Seguimiento en el ámbito universitario de los alumnos provenientes del sistema bilingüe secundario

Abstract

This article describes a national research R+D project (research and development) devised by and awarded the first author – its current director at the University of Granada –. This project encompasses a very original and very relevant topic currently – that of bilingüal education – and specifically a follow-up in the university area of those students coming from the Spanish secondary-education bilingual system. The said secondary bilingual education is a fairly recent initiative throughout Spain begun in recent years. The said bilingual system, however, has not yet been submitted to a systematic analysis with these university students. Nor has the progress been tracked of the aforementioned students even after the expenditure of considerable public funding all over Spain. All university students may need more practical and more bilingual contexts as the level of departure must at least be level B2 for languages found in the Common European Framework for Languages (2003).

We propose the tracking and evaluation of students coming into higher education from bilingual secondary schools. The idea of the project is to assess and subsequently keep track of all of these students, plus their level of bilingualism or lack of it. Many Spanish secondary schools began a bilingual system of learning a while ago, and we are even seeing the first of these pupils leaving the system and arriving at university. However, research into their efficiency at university level has still not begun, nor has any special maintenance of their level of bilingualism.  This tracking is what we propose to carry out in the current research project, and describe in the present article.