History of an ELP
Once upon a time there was a group of teachers who were keen to try new things in the teaching of foreign languages. One day in the summer of 2004 they read an official announcement about foreign languages. What a strange announcement! What was this CEFR? What was this ELP? Soon they discovered that these initials referred to the Common European Framework of Reference (for Languages) and the European Language Portfolio.
‘It sounds interesting, but what does it involve?’ -they asked themselves.
The three bold – not to say rash – teachers presented a project that reflected their enthusiasm for a new challenge. They hoped to include some innovative methodology into their English teaching and at the same time to receive from the Department of Education interesting material for their classes.
What joy! What bliss! They have been chosen for an Orator innovation project.
And the great day arrived: the presentation in Barcelona of the European Language Portfolio. What a nice box! It must be full of materials for the pupils and for the teacher!
But … what a disenchantment!
Such a big box for so little material? Inside there were just three booklets: the Language Biography, the Dossier and the Passport.
-And our pupils are supposed to learn more with this? And the materials? Aren’t there any more?
-‘Because our pupils can’t learn without materials,’ one of the teachers said.
-‘Don’t worry. You will have a training course which you’ll find very useful,’ said someone from the Department to calm them down.
And the people from the Foreign Language Resource Centre were right!
It was a course tailor-made for their needs and peculiarities. Each of them had a view of learning as different and diverse as their pupils. Reflection on the teacher’s task and an immersion in teaching-learning theories gave them a new view and a new way of teaching, which would help their pupils to improve.
This training phase is over. It’s time for other phases. The pupils maintain that the experiment was very positive. ‘Now I know what I can do in English and which things I still have to learn,’ one pupil said to her teacher.
The Portfolio experiment, together with the fact that the pupils now count on new learning strategies that they didn’t have before, has been a great step forward.
Jordi González
Rosa Navàs
Judit Giró
Teachers and Pupils
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Voices from the class |
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Teachers' opinion |
Piloting Tips
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CEIP Pompeu Fabra, Vilanova del Camí |
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CEIP Eduard Toda, Reus |
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ZER El Jonc, Vallfogona de Balaguer |
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Bank of descriptors |
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