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The project reported below was carried out in a third year ESO (Obligatory Secondary School) class of twenty one students during a Crèdit d'Ampliació d'Anglès. The main objective of this project was to motivate students of English as a second language to improve their communicative skills while working on issues where they could develop their awareness on citizenship skills and human rights. After deciding through negotiation the theme of the project, it was developed according to the following procedure: the students worked with a reference book written by their teacher which included basic information about accessibility and some "tasks" they had to perform. These tasks ranged from assessing the accessibility to their town, Rubí, in wheelchairs or blindfolded, to checking their school or other public buildings, such as the Town Hall or the Post Office for barriers. The students also had to gather information from different sources: attending lectures, talking to disabled people, visiting associations and libraries, surfing the net, reading books and magazines or watching films. However, being in touch with people with mobility problems in particular, proved to be one of the best ways to become really aware of the needs of the disabled population. At the same time, the students created a story about a disabled girl and her friends at school and wrote about their experiences and feelings in a diary (Lidia's Diary). They also developed a TV programme with the same characters and they wrote the script, acted and recorded the programme in a video (You Are The One). We submitted this project to the "Centre de Recursos de Llengües Estrangeres" (Generalitat de Catalunya) and we received an award ("Borsa d'Estudis") to travel to an English-speaking country. The whole group of students went to Portsmouth (U.K.) for two weeks last June, where they lived a rewarding experience studying in an English language school and carrying out a lot of activities shown in this website, including research work on accessibility. The "technical" conclusions of this project can be found in this website under the heading: "A Comparative Study of the Accessibility to The Towns of Rubí and Portsmouth" and they show the research experience achieved by the students. This project has provided us with a better understanding about the requirements of people with mobility problems, which at the same time has considerably improved the students' competence in the English language. Project work has also proved to be a valid approach to improve the students' knowledge of themselves as individuals and as citizens, concerned with issues arising from their own environment.
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