Este tra b a jo c o rre s p o n d e a la inve stiga ción realizada en e i m arco de ia a dscrip ció n a ia C áted ra P lanificación D id á ctica y Práctica de ia Enseñanza en Inglés IN T R O D U C T IO N If a principle guiding the goals and purposes of the school of the 21st Century were to be chosen, undoubtedly the more accepted one among educators and researchers would be that education has to be directed to help students to learn how to learn. One of the functions o f future education

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... be to prom ote the capacity of students to manage th eir own learning, to adopt a growing autonomy and to have intellectual and social tools that allow them continuous learning throughout th eir lives. In an increasingly open and complex society, there is a growing insistence on the fact that education should be directed to prom ote capacities and competences, not only closed knowledge o r programmed techniques. In this sense, Fernando Savater (1997: 49-50) defending the necessity to develop those competences o r open capacities places the ability to learn at the center of all educational projects. He said: «Pues bien, sin duda la p ro p ia h a b ilid a d de a p re n d e r es una m u y distinguida capacidad a b ie rta , la más necesaria y humana quizá de todas ellas. Y c u a lq u ie r p la n de enseñanza bien diseñado ha de c o n s id e ra r p r io r ita r io este sa be r que nunca acaba y que p o s ib ilita to d o s lo s demás, c e rra d o s o a b ie rto s , sean lo s inm e d ia ta m e n te ú tile s a c o rto p la zo o sean lo s buscadores de una excelencia que nunca se da p o r satisfecha.» Briefly, this new culture of learning is characterized by three essential features: we are in the society of information, of multiple knowledge and of continuous learning. In this society, school is no longer the first source of knowledge fo r the students in many fields. O u r students need no more information -though they may certainly need it-but rather the capacity to organize and to interpret this information, to give it sense. And mainly what they will need as future citizens is the ability to search, to select and to C uadernos de lenguas M o dern as / 155