Oral Skills in Students of Spanish as a Foreign Language in Norway : a comparative study between two upper-elementary schools in the Oslo area

Since it’s introduction in the education programmes Spanish has become the most popular language to study by upper elementary students in Norwegian schools. Nonetheless, the oral skills acquired by these students after ca 3 years of studies, is very uneven. This essay focuses on the oral skills in Spanish developed in the 10th graders in Norway (which is equivalent to 9th grade in Sweden) after at least 2,5 years of studies in the language. Our purpose is to provide a glimpse inside the Spanish language classroom in two schools in Norway, one located in Oslo and the other in Bærum, and how the teachers encourage the development of these oral skills. Eighty-six students and 4 teachers answered our questionnaire. The results showed that the students’ own perception about their progress in Spanish learning is optimistic and positive, and also that they have a good perception of the activities suggested in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), although these are not often practiced during Spanish class. Regarding the metacognitive practice to choose individual strategies that encourages learning autonomy, the result indicates that the students do not agree with the learning strategies suggested by other studies. We believe that another study must be done to determine if this is the result of unawareness in this subject. Nonetheless our findings indicate that the relationship between the students and their teachers is positive.