Skills for Life: ELT and Education

The importance of English in the future of young and not so young Europeans has been central in all discussions on basic skills and competencies and has been one of the main issues in the debate to raise Europe’s productivity, competitiveness and employment.

School curricula have finally incorporated the work done by the OCDE and other international organisations in the identification of key competencies, and teaching programmes are now more cross-curricular than ever. It seems only logical that the teaching of English should try to transcend its language boundaries to the wider field of education with a capital E.

Teachers of English have always been highly specialised, with agendas full of hot topics. A look at the mottos of APAC Conventions is sufficient to see what has been worrying us: ICT, Communication, Tasks, Projects, Motivation, CLIL, Classroom diversity, always closely linked to how language is learnt and how it can best be taught. As teachers of English we have been able to use resources that open windows of imagination for our students, and have an influence on students that teachers of other subjects can seldom have. If English is central in the debate for the future of our young people, our challenge as teachers of English at present is whether we will be able to use that influence and opportunity to go beyond our language niche(s) and consciously contribute to the Education of our students.

APAC’s convention this coming February 2010 includes the confirmed participation of speakers who have not visited us for some time now, such as Mary Slattery, Barbara Seidlhofer, Henry Widdowson, John McRae or Scott Thornbury, and we are about to confirm the participation of regular visitors, local and international. We look forward to listening to interesting sessions and to the usual opportunity for rich exchanges at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra .

See you in February!!!