The nature of the learners

At this level, students are widening their social networks, experiences and communication repertoires in both their first language and Spanish. They continue to need guidance and participate in structured, collaborative tasks that both recycle and extend language. Students are gaining greater independence and becoming more conscious of their peers and social context. They are gaining greater awareness of the world around them, and noticing additional similarities and differences between Spanish language and culture and their own.

Spanish language learning and use

Learners use Spanish with peers and the teacher for a widening range of purposes: exchanging information, expressing ideas and feelings, performing, and responding to experiences and resources from the Spanish-speaking world. Learners’ ability to communicate is developing in terms of fluency, accuracy and complexity. As they draw on a growing range of vocabulary resources and grammatical structures, their pronunciation, intonation and phrasing steadily improve and they use an increasing range of body language, such as hand gestures, used by Spanish speakers. Shared tasks provide a context for purposeful language experience and experimentation. Focused attention on language structures and systems, literacy skills development and exploration of cultural elements of communication are conducted at least in part in Spanish. Learners use digital media and social networks to support their learning in increasingly independent ways, such as exchanging resources and information with one another, with young people of the same age in Spanish-speaking communities, and with students in other settings who are also learning Spanish. In doing this, they may access music and media resources, maintain blogs and web pages, and use online forums.

Oracy development at this level includes active listening to input from different sources (including different varieties of Spanish) and extending conversational and interactional skills. This involves initiating and sustaining conversations, turn-taking, ‘reading’ language for cultural and contextual meaning, building on others’ contributions, making appropriate responses and adjustments, and engaging in debate and discussion. Individual and group oral presentation and performance skills are developed through researching and organising information, and structuring and rehearsing presentations. Literacy development involves more independent interaction with a wider range of texts. Learners draw on their growing grammatical and lexical resources to compose and comprehend more complex language. They use a range of cues and decoding strategies to assist comprehension and to make connections between ideas and language within and between texts. They write more accurately and fluently for a wider range of purposes and audiences.

Contexts of interaction

Learners use Spanish with one another and with the teacher for an increasing range of purposes. They have some access to Spanish speakers and cultural experiences in wider contexts and communities through the use of ICT. At this level, language development and use are typically incorporated into collaborative and interactive tasks, games and learning activities. Learners begin to use more Spanish spontaneously when interacting with one another.

Texts and resources

Learners engage with a growing range of spoken and written texts, including published texts such as readers, songs and computer games, as well as teacher-generated resources such as language games, exercises and presentations. In addition, learners have some access to Spanish language and culture through texts created for young people in Spanish-speaking communities, such as websites, stories, music clips, cartoons and television programs.

Features of Spanish language use

Learners use an increasing range of vocabulary, become more confident in terms of pronunciation and continue to build grammatical and textual knowledge. They apply phonic knowledge to unfamiliar language and notice the relationship between accents and stress or intonation. They use present, past and near future tenses to describe or locate actions. They use comparative forms and apply rules of agreement between subjects and verbs and between nouns and adjectives. They use appropriate verb forms and intonation patterns to exclaim, make a statement or ask a question. They develop a metalanguage to describe patterns, rules and variations in language structures. As they use Spanish to interact in different situations, learners develop an understanding of how language and culture influence each other. They recognise how language reflects cultural values and experiences and how grammatical forms and vocabulary choices affect the meaning that is made. This offers the opportunity for reflection on their own ways of communicating and using language, and also on personal and community identities, stereotypes and perspectives. Learners begin to experience and reflect on the challenges involved in moving between languages and different ways of making meaning.

Level of support

While learners work more independently at this level, ongoing support is incorporated into task activity. Systematic feedback and review assist the interactive process of learning. Support includes provision of models, stimulus materials, scaffolded opportunities for reflection, and resources such as word charts, vocabulary lists, dictionaries and electronic reference materials. Learning tasks and activities take account of both learners’ current level of Spanish capability and their more general cognitive and social levels of development.

The role of English

While the use of Spanish in the classroom increases at this level, the use of English for discussion, reflection and explanation ensures the continued development of learners’ knowledge base and intercultural capability.