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AGoodStory
Joined: 26 Feb 2010 Posts: 738
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Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2017 6:23 pm Post subject: Teacher Training for Deportees |
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Is this program gaining any traction?
Deportees back in Mexico offered free training to become English teachers
(REUTERS)
MEXICO CITY – A progressive initiative in Mexico City is giving U.S. deportees the opportunity to obtain English language and teaching qualifications, in an effort to help them rebuild their lives following ejection from their American homes.
An entirely free program, the joint effort between the city’s government and citizens’ council, offers a four to six week teacher training course, culminating in an official TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) exam, after which successful candidates will be qualified to teach in Mexican schools.
“We have a massive influx of deportees to this country, a pool of talent that is almost entirely ignored by the Mexican authorities,” said Luis Wertman, the president of the Mexico City Citizens’ Council, which brought the idea to fruition. “Yet we have a deficit of over 80,000 qualified English teachers in Mexico, and these people are perfect candidates to fill posts we desperately need."
The program’s first course begins on Saturday, and although it has capacity for 100 trainee teachers, so far only 25 spaces on the class have been filled. The Citizens’ Council has been spreading the word of its strategy through advice kiosks at the city’s airport and four major bus terminals, as well as its citizens’ hotline, but has struggled to convince potential candidates of its benefits.
“It seems to be a win-win situation and we are trying to get the word out,” said Wertman, “but unfortunately deportees are not a community who are very trusting of the government.”
Mexico City currently receives three flights of deportees from the United States a week, an average of 350 arrivals, 10 percent of whom choose to remain in the capital. Those who make up this 10 percent are generally young men to whom Mexico is a foreign country, with little cultural or family connections having been taken to the U.S. as young children. Finding themselves alone, without official documentation and spurned by the city’s residents, many end up homeless.
“The deportees live extremely difficult lives,” said Marco Castillo, the founder of IIPSOCULTA, a humanitarian organization that works, among many other projects, to improve the lives of U.S. deportees in Mexico.
“This city is very intense, competitive, angry and expensive. For someone who has been through the psychological stress of deportation from a country they call home, it can be too much.”
Jesus Navarro left his home state of Nayarit with his parents at the age of three, and grew up in California. After being deported two years ago, he said his arrival in Mexico City was a very difficult time.
“I barely spoke Spanish, and no one here was interested in knowing a chicano (a slang term for Mexican-Americans),” he told Fox News outside the Teletech call center in downtown Mexico City, where he and many other deportees have found work. “I was torn away from my family and friends, it was a very depressing time.”
Tomas Perez, who grew up in Chicago, had a similar experience when he was deported 12 years ago. Now a butcher in a quiet neighborhood of the capital, he said this new program for deportees would have been welcome when he first arrived.
“I had no papers, no one would even give me a job sweeping a floor,” he told Fox News. “It’s good that this initiative will help deportees, but it’s not much good to me. After so long living here I’ve completely lost my English.”
While many deportees find work in call centers where their English fluency can be put to use, the pay is rarely more than the $4.30 daily minimum wage, as employers take advantage of the deportees’ legal limbo status.
Wertman said the English teacher training program aims to show respect to its candidates, and offer them an opportunity at building a sense of self-esteem that is rarely afforded to deportees.
“We refer to them as Returning Mexicans, not deportees, as we want them to think of themselves as belonging to this country,” he told Fox News. “Not only do we aim to train a new generation of English teachers who can benefit Mexican society, but we will offer our participants all the legal help they need to get their Mexican paperwork in order.”
Despite his optimism, the Citizens’ Council president nevertheless feels concerned about the threats of mass deportation by the Trump administration.
“So far we haven’t seen an increase in deportees arriving in Mexico City,” he said, “but we are employing a popular Mexican saying: we are prepared for the worst, but hoping for the best.”
As the news spreads of the government initiative, the Citizens’ Council hopes to include the deportees in the future.
“As a society we feel to a certain extent that we have failed these Returning Mexicans,” he told Fox News. “They left this country to seek a life elsewhere for a reason, and when they return they can feel rejected and without identity or value.
“But solidarity is a Mexican value,” he said with a benevolent smile, “and we have to extend that to all members of our society.”
Alasdair Baverstock is a freelance writer based in Mexico.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/03/08/deportees-back-in-mexico-offered-free-training-to-become-english-teachers.html
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
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Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:37 pm Post subject: |
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I'm watching this closely...I have strong ties to the Dreamer community in Mexico and have been hoping something like this would happen.
This is the right hand of the government's efforts. The left hand is to steer them towards public education where a major pay increase is in the works for public school English teachers. |
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MotherF
Joined: 07 Jun 2010 Posts: 1450 Location: 17�48'N 97�46'W
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Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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I've also been following this closely. It's a very explosive topic in the Facebook groups for English teachers in Mexico, which are mostly made up of Mexican teachers.
