Holistic Approach To Language Learning For Kids

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ES, Madrid, University of Alcala

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The University of Alcalá has a long and prestigious history. It was founded in 1499 as an innovative educational project. Nowadays it is integrated by 9 faculties and 8 colleges, among which the School of Education is one of the oldest institutions. It deals with initial training for primary teachers and offers 5 different degrees: Infant Education, Primary Education, Foreign Languages, Physical Education and Musical Education. All degrees last for three years. The School of Education has regular contacts with primary schools as all of its students must take a Practicum (14 weeks) which involves a deep study of school and classroom organisation as well as teaching practice lessons. The University of Alcalá is also in charge of future Secondary School teachers’ training through the ICE (Educational Science Institute).

They will contribute to the development of materials, involving their trainee teachers. They will contribute in writing out the framework, classroom strategies and guidelines for use of the materials. They will give feedback from theory to practice: feeding back theoretical principles and strategies to the partners who work more at the practical aspects of the approach (designing materials and acting bottom-up towards the principles of the approach). They will integrate the HOLA approach in their home practice. And indirectly they will disseminate the holistic approach through the intervention of their trainees in the Spanish schools. They will disseminate the outcomes directly through their attendance to conferences and other interventions.

Manuel Megías Rosa is a Bachelor in Spanish Philology and PHD in English Philology. María José Valiente Jiménez is a PHD in French Philology . Both are members of the Department of Modern Philology at the University of Alcalá and work as a lecturers at the School of Education and the Faculty of Arts in the same University. They have been working on different aspects of English and French language pedagogy for over 15 years. During the past decade, their research priority has been the acquisition of second languages, the European Language Portfolio, bilingual education through content teaching and the development of learning strategies. They also teach doctoral courses within the Modern Languages Programme of the UAH and Manuel Megías co-directs the Master in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, which includes an itinerary for training teachers in bilingual contexts. He has also collaborated with the UNAN of León, Nicaragua in teacher development and several M.A.s. María José Valiente is currently involved in a project on the use of ICT in primary schools. Both of them work in pre-service and in-service teacher training, and participate in the organization of Language Teachers Encounters at the UAH (from 1990 on), and also the publication of a journal of educational innovation (“Encuentro”).

The project work will also benefit from Manuel Megias' experience with the SCOPE project and final publication, which gives a survey of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of Comenius 2.2 in service training programmes in Europe.