​A travel of reflection

As future Primary School teachers, in our degree we are learning several aspects related to teaching (resources, pedagogies, didactics, etc). Over the past years we have worked on methodologies such as the project based learning, and also on how to apply that framework to language teaching, but always in our L1. That is why we were surprised when we took this course and we saw that it was about teaching English as a Foreign Language from the project-based framework. We thought “How can it be possible?”. But later on, not only did we realise that it was possible, but we also discovered that project-based learning is a framework that offers a meaningful and communicative environment to learn EFL (English as a Foreign Language).

 

It allows us to apply CLT (Communicative Language Teaching). This concept refers to an integrated approach that involves the teaching of language competences mentioned by the CEFR (2001), which are: grammatical, pragmatic, discursive, sociolinguistic and strategic. At the same time, it also has an interactive approach because it conceives this language learning process based on interactions in real situations. In other words, this CLT concept is based on communication to learn a language because it is a way to put into practice all the language resources you have learnt, with a real purpose.

 

Language is a basic tool for interaction, and through interaction learning takes place. Promoting authentic situations in which the use of a foreign language is essential to participate makes students aware of several aspects. They can realise what the real usefulness of learning a foreign language is, and they can also see what they have learnt and what they still need to learn. Students also need to make an effort on pronunciation and correction of language, but mostly they focus on making themselves understandable, which is a basic skill needed to communicate in order to avoid misunderstandings. All in all, students learn not only language itself, but also other aspects that are part of the communicative process. However, it is not easy to promote a real need to use a language, and here comes the point in which technology plays its essential role.

 

But, taking all the previous ideas into account, how can we teach from this language approach (CLT), basing our pedagogy in projects and also using technology?