Abstract:

The process started with Bologna Declaration led educational trends towards the renovation and adaptation of studies. Therefore, Curriculum was mainly designed in order to enable students to become autonomous learners through the acquisition of learning competences, and also to allow students to play a more active role in their learning process. In this sense, and taking into account the special regime in which Musical studies are included as part of the Higher Arts Education curriculum, a dual-focused educational context could be proven beneficial, that is, teaching a foreign language integrating contents from an specific teaching area. Thus, teaching and learning would have to update not only its teaching methodology but also its evaluation system, its curriculum and its contents, so as to allow students to benefit from practice periods in which they could enjoy mobility among other Superior Schools of Music in Spain, or even follow studies in other European Music Colleges. Furthermore, students should become independent users of at least one European language other than the ones learnt within their schooling period (primary and secondary education), promoting in this sense lifelong learning skills. However teaching in most educational contexts has to be adapted to local conditions such as educational system, school and personnel resources, social acceptance, learners’ profile and needs, etc. As many Valencian Tertiary level studies that have adapted their studies to European Standards on Education, Superior Music Studies have included the learning of foreign languages (specially English) so as to enable students to communicate in contexts related to their future profession and music career.

The main aim of this work is to explore the possibility of using an active methodology and innovative classroom procedures to develop not only the linguistic competence, but also how to communicative effectively in specific contexts related to their areas of study. We intended to let first and second grade students of Superior Music Studies, experience active teaching-learning classroom procedures by means of the content subject “Applied Language I” and “Applied Language II”. According to its curriculum, the subject has a double requirement, the learning of general English and also the learning of English for specific musical contexts as part of their lifelong learning. This content subject is compulsory in the first two courses and it is taught throughout as an annual subject. Students attend to an hour and a half session once a week, and are assessed in January and May in terms of language proficiency. In our case, data was taken during the first course term. Students did a diagnosis written and oral task which helped us establish initial level according to CEFRL criteria on language proficiency; and then, we assessed the experience outcomes mainly through their communicative competence, by means of oral presentations related to their area of expertise using English as a medium of instruction, and a language test to check on linguistic competence progress. This experience intends somehow to prove how beneficial could be at a tertiary level to learn a foreign language according to students’ perception on learning specific content, its outcomes in terms of learning independently on their studying habits or predisposition to learn, and how students could make use of the different strategies as a tool for passing it on at the same time.

Keywords:

Active methodology, learning competences, music studies.