and celebrations of those countries and compare them to the
own ones.

As we can see, the curriculum clearly defines the aims of foreign

language teaching. However, the reform of the Spanish educational
system has recognised the need for the autonomy of academic
institutions, due to the different needs of different areas. To this end,
guidelines have been laid out that should be reflected in the
educational project of the centre. We will discuss the educational
project and curricular criteria in more detail in the next section.

There are several definitions of an educative project, according to

Antúnez and Gairín (1999) “it is an official document which explains
the agreements adopted by the whole school community in relation to
the basic educative options and the general organisation of a school”.

It is said to respond to the basic questions: who are we? What do we

want? And how do we organise ourselves?

The LOE sets up the documents that schools should have. According
to the Order 3319/2007, the School Curricular Project or PCC is
included in the PEC.

Let’s start with the Educational Project (PEC). This document collects
features of the surrounding, values, the curriculum offered by the
school or didactic programmes, the Reading Plan, ICT Plan, Plan for
attention to diversity, Plan for living together, Plan of orientation and

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tutorial action and educational activities for students who haven’t got
Religion. This document will be written by the Management Team and
approved by the School Council.

Now we would like to study some of the most relevant documents

included in the Educational project, in a deeper detail.

The first one we are going to tackle is The Annual School Plan,
otherwise known as PGA. This document is divided into various parts:
introduction, general objectives, plan of performance, general
timetable, plan for extracurricular activities, budget and field and
dimension of the internal evaluation. This is also designed by the
Management Team and approved by the School Council. The schools
will simply have to revise the previous year projects instead of re-
writing them.

When the project has been established the Didactic Programmes will
be drawn up. This is the document where the pedagogic autonomy of
teachers is reflected. A Didactic Programming establishes all the
curricular components at classroom level. Its aim is that of planning
the teaching-learning processes that will be developed throughout the
year. Its main components are, amongst others: introduction,
objectives, key competences and sequence of contents in the
different levels, evaluation criteria, the didactic methodology,
organisation, timing, groupings, spaces, materials; measures to
answer diversity, complementary activities, evaluation procedures
and instruments, promotion and marking criteria and teaching-
learning evaluation processes.

In the Plan for Attention to Diversity, the measures to meet the

diversity and counselling established in the Decree 22/2007 are part
of the PEC. These will be noted down in the General Annual
Programme, including the measures, performances, procedures and
people responsible to put it into practice.

These measures will be elaborated by the Orientation Department

following the criteria of the Pedagogical Coordination Commission and
with the help of tutors. It will be passed by the Teaching Team.

Once the educational needs and the school and family context of the
student has been identified and analysed, the answer to each of the
students will be specified in an Individual Working Plan (PTI). This is
coordinated by the tutor, with the report and counselling of the
Orientation Department. It will establish the curricular and
organisational measures necessary for the student to develop his
personal abilities.

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The Plan for Living Together includes the regulations for internal
organisation. We can consider aspects such as the strategies which
favour positive interpersonal relationship in the classes and school or
how to deal with conflicts and difficulties.

The Reading Plan follows the article 7 of the Order 3319/2007,

according to which the teachers will set up the objectives, the
activities to put those objectives into practice as well as the
evaluation criteria that will guide us in analyzing the results. Reading
must be worked from all areas of the curriculum and become a daily
activity.

Regarding the ICT PLAN, the LOE claims as one objective of Primary
Education “approach to the use of the new technologies in order to
learn how to use them developing a critical opinion towards any
information they may receive”. Information and communication
technologies should be used daily and through all the subjects. The
students will use them as a common resource.

When considering the Educative Orientation and Tutorial Plan, we

should take into account the teachers, staff and specialists who
intervene in the pupil’s education and the coordination between them.
We must think about how to carry out individual assessment and
what pupil information is relevant.

As a way of conclusion, we will sum up the main aspects of the topic.

We have seen the place of modern foreign languages in the

curriculum and the criteria to be reflected in the school Educative
Project. We have discussed these aspects starting from the idea that
the elements of the curriculum must be further specified according to
a process which has the principal aim of providing an early education
adapted to the characteristics, needs and interests of the students.
This framework gives the teachers a valuable guide for making their
yearly plan, their didactic units and individual lessons.

Students play an active role in the Foreign Language learning/

teaching process and the English teachers must select the most
useful curricular elements which help them to enjoy English and
succeed at it.

This concludes the exposition. Thank you very much for your time.

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