On December 2, the first thesis of the high school of language and Spanish Culture (ILCE) of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the academic center was defended at the University of Navarra. Susana Madinabeitia presented a research about teaching and the learning of Spanish as a foreign language language , a language that currently, according to data of high school Cervantes, is studied by about 22 million people.

Directed by Eduardo Negueruela, director of ILCE, Madinabeitia explains that her thesis arose as a response to the need to articulate, in an integral and dynamic way, the social and the cognitive in the processes of teaching, learning and assessment in the classes of Spanish as a foreign language language . "Reflecting on my way of teaching our language to international students at the University of Navarra, I realized that there was a contradiction between my methodology, which favored and stimulated partnership and participation in class, and my way of evaluating, because I measured this learning with a system of assessment that isolates students' independent performances."

After several months of research, Madinabeitia concludes that in order to assess dynamic abilities, such as second language learning language, it is essential to "know and assess the development potential of student, not only its development current ." "To this end, I propose integrating partnership and explicit mediation into the testing process," he explains. Thus, the main novelties that Madinabeitia presents in his work include different examination protocols in a learning context and teaching real; dynamic assessment tools; or procedures to integrate socialization. "I hope that with this study more teachers will rethink their current assessment methods. Having conducted it in a real class context, other teachers may consider it as a feasible proposal ," he assures.

Once she has defended the thesis , she plans to apply the results of her research at the high school de language and Spanish Culture (ILCE): "In the short term deadline, we will work on the dynamization of the test placement of international students who come to study Spanish at the University and, in the future, I would like to design a dynamic certification test ", she concludes.

Susana Madinabeitia holds a degree in Translation and Language Interpreting from the University of Valladolid (2007-2012) and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Navarra (2017-2020). She also holds a Master's Degree from academic staff de Education Secundaria from the University of La Rioja (2017-2018), a Master's Degree in Educational Psychology from Miami University (2016-2017) and a Master's Degree in World Languages and Linguistics from West Virginia University (2012-2014).