Welcome to this page which will lead you to our school’s Bilingual Section Project in English, which was submitted and accepted in the last academic year (2007/8). From the moment in which our school expressed its wish to the local Education Authority to join this project, we knew the experience would be simultaneously interesting and challenging.

Throughout this academic year, called “year 0” a large number of people (English speaking language assistants and teachers from various teaching areas) are thrilled to be working on establishing the foundations for building a successful Bilingual section. The level of involvement of our teachers’ board in this school to reach those objectives is extremely encouraging and no one can deny that a great effort is being made.

Listed below are some of the most important advantages derived from the implementation of our Bilingual Project:

General advantages for the centre:

• The fact of incorporating bilingual education into a public school provides a seal of quality for the language teaching/learning and for the school itself. This would be another recognition that would be added to IES Maimónides’ already excellent reputation.
• New pedagogical methods are introduced in the classroom that lead to a more integrated and innovative education, which complement the existing methods.
• The Bilingual centres are equipped with new necessary digital technology.
• The project is adapted to our centre’s pedagogical idiosyncrasies and autonomy and agreed upon by we who make up this educational entity.
• Language assistants or lecturers, who are a corner stone in our centre, are working to help elaborate materials and develop oral competence in the classroom.

Advantages for our students:

• The knowledge of languages constitutes an essential element of personal and professional development. Possessing the necessary competence for communicating in an interactive, multilingual and multicultural Europe is one of the keys for professional success.
• Our bilingual students will possess that distinction in their annotated transcripts.
• Additional points that directly benefit the students when they apply for scholarships for studying abroad which are provided by the Junta de Andalucía (Languages and Youth, trips abroad, in general with an education purpose). Although we already enjoy a certain advantage because of being at once a recognised centre in the Compensatory Plan, the score obtained for being a participant in a bilingual project is just as significant. This advantage has positive repercussions for the entire student body.
• Among other activities, students will be involved in a series of educational projects whose objectives are establishing links with other foreign centres.
• Curriculum specific and didactic materials will be elaborated for use in a bilingual classroom.

Advantages for the teachers:

• Although the teachers from different disciplines must adhere to the dictates of specific pedagogical development plans, the chance to teach in a bilingual classroom has its professional rewards when the educators experience a new methodological scheme in which they must consider different ways of working in the classroom and, in the end, having confronted a challenge, which, in the majority of cases, amounts to a revitalizing and gratifying experience.

Antonia Pinilla Peinado
BILINGUAL PROJECT COORDINATOR