The best way for children to internalise a language is to expose them to it more or less constantly. from a very early ageThis is the time when the brain is in the process of developing cognitive skills. At Gaztelueta we start from the cradle classroom stimulating active listening in English in order to progressively favour expression, generating changes in the cerebral cortex that facilitate spontaneous learning.
Every year a group of Gaztelueta 6th grade pupils travel to Ireland for a month. Each student lives with an Irish family during this time and attends classes in a school in Dublin. The aim of this trip is to provide each student with the ideal context in which to live the experience, gain maturity and autonomy and of course grow in the language.
Having teachers of different nationalities and international experience enriches, for this and other purposes, the educational environment at Gaztelueta by providing a complete mastery of their mother tongue in terms of pronunciation, register and cultural knowledge. They work on oral expression in small groups to complement the knowledge acquired in class.
Our challenge is for pupils to finish their school years having acquired official language qualifications. To this end, we have adapted the materials, methodologies and resources so that pupils can achieve level C1 (Advanced) in English in the 2nd year of Bachillerato, and B2 (First) in 3rd ESO and A2 (PET) in 6th year of Primary.
You learn a language when you use it. That is why we have young people from different English-speaking countries to converse with the students. In groups of two students, the native speakers - coordinated by the English department - encourage the students' oral expression and comprehension.
