The Research Group in the Teaching of Languages (GIEL), recognised by the University of Valencia (INV_GIUV13) focuses on the field of the Didactics of Language, especially on written language didactics in multilingual contexts by looking at different aspects of grammar and pragmatics, in first, second and foreign languages (Spanish, Catalan and English).

The group started its trajectory in 1997 with a debate seminar on the various contributions in the language didactics field with the objective of reaching a confluence of criteria in the first and foreign languages work that allows to link theoretical reflection and research of the teaching-learning of written language in the classroom. This seminar, promoted especially by Dr. Manuel García Gómez and Dr. Paulina Ribera, continued with the constitution of an emerging research group, the Ágora group, which developed the project «Teaching of languages and communicative interaction» (ref. GR00-75 and GR2001-101), subsidised by the Valencian Department of Education and Science over the period of 2000-2002, with Dr. García Gómez as main researcher. In this project, taking as reference the sociocultural approaches in education, the foundations of an educational research focused on a linguistic-communicative perspective and on the study of the interaction of the different elements of the education system (teaching-learning-content) were laid.    Simultaneously, the Ágora group was part of the Xarxa theme «L’ensenyament de la llengua en situacions plurilingües» (CIRIT:1997XT00011, of the Generalitat of Catalunya) and organised the «I Congrés internacional sobre ensenyament de llengües i plurilingüisme» (Valencia, 20-22 November 1997).

After this first phase, GIEL focused its work on the written language didactics from the perspective of discourse genres. On the period of 2008-2010, the group carried out two research projects: «Consecucions i dificultats en l’escriptura d’una autobiografia lingüística: Què diuen i com escriuen els estudiants de nivells educatius diferents i en llengües distintes» (ref. UV-AE-08_2442) and «Análisi de l’escriptura d’una autobiografia lingüística i d’un text d’opinió en estudiants de diferents nivells educatius en distintes llengües» (ref. GVA/2009/105), directed by Dr. Mª Dolores García Pastor and a project of teaching innovation “Representations of Teacher Training students on initial language training and its didactics” (subsidised by the European Convergence Office of the University of Valencia, ref. Modalidad B-07/08). The group also called the “I International Congress on Communicative Interaction and Language Teaching” (Valencia, 18-20 September 2008) and sponsored on the same dates the making of the “III Seminar The Classroom as research field of research on teaching and learning of languages”, that consists of researchers of Spanish and foreign universities.

Two types of interests converged in the research projects of this period: the analysis of the students’ representation on languages and their learning (complemented with the innovation project) and the study of writing achievements and difficulties. In order to make both compatible, it was agreed to work on a genre – linguistic autobiographies– that would allow the students to talk about their vital experience in relation to languages and to show their written language proficiency. The second project was contrasted with the writing of opinion essays on conflicts related to multilingual education.

The two studies were conducted at different grades and levels of education (2º and 6º of Primary School, 4º of Secondary and 2º academic year of University) and in different languages (Spanish and Valencian-Catalan as first languages and English as foreign language), with a similar procedure of data collection. A set of instructions for collecting texts written by pupils in the classroom, without prior teaching intervention, was designed and adapted to the different educational levels and languages. 257 texts written by pupils of centres of Valencia were collected in a corpus and in some cases, it was complemented with a recording of how the set of instructions was implemented in the classroom, and with spontaneous interviews of the teachers that were in charge. Once the corpus was set, the analysis was split in the two stated perspectives: language and linguistic learning representation in pupils’ writings, and the writing features that the texts in different languages revealed.  In the second case, the Nvivo programme was used to process the texts of the corpus, especially those from Secondary School in English, Spanish and Valencian-Catalan.

For the analysis of the texts from this second perspective, the next general methodological framework was the analysis of the discourse. The text was taken as the unit of analysis, and three levels were distinguished following the proposal of Conca, Costa, Cuenca & Lluch (2003) and the reflection on grammatical content and writing of Zayas & Rodríguez (1992). These were established as planes of analysis: the contextualisation (observation of the writer’s point of view in terms of inter-subjective relations and position of the speaker in relation to what he/she says), the organisation (structuring of the text in relation to the author’s point of view) and writing (focusing mainly on the mechanisms of linguistic cohesion in the text). On the contextualisation plane, the analysis categories of the pupils on languages were determined, and on the writing plane, the analysis focused on the text’s syntactical articulation and connection, in order to observe the way pupils represented the content, and therefore, their “style of reasoning” Campbell, 1992), i.e. the logical process through which they linked their argumentative intention in the different proposals that constituted their argument with their main affirmation. The work carried out revealed a discrepancy between the positive representations pupils have about languages and the advantages of multilingualism and the poor language proficiency shown in their writings. This aspect indirectly showed the need for an integrated didactics of curricular languages that would respond to the proclaimed advantages of multilingualism in today's society. (2012), Ribera & Costa (2013).

In the period of 2011-2012, the members of GIEL carried out the second joint research, this time with a composition closer to the current. This is the project «Dificultats d’escriptura amb textos argumentatius i explicatius i intervenció didàctica» (UV-INV-AE11-42019), with Dr. Paulina Ribera as main researcher. From the question “How to address learning difficulties in writing in the classroom?”, which adds the teaching perspective, this project seeks to link the writing texts of the pupils with the teaching practice through didactic sequences. The project is thus a further contribution to the search for a teaching device associated with writing projects, one of the basic concerns of the Didactics of the written language.

