Abstract:

Learning a new language is possibly one of the most difficult challenges that our students have to face throughout their schooling time, especially because it means to be in contact with a culture and a lifestyle rather different from one’s own, and because it contributes to the acquisition of the basic competences in learning. Thus, it is necessary to remark the need for the students to understand the importance of learning a language, and for their parents to become involved and cooperate with the school.
On the other hand, learning a foreign language involves going beyond the linguistic or even the language in use in communicative contexts. Learning a language rather requires that the students are trained in a more comprehensive outlook, encouraging respect for, interest in and communication with the speakers of that language; and developing intercultural awareness. It is also a tool to understand global issues and to acquire various learning strategies.
The process of learning and teaching a foreign language to adolescents is also a question of attitudes, in so far as it contributes to developing positive receptive attitudes towards other languages and cultures, and at the same time to better understand and value one’s own.
As a consequence, in this paper we will show a proposal of a syllabus of English as a Second Language for Secondary Education, which is designed for students of 14/15 years old. All the communicative skills (reading, writing, speaking and listening) are developed by means of a travel blog: the main characters need to solve various enigmatic questions as they are travelling around the world. This way, our students will develop a travel diary as they try to solve the proposed quizzes and figure out where they are travelling on the next unit. Consequently, this methodology is closely related to being competent in information and communication technologies, since these technologies provide the chance of communicating in real time with any part of the world and of accessing information which can only be found in English, as is our case.
In relation to this, computers and Internet resources (Information and Communication Technologies, ICTs) are becoming increasingly popular for its exclusive advantages: they allow a kind of interaction and the process of learning is individualised, according to the abilities of the student. As it implies an active working, they improve the assimilation of contents and create an autonomous learning.
The results show a positive reaction of our students over ICTs. Thus, all the groups made a substantial progress in acquiring basic competences in English as a second language in a short lapse of time, and the weaker group of students progressed even faster. In our opinion, and according to the feedback received from students, there were many benefits gained from the use of ICTs, in this case, using a travel blog and solving on-line quizzes, so we are now developing new strategies for adapting this methodology for the case of lower and upper-level students.

Keywords:

English as a Second Language, web 2.0.