‘Let's Go’: the new socio-educational programme by the UAB

English language proficiency is a competence increasingly required from students when they intend to access post-compulsory education or to enter the labour market. Those students who don’t succeed in gaining such linguistic skills during compulsory education will eventually be facing higher risk of exclusion. The latest tests on basic competences carried out by the Catalan education ministry have produced some evidence that English language is a subject that needs to be improved. Among the 4 main disciplines (Catalan language, Spanish language, mathematics and English language), English language had the worst results performed by the students of Badia del Vallès. The Catalan education ministry considered these results to be under sub-optimal levels. 
 
That is why the UAB, which has an international status and offers degrees with courses in English (Philology, Translation and Interpreting, etc.), has taken one step forward to help the students of Badia, one of its most neighbouring cities. The UAB will be assisting the secondary schools in Badia to make English language learning a priority.
 
How to turn Badia into an ELC
 
'Let’s Go' is the first project developed in Badia del Vallès aimed at turning the city into an English-Learning City (ELC). The project will have a positive impact on the secondary high schools of Badia del Vallès. Thanks to this programme, the teaching staff in Badia will be able to work with new teaching methods. On the other hand, the governing body of the secondary schools will play a prominent role coordinating the programme activities in their school and will ensure proper functioning of such activities. The programme’s ultimate goals are to involve the whole city in the promotion of the English language and to create a network for the social organizations, the secondary schools and the Badia community to work together.
 
To carry out the programme, the Fundació Autònoma Solidària will be assisted by the UAB, the city and secondary schools of Badia del Vallès and the Catalan education ministry. Since the 'Let’s Go' programme will combine research and intervention, the UAB GREIP (Research Group on Plurilingual interaction and Teaching) will collaborate with the programme as well. This initiative is also supported by the UAB Board of Trustees.

'Let’s Go' programme development
 
The 'Let’s Go' programme will be divided in 4 interrelated stages to be implemented over the next four academic years (from year 2016/17 to 2019/20). Every stage will progressively include more entities and more Badia citizens, focusing in the presence of UAB students in the secondary schools of the city as the main stimulating factor.
 
The first stage of the programme will be focused on the English classes at the secondary schools. The students born in 1994 will be assisted during their English classes so that they can reach the optimal linguistic level by the time they graduate from secondary school and have access to higher education afterwards.
 
At the beginning of this academic year, two groups – one for each high school – were formed, consisting of an English teacher, a UAB grant holder student and one more student who will be volunteering. Each team will teach English language to first-year students. The UAB students will serve as support teachers and will give individual attention to secondary school students. For these university students, participating in the programme will be a great chance to get first-hand experience and knowledge about the social situation of teenagers as well as new forms of intervention to complement their university education.
 
Furthermore, in September of this year the teaching staff and the UAB students participating in the programme were provided with specific training by the FAS and the GREIP. Such training helped the participants learn the innovative methods and approaches that they will have to put into practice in the English classes. Besides the initiatory training, there will be other coordinative and communicative procedures to ensure ongoing training.
 
Methodology and assessment
 
The programme methodology is broadly aimed at achieving improvement based on proactive proposals encouraging motivation and personal autonomy.
 
The GREIP group, along with the FAS Coordinating Team, will keep track of the activities and the assistance tasks. Together, they will work on different teaching techniques and will come up with new educational improvements. They will also collect data from every session and some of the sessions will be recorded so that the programme can be properly monitored and results can be assessed later.