Innovation in Language Learning

Corina Ileana Dumitrescu

Aletheea School Bucharest

Romania

[email protected]

Ligia Sarivan

Institute for Educational Sciences

Romania

[email protected]

In 2013 the Romanian new curriculum for primary education was designed to gradually develop the key competences from the EU Recommendation for lifelong learning. The Institute for Educational Sciences in Bucharest together with partnering organizations have initiated a research aimed at determining the effects of the new curriculum, namely the development of the key competences. We are currently in the stage of piloting the research instruments: achievement tests for students, grids for classroom observation and project work, questionnaires for teachers and school heads, focus group for parents.

Our paper presents a part of the pilot effort that looks into the development of tests that integrate communication in the foreign languages, competences in math, science and technology, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, cultural awareness and expression, learning to learn and digital competence.

So far we have designed and applied two integrated pilot tests. The results show that even at A1 level, students in the Aletheea pilot school, who are at the end of grade 4 or grade 5, can use elementary English in context and solve various problems that are traditionally separated within the school subjects boundaries. There are some negative surprises concerning the use of digital devices and the choice of mimicry when it comes to creative expression. Nevertheless, in terms of an overall performance, the students did very well and managed oral and written comprehension as well as writing in order to successfully solve the items.

The paper will detail the structure of the test, the results and the conclusion of the English pilot.