This paper presents the pedagogical foundations, strategies, difficulties and learning achieved during the implementation of the project (title of the paper) aimed at young people in the tenth and eleventh grades of Hermann Gmeiner School and Gymnasio Campestre school of Ibague. Due to the poor performance on Pruebas Saber and to high attrition in higher education in the department of Tolima, the project in question, conducted by professors at the University of Ibague, between 2011 and 2013, was proposed to raise the entry chances and retention in higher education through the early development of generic skills defined by the Ministry of National Education of Colombia, among which communication in mother language, understood this in the three basic functions of language, communicative, epistemic and social. To this end, we designed and implemented courses geared for the contributions of constructivism and active teaching methods, the results, in terms of learning and development of these competencies, showed the relevance of teaching strategies used