ENGLISH AS SECOND LANGUAGE

The concept of acquisition of a second language instills in the speaker communicative skills to interpret a message, to include and understand cultural references, to use strategies to maintain communication and to apply rules of grammar development in that second language. These are the central intentions of our ESL (English as a Second Language) program. In order to obtain optimal results, our program considers the following aspects:

·        Motivation

·        Interaction

·        Grammar in focus

·        Vocabulary building

1.    Motivation is why somebody decides to do something, and how long he/she is able to maintain an activity and how much effort he/she is determined to invest in order to reach his/her goals. For our program it is of vital importance to discover and respond suitably to the student’s motivation through a structured plan. In the case of the students of WLC, one of the most important goals is to obtain a job or improve a job position. In other cases, there is a great desire for social integration or interest in being able to communicate with their children’s teachers or to pass the citizenship exam, etc.

Our professors contribute to maintaining the motivation and help their students to identify short term goals that take shape in their progress and profits. Also, they stimulate the cohesion of the group in the classroom, through structured group and pair activities. Also, they propose projects that combine the space in the class with the outer world while creating opportunities to use English in the real world. 

2.    Interaction is the communication between individuals. Interaction not only facilitates the development of a second language, but helps to increase the rate of acquisition of the same one. That is to say, the greater the interaction, communicative negotiation and feedback, the greater the level of appropriation. Also, students who interact in pairs or groups produce longer sentences and have greater capacity of negotiating the meaning of them.  This is different from students who listen to a professor passively or only interact with him.

The development of interactive tasks is highly stimulating because it:

·         brings something new for the participant

·        requires the exchange of information

·        involves details

·        is centered on specific problems

·        promotes the conversation and the narrative construction

3.    Grammar in focus implies that grammar forms are assimilated through activities in significant contexts. Teachers concentrate on those points that make it hard for students to include, understand or produce language, and they also help to develop the grammar structures through creative activities. It is assumed then that our program is not dedicated “to teach” grammar but to create communicative situations in which students use the structure based on models, and take advantage of mistakes in a constructive way.

4.    Vocabulary building sets that the acquisition of vocabulary is stronger if it is assumed that it is easier to assimilate and to remember semantic networks than isolate words. Teachers contribute to this process when they promote associations through word families or semantic maps, in whose construction the students also participate.  Also, the creation of reading habits accompanied by the constant use of the dictionary is fundamental in vocabulary appropriation. The class activities include many opportunities to use the new vocabulary by interacting with classmates, and also reinforce it through the use in real life situations outside the classroom.