LEARNING AND TEACHING APPROACH

The main focus of our Spanish lessons is to provide students with a high-quality language-learning experience to enable them to pursue their goals and aspirations in the best way possible. However, more importantly, our lessons are aimed to help students find motivation and pleasure in learning Spanish through a flexible, dynamic and engaging learning and teaching environment.

Principles upon which we base our lessons’ planning and teaching practice:



1) Lessons tailored to the specific teaching-learning context

By having a student-centred approach, our first and foremost concern is the learner´s learning style, and to provide them with flexibility and content based on his or her interests, attitudes towards learning, decisions and choices.



2) Communicative approach

Language learning requires learning the grammatical basis of the language in usage, but this will not be effective if we fail in the actual use of the language; both are interdependent. Therefore, learners will be given an abundance of opportunities to interact in real communication situations.



3) Experimental learning

«I hear, and I forget; I see, and I remember; I do, and I understand.” Confucius.

The interactive practices proposed will place you in an active role in building your language knowledge up. Among these practical exercises, we can include: discussions and reflections in cooperative groups, games and simulations, role plays, empathy-taking activities, personal stories and case studies, visualizations and imaginative activities, personal journals, diaries or portfolios, or Spanish cooking workshops



4) Learning through play

Game-Based Learning (GBL) is an innovative methodology which is incorporated in the Spanish lessons aimed at providing a different language learning experience by bringing the fun and playful potential of games into the classroom. There are many more reasons why the use of games in the Foreign Language classroom is a good option:

Keeps your motivation strong
Develops higher-order thinking skills
Empowers your creativity and imagination
Allows you to learn by doing:
Promotes social skills



5) Socio-cultural approach

“A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language.” Noam Chomsky.

Our Spanish Lessons also aim to introduce some cultural aspects in Spanish (and Latino American) modern societies to interrelate those with a functional use of the language. This is aimed to introduce cultural aspects that might come handy during real life situations.

LEarning and teaching materials

The materials and resources employed in our Spanish lessons aim to assist students’ language acquisition while promoting critical thinking, collaboration, cooperation, initiative, questioning, self- evaluation, curiosity, discovery, autonomy, reflexion, creativity, imaginary or real problem-solving. Such materials could include visual presentations, flashcards, videos, podcasts, posters, cards, quizzes, board games, articles, textbooks, books, picture books, comics, etc.

The materials employed are considered to be:



Oriented and adapted

With achievable challenges and goals for each level and specific characteristics and needs of each student.



Attractive and visually engaging resources

Which convey visual elements that are not merely decorative but serve as meaning-making tools. These visuals are functional and try to provide an inclusive representation of the diversity present in modern society.



Authentic, relevant and appealing

Aimed to generate impact and motivation towards learning, as well as to provide input as close as possible to its natural usage in real life situations.

