An integrated approach to teaching Spanish in British Columbia
Subject
Abstract
The British Columbia (BC) Spanish curriculum was updated in 2018 to align with a broader curriculum revamp that the BC Ministry of Education undertook. The new curriculum includes big ideas, core competencies, curricular competencies, and content. There was an intentional shift away from a focus on content to a focus on skill development. With the updating of the curriculum and the many different teaching approaches that are used in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), I decided to develop a website Integrated Spanish BC to provide Spanish teachers with a summary of second language acquisition literature, as well as an example unit and activities that demonstrate how different language teaching approaches can be integrated and used to deliver the new Spanish curriculum. In order to do this, a review of the literature surrounding four teaching approaches: Communicative Language Teaching, Task-Based Language Teaching, Grammar-Based Instruction, and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling, was undertaken. The website highlights how these approaches could be used together in an integrated approach that aligns well with BC’s new Spanish curriculum.