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[nomad soul]

Teachers fail English in evaluation tests
Mexico News Daily | March 17, 2016
Source: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/teachers-fail-english-in-evaluation-tests/

The Secretary of Education (SEP) forecast last September that Mexico would be a bilingual country within 10 to 20 years, but teacher evaluation results have revealed that fulfilling that forecast will be a challenge.

Education Secretary Aurelio Nuño, speaking during the 99th Assembly of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico this week, said just over half the teachers evaluated last fall failed in English. It was, in fact, the subject that scored the lowest results. According to Nuño, they were a reflection of what education authorities already know: “that the Mexican state has never invested in the teaching of English in a sound manner, with consistency and a clear plan.”

Six years ago the SEP launched the National English Program for Basic Education, intended to make English a second language with instruction starting in the third-year of preschool and continuing through the third year of secondary school, taking in students aged five to 14.

The main challenge was seen in teacher training: certifying professors at teacher training colleges and graduating bilingual students from those colleges. The evaluation results indicate the challenge has not been overcome. Nuño said the education system needs teachers who can not only speak English, but know how to teach it.

One significant implication of a poor knowledge of English among students is that they lose the opportunity to study at some of the world’s best universities. The Education Secretary said that on average 35,000 Mexican students go to the United States each year for post-secondary education. But South Korea, meanwhile, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, sends as many as 60,000. However, the numbers are up for Mexico. Nuño said only 7,000 Mexican students went north in 2012 to continue their studies. But the objective is to see that number closer to 100,000.

(End of article)

[MotherF]

Mexico already is a multilingual country and has always been. If the govery would take the resources dedicated to stamping out the indigenous languages they'd have plenty of money to put towards teacher training.

[MotherF]

http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/teachers-renew-their-protests-over-reforms/

[Rose Cohen]

[MotherF]

The English program for basic (primary) education is just one part of the overall educational reforms.

[Guy Courchesne]

[MotherF]

I keep stampingmy feet and waving my arms around saying trying to add EEnglish in primary without bothering to improve SECONDARIA and BACHILLERATO English teaching is like trying to put out a fire by adding more kindling. But nobody will listen to me.

[Guy Courchesne]

[MotherF]

No. Now students will arrive at university with 12 years of aweful English under their belts rather than six. The problem is that there is no approach in this plan other than "start English younger!" So now they will have 12 years of believing they can't learn English.

The difference between public and private education in this country are much deeper than the number of years students have English instruction.

[BadBeagleBad]

[nomad soul]

I'm curious... Is English teacher education taught in Mexican universities by native English speakers, nonnatives, or a mix? What does that education entail?

[MotherF]

First of all to be teach primary and secondary in the government schools one must, in theory, be a graduate of the teacher's college. In theory, because it is possible to inherit or buy yourself a position without having teacher credentials. Primary is the usual six years and secondary is only three. The second three years of what most countries call secondary is called "middle-higher education" and is not obligatory. Therefore not as regulated and anyone--literally--can apply for those jobs, There is no certification required.

 So at the teacher's colleges for secondary, you can specialize in subjects, but not all thosespecializations are offered everywhere. The one in my city has general ed and phys Ed. At the teacher's colleges professors are in the majority Mexicans. I have heard that some of them in the large urban centers work with the US Embassy and the British Council to temporarily host native speakers. And I once met a teacher who was working outright in one and she's been there three or four years when we met.

 What usually happens at secondaries outside of the major cities is that general teachers are hired, then subjects are divided among them, so who ever has “the best” English gets given English classes to teach. These teachers often show up in our summer training classes. The teachers who actually studied to be English teachers don't usually come.

But at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter what the teacher's level of English is because of the these other factors.

English classes meet three times a week for 45 minutes

English classes—as all classes-- are up to 40 students in a group.

Sometimes for lack of English teachers two smaller classes are put together, I have talked to teachers who had as many as 80 (rare) but more than 40 is not uncommon.

Teachers are assigned a full teaching load 6 to 10 such groups at any given time teachers are teaching about 150 to 600 students—no a good motivation for giving meaningful homework or anything other than multiple choice exams.

They syllabus embarks the whole of English grammar in three years (of 3, 45-minute sessions a week) Books tend to go like this, a unit on continous consisting of, a lesson on the present continuous, a lesson on past continouos, a lesson on future continous, a lesson on present perfect conintous. Each of those lessons lasting ONE CLASS SESSION.




