English is the first foreign language at the iDSP and is taught from the 5th class onwards, in addition to French. The students have four hours English lessons per week in all class levels except for grade 9, where they have three hours a week. Communicative and intercultural skills are encouraged by ensuring that the students themselves become active through dialogues, role playing, presentations, and such like. The different skills in the English tuition (speaking, listening, writing and reading) are consistently developed by using cooperative forms of learning.
At the beginning, everyday life of English teenagers is discussed; in the following years the pupils learn about life at American High schools and then get a first insight into the Australian outback. With increasing knowledge and skills they are introduced to English literature for young people, write travel journals, or analyse advertisements. They also learn to write letters of application in English and prepare for a job interview, which they play through in a simulation.
In the 11th and 12th grade, the students discuss various literary genres and non-fiction texts. Authentic media such as Youtube are used in order to, for example, analyze Barack Obama’s speech on the day after his inauguration. Text analysis plays an essential role in teaching English and is supplemented by the creative use of literature.

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