How to make the most of the english language assistant in a secondary school. The case of IES Botànic Cavanilles

Abstract

With the view of English as a lingua franca and the increasing number of learners with difficulties interacting in the English language, authorities have introduced foreign language assistants (henceforth FLA) into the English language classroom. As it happened in IES Botànic Cavanilles, this new member of the teaching staff is usually a young native speaker who serves as a linguistic and cultural model for students. However, after having explored the FLA’s role by means of an observation sheet and an analysis of the results obtained from a questionnaire addressed to teachers of the school, it was found out that the FLA pedagogical potential is under-exploited because of two main reasons: i) lack of pedagogical knowledge and ii) a poor organisation and coordination with the English teacher. In order to improve this situation, an intervention was planned: two meetings were arranged as well as the coordination of a Task-based language teaching approach between the teachers and the FLA. Accordingly, the FLA served as a linguistic model in the pre-task and assisted during the main task by using a co-teaching model called Alternative Teaching. After administering a second questionnaire to the four teachers involved in the study, it was found out that the FLA improved in activities design, particularly in aspects such as adaptation to students’ level and the presence of a clear communicative outcome. However, co-teaching was not enhanced as few teachers used it in the classroom. Therefore, in order to approach students’ diversity more appropriately, it is concluded that the FLA should not teach to more than ten groups, the use of co-teaching and coordination meetings is also advisable, especially to provide information about pedagogy and feedback so that FLAs’ activities can improve, and they can make the most of their role.