Promoting communicative competencies on primary schoolers through English clubs as extracurricular activities at a public school

Abstract

This implementation aimed to establish an English club as an extracurricular activity at the Jazmín IED school. The objective was to improve the communicative competencies of primary school students, emphasizing oral expression and comprehension skills. Given the fundamental role of the school in language acquisition and the low level of communicative competence detected in the students, as well as the need for adequate training, the club offers a dynamic space for language participation. The use of various resources, such as stories, comics, videos and songs in English, allowed the students to develop a greater connection and engagement with the course content, thus encouraging linguistic and cultural exploration. Previous studies on this topic show positive aspects of this type of space for students, where communicative competencies and foreign language skills are enhanced. This implementation is guided by a socio-constructivist approach to learning, which emphasizes student autonomy, reflective thinking, problem solving, and collaborative learning. The instruments used to evidence progress are class observations, field notes and artifacts subject to the activities and projects to be developed. Students were expected to improve their communicative skills while finding the class engaging and entertaining, fostering authentic enthusiasm for learning English.