Proyecto Habla - Talk Spanish Project

The Talk Spanish Project (Proyecto Habla), designed and coordinated by Dr Penelope Johnson and Dr Lara Escudero-Baztan, is a joint initiative involving Seaham High School, Durham University's School of Modern Languages and Cultures, and the Peerz Academy.

Seaham High School is a secondary school in County Durham, providing education for 950 students aged 11-16. Seaham is situated on the north-east coast of County Durham and over 70% of its families would be considered to come from deprived backgrounds. In recent years, Seaham High School has received national recognition for its work, including the Outstanding Progress Award and the Creative School of the Year award.

The school introduced Spanish into its curriculum in September 2017 and has been keen to promote the study of the language to all its students. The priority has been to increase student confidence and fluency in spoken Spanish as well as enhance their understanding of and interest in Hispanic culture.

To achieve these aims, Seaham High School partnered up with Durham University, whose School of Modern Languages and Cultures has in recent years been consistently ranked 2nd in the UK for Hispanic Studies, and the Peerz Academy, a secure online learning platform that allows verified mentors (in this case student volunteers) to deliver lesson content created by expert teachers (Durham academic staff).

The project was piloted in the academic year 2018/19, during which eight Durham University students paired up with eight Year 10 pupils doing GCSE Spanish and delivered planned lessons in Spanish to them on a weekly basis via the online platform.

The impact of this work went far beyond improving the GCSE results of the individual pupils involved in the pilot. Even more significant has been the remarkable interest that other pupils at Seaham High School took in Spanish language and culture, as is evident in the tremendous increase in the updatake of the language the following school year. The numbers speak for themselves: while all eight students who were involved in the pilot continued with Spanish in Year 11, the next Year 10 intake rose nearly eightfold to 60 pupils, while the Year 9 intake was even higher, with 75 pupils opting to start learning Spanish.

Moreover, a number of Durham students who took part in the project in 2018-19 went on, after graduating, to teach Spanish online in a new business venture - ESpeak - founded by one of them, Shandon Williams. In Shandon's words:

"The Talk Spanish Project is a great initiative that I really enjoyed taking part in. It was very fulfilling to contribute to my student's Spanish learning as I know that access to Spanish speakers is such a crucial part of learning the language. Often students at disadvantaged schools don't get this access which means they fall behind, so I'm very happy to have been able to use my experience learning Spanish to bridge this gap! My experience with the initiative has also positively influenced how I now run my own Spanish teaching company."

In 2019/20, due to the fact that the Peerz Academy online platform was in the process being updated, Durham University student volunteers went to the Seaham High School in person to deliver the lessons to pupils in years 7-10. Given the significant increase in the number of pupils enrolled in the programme, the volunteer tutors worked on a carousel basis, spending c. 20 minutes with a group of 4-6 pupils, working with up to 6 such groups in a single day. The focus of the work was on helping pupils with spoken language. Activities included describing a photocard, role play, and general conversation practice around set themes.

Year 7s had their first opportunity to talk with another Spanish speaker rather than just their class teacher. Their reaction and response time on everyday conversational Spanish questions increased as a result.

Year 8s worked on topic-based questioning. Their engagement in all speaking and listening tasks was huge and students enjoyed taking part in the project as it differed to normal classwork.

Year 9s had time to discuss grammar, tenses and how to improve their spoken Spanish. They felt highly supported by their university mentor.

Year 10s' exam technique in preparation for the Speaking part of the GCSE exam was supported strongly by the 1:1 and the group speaking sessions. All students' performance increased in the February mock exams.

The Head of Spanish at Seaham commented that he had seen a notable improvement in the pupils’ pronunciation, spontaneous speaking and overall confidence and that the schoolchildren felt 'more engaged' and 'looked forward to their Monday Spanish sessions'. From the pupils' own perspective, the most important effect was that the experience significantly raised their confidence in spoken Spanish.

The second-year Durham University students who acted project as mentors (Daniel Barnes, Amy Cohen, Daniel Craven and Rebecca Hanks) commented that their experience of tutoring the schoolchildren at Seaham was highly rewarding and opened their eyes to future career paths in teaching as well as other types of jobs or volunteering.

See Talk Spanish Project report 2019/20 (.pdf), which includes more detailed feedback received from Seaham High School, the schoolchildren, and the student mentors.

For further information contact: penelope.johnson@durham.ac.uk