The final objective of Colegio San Bartolomé is to educate bilingual students. We consider bilingual students to be those who, after being exposed to different approaches to language acquisition and learning throughout their school life, achieve mastery of Spanish and English in such a way that they are able to communicate in both languages, in oral and written form, with a high level of efficiency and proficiency, under different circumstances. At Colegio San Bartolomé, students start being exposed to input in the English language at the early age of 3. The topics developed are always connected with the children´s immediate reality, becoming more complex in the subsequent years of pre-primary schooling.

In Primary, lessons are taught solely in English, and students are fully exposed to the second language four afternoons a week. They are engaged in authentic and meaningful activities using the second language as a real tool for communication.

At the end of Primary School students are enco/uraged and prepared to take the PET (Preliminary English Test) administered by the University of Cambridge.

Throughout Secondary, contents are developed in an increasingly complex manner, and are built upon subsequently. Students´ formal instruction of the language is enriched by subject matter teaching in English through subjects like Art, Geography, History and Literature. As a way of accrediting the different levels of linguistic competence accomplished, students sit for internationally-recognised exams administered by Cambridge ESOL. Along the years of Secondary, students achieve new and higher levels of linguistic competence-Level B2 F.C.E. (First Certificate Exam), Level C1 C.A.E. (Certificate in Advanced English) and Level C2 C.P.E. (Certificate of Proficiency in English). Some of them also choose to sit B.E.C. Vantage (Business English Certificate Vantage). Students take these exams throughout the years, at the pace their own learning rhythms and achievements allow. Learning the language at this stage continues being conceived not only as mastering the linguistic code of the target language, but also as involving an understanding of discourse competence, social contexts, roles of participants and the functions of different kinds of interaction. All these possibilities that Colegio San Bartolomé provides for its students account for the profile of the graduate student being regarded as that of a «bilingual student».