I'm not sure you have been following quite closely enough Guy in terms of the pay increase. The 21,000 pesos a month positions are for teachers to teach at the teacher's colleges. The plan is to make English a required subject at the Normales as of this fall and in 5 years ALL the graduates of the theses schools will have a B2 level of English, and the regular classroom teachers in primarias will also teach English. Therefore--NO pay increase for public primary teachers, additional work for public primary teachers, and a lot of current add on English teachers out of jobs (jobs which are miserably paid anyway and often pay is delayed for months).
Anyone reading this forum, can probably see the massive hole in this plan. If just putting a qualified teacher into a higher education institution was enough for 100% of the students to learn and met the requirements, well, the world would be a very different place than it is today!
https://www.gob.mx/sep/prensa/comunicado-194-iniciara-en-agosto-el-proceso-de-seleccion-de-maestros-de-ingles-para-normales-nuno-mayer |
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Samantha
Joined: 25 Oct 2003 Posts: 2038 Location: Mexican Riviera
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Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2017 5:53 am Post subject: |
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I hadn't heard of this program and am also interested in how it works out. Many returnees have arrived in our city because it's a tourist area and they can use their perfect English working with foreign visitors during the peak season. For the most part, English teaching jobs are filled with local Mexican teachers so steady work for foreigners is tough either way.
I solved the work situation by offering private lessons combined with a job online (in social media). Best of both worlds and one paycheck is always on time! Surprisingly, many of my global coworkers are from right here in Mexico (both nationals and foreigners). So, anything is possible under the right circumstances and I hope everything works out for the returnees. |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
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Jultime
Joined: 25 Jun 2014 Posts: 113 Location: Mexico
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Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2017 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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The Dreamers here in Guzman are making more money driving GoCab than they would be teaching English. I know one of my drivers made over 2,000 pesos in one day driving GoCab. Sure beats the offer of 90 pesos per hour I received to teach English at CURSUR (through another company). Jeez, I make more than 90 at the crap school where I'm teaching now. |
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Guy Courchesne
Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City
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nomad soul
Joined: 31 Jan 2010 Posts: 11454 Location: The real world
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Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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What happens to Mexicans returned from US?
BBC | 1 November 2017
(Excerpt)
Starting a new life in Mexico has been harder than expected for Reyna del Rio, a 29 year old who spent most of her childhood in South Carolina before returning to Mexico. Like many returning bilingual Mexicans, she was able to get a job at a call centre. But the long hours and angry customers started to take a toll on her.
SEP, a new initiative by Mexico's public education ministry, could be her ticket to a stable career. "If you work at a call centre you do things repeatedly. I don't see it as enjoying my job," said del Rio. "I would like to teach and learn new skills. I would like to pass on what I've learned because I think it will fulfil me more than just doing customer service."
She is part of a group of young deportees and voluntary returnees who are in the process of applying for English teaching positions through SEP. It's a project trying to make the most of their English language skills. For more than 600 new teaching jobs, the education ministry adapted the application process to encourage repatriated Mexicans. There were changes to make the positions more accessible to returnees, who often face bureaucratic roadblocks related to their time outside of Mexico.
The goal is twofold: to provide employment for young deportees and help Mexico reach its goal of being bilingual in 20 years. "We made that clause flexible particularly for repatriated Mexicans because the idea is that no one who might have the possibility of being an English teacher should be left without the chance of doing so," said Mario Chavez Campos at SEP.
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See http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41739937 for the entire article. |
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bdbarnett1
Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 178 Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2017 1:43 am Post subject: |
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Any update on this? |
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MotherF
Joined: 07 Jun 2010 Posts: 1450 Location: 17�48'N 97�46'W
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Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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I know several people going through the process. First they had to submit an extensive online portfolio in a system that kept crashing. Those who met the requirements and did not have a recent C1 evaluation had to take the CAE, the first I think 1000 people to submit the documentation except for a CAE got to take the CAE for free. Now those who were successfull will be taking a TKT in January (if they don't already have a TKT that is) I'm starting to think Cambridge ESOL had something to do with this scheme.... |
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bdbarnett1
Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 178 Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 1:45 am Post subject: |
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Sounds frustrating. Is there a website for this program? How might one apply to be a trainer? |
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MotherF
Joined: 07 Jun 2010 Posts: 1450 Location: 17�48'N 97�46'W
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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bdbarnett1 wrote: |
Sounds frustrating. Is there a website for this program? How might one apply to be a trainer? |
The whole process is to be the trainers! |
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bdbarnett1
Joined: 27 Apr 2003 Posts: 178 Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
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Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 5:45 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, sorry, thought that was for the deportees to sign up. Thanks! |
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