I mentioned about that high school teachers do no have any certification. This thread started because the government realized that was off, and decided to give those teachers exams to see if they actually know the subjects they are teaching. Anyone who is suprised to find that they don't, has probably never talked to them.

I've worked with a large number of high school teachers, mostly from the state of Oaxaca. Some are graduates from English teaching programs at universities and the professors in those programs are a mix of national and foreigners (and natives in each group as there are plenty of nationals who are native speakers like BadBeagleBad and Fredy) But many teachers, like in secondary, become default English teachers because their school doesn't have a “real” English teacher so somebody else has to teach English, either by luck of the draw or the person who knows slightly more. BTW those people usually studied something like Engineering or Communications, as there is not an actualy course of study for “high school teacher”. You study biology and you get a job teaching it, no teacher training. There are now a wide variety of diploma and master's course to get those people some teacher training. UNAM has a great online program in a variety of subjects for such teachers who are all ready in the field.

AND THEY WANT TO ADD SIX MORE YEARS OF THIS! Starting in primary is not the key to this. I know plenty of people who have a good command of a second language they started to learn in their teens. What happened in Mexico? Someone asked why don't our young people speak English, someone said, we start teaching it too late, and government officials said, yes, that's right! But NOTHING is being done to improve English at the secondary level.

 

 

[BadBeagleBad]

I only have one thing to add to Mother F's excellent post. Motivation. Most kids could care less about learning English, other than as a novelty item, that is, being about to count in English, or greet someone in English. I don't think High School is too late to start studying a language, not at all. When I lived in Mexico City I tutored a couple of kids from Miraflores (high end private school) where not one, but two, languages - and a lot of the kids do graduate being bilingual or even trilingual. I had one student whose accent was so good you could not tell he was a non native speaker for the most part. But these kids were motivated - either because their families travelled a lot and/or they were going to study in the US or Canada. Classes are smaller, teachers are better, but the biggest difference I saw was motivation, and even while spending a good number of hours studying languages at school they were still motivated to work with me on Saturdays, rarely ever cancelling a session.

I have had a couple of parents approach me where I live now wanting English classes for their children. I ask to meet with the student, and once I outline my plan for them I never hear from them, without exception. When they see they are going to have to do real work and not just have an hour a week session where I "help" them with their English homework I never hear from them again. No motivation to actually learn a language.

On the flip side of that, I interviewed for a job about 6 or 7 years ago at a small neighborhood private school. I shadowed the English program director for a few days to get a feel for the program and saw some decent English being produced. Every class (of around 25 students, quite a bit smaller than a public school) had a few very motivated students who were motivated to learn. And they had English every day. And the teachers were either native or bilingual speaker who were educated teachers. So some were motivated and for those who were there was a good program in place.

In the vast majority of public schools even IF a student is motivated to learn the materials, class size, and training are most often not there, so even if they want to learn, they probably won't go beyond knowing random words, greetings and a few cuss words.

There are some highly trained Mexican English teachers, but based on what I have seen, very few of them are working in the public sector, most are working either at the university level, or in private schools.

So unless there is meaningful education reform from the bottom up (and I really don't think it will ever happen) English instruction is the least of the problems, actually, it's just one symptom of a fatal disease.

[BadBeagleBad]

The Education Secretary said that on average 35,000 Mexican students go to the United States each year for post-secondary education. But South Korea, meanwhile, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, sends as many as 60,000.

However, the numbers are up for Mexico. Nuño said only 7,000 Mexican students went north in 2012 to continue their studies.>>>>>>

And I also wanted to comment on this. It's really a non-starter as it says nothing about WHAT they went to student and WHO they were. The vast majority of Mexicans that I knew who went abroad to student either did not study education - English or otherwise - so was not germaine to the discussion of improving English instruction. That, and the fact that they are generally upper middle class kids whose plan was to go to the US to study all along, or (and I know of, personally, two people who fit this category) trained teachers who want to get a Masters in Teaching English. Neither of these people are teaching in public education. Not sure why this quote was even included.

Last, but not least, for people who are not familiar with the Mexico Daily News, it is a rag that strives to present Mexico in as negative a light as possible.

[MotherF]