1. Erasmus Plus 2014-2016 Mejora de la Competencia en comunication linguistica en los centros europeos

2. Oral competences required at the end of the middle school Pupils’ oral competences referred to the European framework: A1 : Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help. A2: Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

3. What do we teachers of L2 do to make our students achieve the required competences? In the first and second year we follow our course book, which is also an e-book containing lots of oral and listening activities, in particularly: Role-plays activities; Pupils hold short presentations about themselves, their hobbies, their daily lives; Projects about a specific topic (they have 3/5 minutes each to explain it in public to the class using a poster, photos, prompts); we, as teachers, speak and make pupils use L2 in class as much as possible; Telling-a-story activities

4. What do we teachers of L2 do to make our students achieve the required competences? Etwinning projects: they often require a video about school or the class; short presentation of themselves; Skype calls ( in turns pupils have the opportunity to talk or read in English) in etwinning or Comenius projects European projects: getting pupils involved in them stimulates, enpowers their oral and speaking abilities, motivating to learn and study a foreign language.

5. What do we teachers of L2 do to make our students achieve the required competences? We also offer optional conversation classes in English in the afternoon (families have to pay) In the third year the teachers of English have recently adopted a new English coursebook by Cambridge, so that they can make students acquire the vocabulary, listening, speaking and writing skills relevant to take the Key for schools exam. This exam certifies that pupils have gained the competences A2 as per CEFR. Of course, the real exam is optional at the end of the third year but all students have to work on it throughout the schoolyear since we teachers use a mock Key Test to evaluate their competences at the end of the Middle School.

6. What do we teachers of L2 do to make our students achieve the required competences? The same happens for French, learnt as second foreign language in our school. Students take a mock exam, called DELF. We feel that this is very innovative and a kind of revolution in the usual adoption of books in the middle schools in Italy. In Pisa, for sure, we are the first and only school at the moment. Our school has become a centre of preparation of Cambridge exams since last year, so we do hope to stimulate students to improve their competences for their future.

7. Examples of good practice in class Mostly students work in pair performing the task assigned in turns, such as: Making/Answering questions about themselves and their environment Making/Answering questions according to given information Making/ answering questions to fill in a factfile or a chart Interviewing activities following a questionnaire Describing pictures, photos, drawings Role-playing activities, repeating the dialogues of the book Telling short stories, using the main verbs, the key words and a sequence of images Referring about a project on a specif topic. Summarising readings about culture

8. STUDENTS’ SURVEY In our experience, about 10% of our students reach the level A2, required at the end of the Middle School About 50% reach the level A1 The remaining don’t even reach level A1 for different reasons, such as: Poor family background Cognitive and attention problems Not native speakers of our L1 Lack of motivation

9. Primary school In Primary school, spoken language is the main approach through which teachers teach and children learn. Language development is accepted as being critical to cognitive development and learning itself is seen by many as a social activity. Starting primary school is a huge transition in a young child’s life. Children need to find their place in a new social and learning environment. We improve their speaking skills by: Having circle times in order to discuss personal issues and feelings Working in groups to develop communication strategies to learn respect Playing songs, chants, poems, games and pair work activities Speaking to the class about travels or memories of their daily life Refreshing last activities to the class as warm up Talking about topics, or introducing themselves. Learning role play and playing short stories and sketches. THE END