Academic Spanish to learn in the disciplines

implementation of an institutional program for the development of communicative competence in higher education

Abstract

The Communicative Efficacy Program (ECO) is implemented at Universidad del Norte (Barranquilla, Colombia) in order to develop the communicative competence of all students. The program includes two basic academic Spanish courses, a cross faculty professional development plan for supporting content-area teachers, extracurricular activities, and the development of educational content on academic Spanish for the digital domain. The program is rooted on the Genre Theory developed by the Sydney School. A basic analysis of the current state of the program, considering an adapted version of Kirkpatrick levels of assessment indicates a significant impact on students and teachers, and enables long term perspectives of the program sustainability. The linkage between practice and a solid theoretical foundation framed on Systemic Functional Linguistics, the vigotskian sociocultural approach to learning, and a teacher development plan based on reflection constitutes the main factor for the development of the program.