Treasure Hunt on Key Competences: a reflection

This piece of work, written at the very beginning of the course, set the tone and really made me reflect on what teaching is all about. I had been involved in the teaching world for nearly fifteen years and been exposed to many styles of teaching, but seemed to have it drilled in to me that teaching at secondary school, and in other types of schools for that matter, involved getting through the course book to make sure students acquired all the necessary grammar that the curriculum required them to learn. I had never come across the term, “competences” and the ideas expressed in this piece of work opened up my eyes as to what the system actually requires teachers to do. Students should be taught the necessary competences, which can be acquired by completing or following a textbook, or not. The requirement to teach students the passive or the third conditional, simply because the curriculum said so, is a complete fallacy. Students need to be taught how to achieve certain tasks and they need to do so actively. Teaching, quite different to the Franco years, involves listening, being adaptable, being motivated and, most importantly, being aware of students` knowledge and needs. I also found the idea of a Treasure as quite novel and motivating.