OPTIONAL TASK #1: Reflection on "30 MINUTS" documentary

Decades ago, English had no essential function in our society. Studying a foreign language was a synonym of having a few notions or knowing basic words/expressions. However, in the last 10 years, society and educational contexts have undergone a great change when focusing on English as a foreign language. And it is something unavoidable that is changing the world over.

The great impact that globalisation has made around the globe is making of this particular language an essential professional value to add to one’s curriculum- especially in Spain where exportation plays a very crucial role these days due to the financial crisis-. Hence, English has become a professional need whose ability is to open doors to success and whose roots to change the “rules of the game” remain in education.

Spain has very low rates in listening, reading, and writing skills in English proficiency in students ranging from 14 to17 years old. There is this belief that our lower results are caused by the amount of hours dedicated to English grammar and vocabulary in schools. These findings reflect the reality that governments are not doing it so well. Nowadays, learning English should not consist of memorising and repeating every year’s grammar. Instead, we should focus on teaching students to develop their communicative skills and making them able to produce English in every stage. Obviously books are much easier to work with and less demanding for teachers; still, we as teachers should create real situations of communicative need while using the target language as the vehicle language. These way students would learn a second or third language unconsciously.

This is precisely what schools are trying to adapt to their linguistic projects: introducing new methodologies more up to date, such as CLIL, or including the use of technologies as part of their classroom materials. Another resource that could be very useful would be having peer-contacts with native speakers (video calls or e-mails, for instance), since the real the contact through English language, the better their competences will be.

Nevertheless, it is not only the duty for education but also for the Catalan society. All the content in TV and media in general appears in Catalan or Spanish. Had we more exposure to this content in English population would be more aware and receptive to develop better competences in English. We need to intensify our daily contact with this foreign language, and TV shows and cinemas in original version are the only free and practical tool that society has at its disposal.