Task 1

Integrating ICT in Language Teaching

The Spanish Decree 87/2015 establishes all the different contents and competences to be worked on along the several stages of the Spanish secondary education.

With regard to the specific section for First Foreign Language subjects, all these contents and competences are organised in five blocks. The first four blocks correspond to each one of the language skills established by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL): oral comprehension in block 1, oral expression in block 2, written comprehension in block 3, and written expression in block 4. Additionally, the fifth blocked includes all the cross-curricular knowledge to be acquired. Among these different blocks, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) plays a crucial role in all the stages.

The first four blocks of all stages of the ESO mention that ICT is one of the vocabulary points to be worked on while practicing these languages skills. However, the corresponding blocks in the stages of Bachillerato do not include this topic, probably because students are assumed to have mastered those concepts related to ICT in the previous year.

Nevertheless, the fifth block does include competences related to ICT in all the levels of secondary education. This block states that the students must learn how to use ICT to contrast and search for information and to communicate with others. To achieve these objectives, it is specified that the student must learn the different possibilities of these digital tools (such as filtering, storing or organising information) and the different types of platforms available (blogs, wikis, forums…). They must also be aware of the possibilities of these tools for sharing ideas and collaborate in different tasks, although they must also know the importance of privacy, respect, and copyright. The use of technology is more complex in Bachillerato than in ESO, since the last ones are only required to learn the basics of editing images and texts, while the first ones must learn to perform more complex tasks like creating a video or a website.