Biblioteca Comillas. Educación (English)

Bilingualism is nowadays a global reality. In Spain, over a million and a half Primary School students follow a bilingual curriculum, which has brought about a change of paradigm with regard to the teaching of English as a foreign language. In fact, alongside and as a result of the MEC-British Council bilingual project of 1996, different parallel initiatives have arisen over the years which have consolidated the gradual implementation of bilingual English-Spanish teaching, as well as the teaching of certain academic content in English through the CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach. In view of this reality, this work sheds light on the main linguistic phenomena which require our attention in bilingual educational contexts where there is strong between-language competition. Among them, it is worth highlighting the acquisition of foreign languages and second languages, the cognitive and metacognitive processes present in the bilingual brain, multilingualism, interference and reverse transfer, fossilisation and language attrition. All this knowledge will enable bilingual educators to adapt their teaching strategies to achieve a correct use of English and Spanish, as well as to maximise the acquisition of content in both languages, especially in contexts where the L1 and the L2 are used interchangeably.

This text presents an explanatory synthesis of the main competence tools needed to create a written message in its different forms or models, while at the same time indicates not only correct linguistic patterns, but also the main mistakes made in writing, which have to be avoided for a precise essay. Outlines and mind maps are presented together with theoretical concepts, to try to sum up, as a graphic synthesis, the main steps to achieve correct communication in the writing process. Writing is not a survival tool, but a social value, especially in university and business worlds. More and more, graduates are asked for good writing skills, not only for their job interviews, but also for their future professional careers.