In its initial design, the project is closely related to the one developed by J. Dolz “Problèmes d’écriture des élèves en difficultés d’apprentissage et pratiques differénciées d’enseignement du text argumentatif” at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) with pupils from 4º of Primary School (Dolz, Gagnon & Toulou, 2008; Dolz, Gagnon & Ribera, 2013; Dolz, Gagnon, Mosquera & Sánchez Abchi (2013). In our case, the general objective pursued was to achieve an articulation between the students' obstacles when writing discursive genres with an expository and argumentative textual basis and an adapted didactic intervention, based on the analysis of the initial texts. As in the previous case, the project was developed in different educational levels (initial writing, Primary School, Secondary and University) and in the different curricular languages (Spanish and Catalan as first languages and English as predominant foreign language), which allowed a work shared by the members of the group.

The objectives of the project focus in studying: a) achievements and obstacles of students in the writing of texts of argumentative and expository base (common difficulties and obstacles specific to the most disadvantaged students); b) the impact of the implementation of DS in classrooms on students' writing by assessing initial and final productions and by analysing the differences between students who are considered the worst and the best; and c) compare the similarities and differences between the languages and the observed educational levels.

The incorporation of the teaching perspective through the didactic sequences design presented the need to consider the educational system at its whole (teacher-students-content), and to organise teaching-learning processes that allowed the writing in the classroom research.

The selected genre discourses were of expository base (data sheet for an exhibition on tales, biography, text for the presentation of an exhibition on women and literature), with the exception of the academic dissertation in which the students would give reasons on the best way to learn languages (4º of the ESO), and the journalistic literary criticism in children's and young people's literature (Teacher Training). We chose genres of expository and argumentative base because of its major presence in social and academic life, its relevance in language teaching and other disciplines, and because of the extensive literature on the topic (Martínez & Rodríguez, 1989, 1995; Sánchez Miguel, 1990, 1993; Camps, 1995; Dolz, 1995; Battaner et al., 1997; Álvarez Angulo, 2001; Milian, 2003; Grupo Didactext, 2005; Ribas & Verdaguer, 2006; Rodríguez Gonzalo, 2012b, among others).

The work on didactic sequences brought together the careers of the two senior researchers in the group: the one from the University of Geneva (Bronckart, 1989, 1999; Bronckart & Schneuwly, 1991; Dolz, Rosat & Schneuwly, 1991; Dolz, 1994; Dolz, Noverraz & Schneuwly, 2001), followed by professor Ribera and the one of the Greal group (Camps, 1994, 2003; Camps & Zayas, 2006; Rodríguez Gonzalo, 2008, 2012a; Milian, 2012), group of which professor Rodríguez Gonzalo is also a member. The Geneva model was basically followed, with some variations in design, implementation and data analysis:

• In the Primary School DS, the content to be written about by the pupils was worked on separately (either in advance or by using the content of a school project). The DS focused fundamentally on the selected genre writing, following the Geneva model, and they were implemented by the classroom teachers, on occasions with the presence and collaboration of Giel researchers. The researchers had access to the initial and final texts (España, Ribera & García Folgado, in press), although in the case of 2º of Primary School, the classroom sessions were followed by an external researcher (Santolària, 2013 and 2014).
• In the DS of 5º of Primary School, the work with first language (Valencian-Spanish) and English was related to the intention to explore the exchanges that could be done between languages since, on this level, the participation of teachers specialising in foreign language was possible to get (Soler, Villacañas & Pich, 2013; España & Soler, 2014).
• In the DS designed for Secondary School (Rodríguez Gonzalo & Garcia Vidal, in press) and for the Teacher Training students (Bea & Rodríguez Gonzalo, 2014), the content was managed from the inside of the DS, i.e., it was a part of it. They were language or literature projects that included genre writing and added the monitoring of the process, since in both cases the teachers-researchers developed the sequence they had designed in the classroom. The interactions of the students in different moments of the DS were recorded in Secondary School and, in the Teacher Training group, the teacher-researcher held revision interviews of the students’ initial texts. As for the writing work in the classroom, in the DS designed for Primary School and University, it was individual work, while in the Secondary School DS, writing was addressed in small groups, so that interactions between students became particularly relevant.

To this design variables, differences in relation to data collection and the analysis procedure must be added. In all of the cases, the students were asked to write an initial text, analysis of which would make it possible to adapt the DS to the main difficulties observed in the texts. This initial text was contrasted to the final texts, written after the didactic intervention, in order to observe the learning and the incidence of the DS in the texts. In the Primary School and University DS, the best and worst texts were selected according to the judgement of the professor or teacher of the classroom, with the objective of comparing the initial difficulties and the advances made before and after the DS. In the Secondary School DS, all of the groups’ texts were analised and contrasted to their initial versions. In the case of the DS for Spanish and English in the second and third cycles of Primary School, the observed transfers from Spanish to English were also analysed.

Without abandoning research into the teaching and learning of written expression, in 2013, GIEL began a new line of work linked to the teaching-learning of reading comprehension from two new projects: one of research («Analysis of practices of novice teachers regarding the reading skills development of students of Primary School Education», ref.  UV-INV-PRECOMP13-115492), directed by Dr. Carmen Rodríguez Gonzalo and the other one of innovation (“The construction of professional knowledge through the evaluation of one's own practice: reading comprehension”, ref. UV-SFPIE_FOI14-222415), directed by Dr. Mª José García Folgado.

In 2014, GIEL held the “I International Congress of Grammar Teaching: present, past and future” (Valencia, 27-28 February 2014), which adresses one of the constants in the work of many of the members of the group, the teaching-learning of grammar from a double perspective: a) as a reflection on language in relation to written language mastery, in both first and foreign languages (focus on form) and with attention to learning tools such as translation and subtitling and b) from a diachronic approach as part of the historiography on language teaching. The second edition of this congress was held in 2016.