General objective:
To design a space and set of activities for children between 4 and 7 years old to promote the acquisition of the oral competence in English language through a multisensory approach focused on communication.

Specific objectives:
● To find out the stages of the brain development in relation to the learning of English as a foreign language in children between 4 and 7 years old.
● To identify which aspects promote the establishment of meaningful and life-long connections in children between 4 and 7 years old when developing the oral competence in a new language.
●To present linguistic immersion as an effective approach for English learning.
●To determine activities that can enable an authentic learning from a multisensory approach.
●To design activities with a communicative objective that identify English as a communicative tool.

This innovation is thought to be implemented in the state school Salvador Espriu, which is located in the neighbourhood of Morera, in Badalona. The centre has two lines both in infant and primary education. Regarding to English teaching, in infant education students have one hour of class weekly. In these early years all the input is oral, so they work on listening and speaking skills through songs and stories.

On the one hand the objective on the innovation is to foster speaking skills in English lessons and the communicative competence. To achieve it, the school would create a linguistic immersion environment that would be used in some English lessons from the last year of infant education (P5) until the sixth year of primary education.

On the other hand, the innovation has the objective of increasing the oral linguistic input of English that students receive. In order to do it, in infant education students are going to have 3 weekly sessions of English of 30 minutes each. In P5 two of the sessions are going to take place in the linguistic immersion space. Moreover, another strategy to increase the number of hours of English exposure is to introduce CLIL in some subjects like Arts and Crafts and Physical Education.

The innovation proposed is based on some recent English teaching approaches that view language as a tool for communication: Communicative Approach (CA), Natural Approach (NA), Linguistic Immersion and Content and language integrated learning (CLIL). Besides, these approaches consider that the best way of acquiring a new language is by being systematically exposed to target language input and encouraging oral production. Moreover, errors are perceived as part of the acquisition process and as learning opportunities.

On the other hand, this innovation is based on the critical period hypothesis, which stands there are some periods in which the human brain is more receptive to specific learnings, language pronunciation among them. In addition, the innovation takes into account other factors that influence the learning process, for instance multiple intelligences, motivation, learning environment, social interaction and executive control skills.

The school is going to transform a classroom into an English immersion space. The goal of this space is to promote speaking skills and communicative competence.

This space would be decorated with emblematic monuments and cultural items of London (Big Ben, the London Bridge, the London Eye, a telephone cabine, etc). Therefore, each time students enter enter the English immersion space, they would feel they are in an English-speaking country.  In addition, decorations linked to cultural celebrations would be added at specific times of the year such as Christmas, Halloween, Saint Patrick’s Day, Saint Valentine’s day, Thanksgiving, etc.

Regarding the furniture distribution, this classroom would invite students to interact with each other in English. For this reason, there would to be round tables, for students to sit in groups. There would be a reading corner with pillows, a carpet, puppets, pictures of different characters of English literacy (Peter Rabbit, Paddington, Mary Poppins, the Snowman, Peter Pan…) and a library with books for storytelling. All the materials would be placed in a way that are accessible for pupils, to promote their autonomy.

Furthermore, this space would have some rules to motivate students to use the target language and create a positive environment where mistakes are not seen as failures. It is important to respect the students’ rhythm, the intention is to encourage them to produce in the target language without forcing them. One dynamic to motivate students could be to place a jar that is going to be filled with some kind of material that simulates points. At the end of each lesson the teacher would put inside a quantity of points taking into account their English production. Once the jar is full they would to have a surprise. For example, watching a short movie in English, explaining a new story, playing a game, etc.   Each group would have it’s own jar and, to avoid competition between groups, they are going to be placed inside a cupboard. Another dynamic to promote speaking would be the linguistic routines, which could be introduced with songs and ations in early ages.

The aim of the innovation, as it was mentioned before, is to create an immersion space where language is acquired in a natural way through meaningful activities and communicative situations. This space could be used by students of different ages. Consequently, the English teachers of different years would have to coordinate themselves and agree in which materials they are going to use and when. Moreover, it would not have to be used in all the English lessons but it should be used in most of them.