Level of knowledge of the students*

Mexican English studies program for basic education establish that at the end of basic education students must reach A2 Waystage Level (180-200 study hours) according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. This means that at the end of secondary school students:

“Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance (e.g. very basic personal and family information, shopping, local geography, employment). Can communicate simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe simple terms aspects of his /her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate needs.”

According to the level of English that the student is supposed to achieve, I focused my research on the study of the second grade at Técnica No. 43 Secondary School.

Let me start by explaining the objectives and knowledge students must reach at the end of First Grade.

The purposes of First Grade are:

X	To acquire basic vocabulary and fixed expressions in order to communicate in English in the foreign language classroom.
½	Become familiar with a variety of oral and written texts (quotidian, academic and literary) and use them for limited purposes.
1/2	Acquire confidence in using a limited range of structures and vocabulary.
X	Develop and rely on some basic strategies in order to compensate for a lack of the language.

* X means a ability that has not been developed. ½ means and ability that has been developed in a medium level.

According to my research, students had not acquired basic classroom vocabulary. I could notice this because when they asked me for basic permissions or they wanted to talk to me about something of the class (such as asking permission to go to the bathroom, asking for help, asking questions, asking to repeat instructions, etc.) they talked to me in Spanish.

Also I noticed that they had not developed strategies in order to compensate their lack of knowledge of the language, because when they were producing their own texts and they didn´t know how to express a sentence or a word they asked me for help.

However I could notice they became familiar with written texts and they probably were comfortable with them, because their attitude showed they knew what they were doing and how to do it. But they were not familiar with oral texts, they seemed to be embarrassed about them and they seem to do not know what to do.

For my research I asked my students first to create their dream house, then they should make a composition describing it, my objective was that they used the new vocabulary of the class, but I did not limit them to the new words. I asked to describe their dream house, so they must have used another kind of vocabulary they know in order to make a clear and complete description.

The vocabulary and grammatical structures I wanted them to use were:

•  
• Furniture Vocabulary
•  There is/ There are
• Prepositions of place

But they could also make use of another kind of knowledge, such as:

Structures students used	Structures students did not used in a correct way
And	Colors
a/an	Prepositions of place
	Verbs in third person (s)
	A/an
	But

The structures I expected them to use were structures they had knowledge of, because they must have learned about them in first grade, but most of them were not applied by the students.

Although I was supposed to teach my students Prepositions of place, this is a topic they should already know, because this is of first grade. However I could notice most of them did not remember it at all.

Some of them used very well the article “a” and the article “an”. Most of them did not include colors in their description. Some of them used verbs without “s” when they were talking in third person. Any of them used “but” in their description.

At the end of the day is very clear that we teachers need to improve the integrative knowledge, this means we should to integrate previous knowledge in every class, because if we do not do this, students are not able to apply everything they know. So if we teachers do not achieve our students can communicate effectively, we are not following the communicative approach and everything we teach them becomes “Forgotten Knowledge” (Perkins, 2003).

Information Sources

David Perkins, Smart Schools. From training memories to educated minds. Barcelona. 2003. Gedisa Ed

 Educación Básica. Secundaria Programas de Estudio 2006. SEP. 2006

Images of the House descriptions

Research*