ELT in State Primary Schools in Santa Fe. My panel presentation.

Hi!
Since my presentation does not appear in the FAAPI Conference proceedings, here I include what I've said so as to share it with you all.
Feel free to add your comments.


 When we think of any national law, we immediately understand that it applies to all citizens in the country. They set standards to be followed by all the States. Both the Federal Law of Education N° 24.195 from 1993 and the National Law of Education N° 26.206, enacted in 2008, state that children in our nation should be granted equal opportunities to receive education which will enable them to participate actively in the construction of our nation. This implies that, no matter where they are born, all Argentine children should be taught the same contents in similar ways.

Nevertheless, while the national laws propose to implement the teaching of foreign languages since the age of 6 (i.e. since the 1st grade in primary school), the Santa Fe State Law N° 11.531 from 1997 establishes the age of 11 as the starting point for the teaching of foreign languages. Students in state schools in Santa Fe receive EFL lessons for the first time in the 7th grade.

Even though there are different theoretical stances as regards the ideal age to start learning a foreign language, anyone well acquainted with SLA theories would say that children profit better from early instruction start.

Here we have the first situation of inequality I want to highlight.

The statistics facilitated by the Santa Fe government show that this first situation of inequality is not the only one.

 (fig.1)

If we look at the figures on the slide (fig.1), we immediately notice that not all primary schools have EFL in their curriculum. It is evident in the pie chart that only 32% of state primary schools teach English. This leaves 68% out of system proposed by the national government.

This is a second instance of imbalance. If we compare figures corresponding to state primary schools and the ones that show the situation of private primary schools we see that the gap becomes bigger. Even though we can appreciate that there is also a gap between schools which include English in their curriculum and those which don’t, we can also see that disparity is less relevant. 46% of private primary schools teach English.

Moreover, the amount of instruction, in terms of teaching time, that students receive is also different. Many private schools (especially the most expensive ones) include intensive EFL teaching programmes as part of their educational offer. This implies at least three clock hours of English teaching a week, usually starting in the first grade. This contrasts sharply with the 80-minute-a week lessons starting in the 7th grade offered by state primary schools.

There are also private primary schools which don’t offer the teaching of English in their curricula. Most of them belong into the group of schools built by religious communities in underpriviledged neighbourhoods, which are meant to compensate the lack of state presence in these neglected areas.

The fact that these figures have been provided by the government implies that people at the Ministry of Education should be well aware of the situation.

 (fig.2)

But differences don’t end here. The map (fig.2) which shows the different educational regions in the province makes the imbalance even more evident. The opportunities students are given differ dramatically from one region to another.

This state of affairs places people with limited resources in a position of inequity which should be reversed. It is evident that children’s chances of success largely depend on whether their parents are well off. Families who can afford it, either send their children to private schools where they are taught EFL, or they enroll their kids in private language schools.

Parents are well aware of this state of affairs. Families with good levels of education, even though they might be undergoing economic difficulties, are ready to compensate these differences in opportunities by hiring English teachers at their own cost. These teachers will teach EFL in extra-hour workshops for children, implemented in schools by parents’ associations.

We might all agree that it is the government’s duty to bridge the gap. But until that happens, we teachers working at Teacher Education Programmes, should try to find some possible courses of action.

First of all, we need to help teacher trainees to trust that change is possible. Not only this, but also that they can, and should, get actively involved in this process of change. They need to become aware of the potential they have to work for the improvement of education conditions in our country.

A second, but my no means less important aim, should be to enable teacher trainees to make use of strategies which can compensate for differences in teaching contexts. This, in turn, will help them to adapt their procedures to the classes they have to teach. As I have already stated, there are many instances of non-formal teaching implemented at schools.

I know that this is easier said than done. This is why I’m ready to share what we are doing at the Brown Teacher Education Programme in this respect:

In the different Teaching workshops, we gradually help teacher trainees to get in contact with the reality in which they will be immersed once they start their professional career.

Teacher trainees visit private EFL teaching institutes, non-governmental organizations, and private and state schools. They can, thus, observe formal and informal teaching situations. The idea is to help them become familiar with the panoply of contexts in which they will possibly teach and to value the use in-service teachers make of the limited resources they count with.

We also help our teacher trainees to reconstruct their personal learning biographies and to start creating their teaching biographies.

Once back in their classrooms, teacher trainees discuss the different teaching situations and share ideas and experiences. These meetings aim at helping teachers-to-be to develop a repertoire of strategies that will help them decide on possible courses of action when they have to confront situations which might be similar to the ones described.

We, teachers in charge of educating future educators, need to help future professional teachers to become aware of three things:

1) Anyone, if not mentally impaired, can become a fully effective learner.

2) People’s cognitive structures are infinitely modifiable.

3) We need and are able to prepare learners to learn independently and cooperatively.

These three aims can be achieved if we provide appropriate mediation. Of course I have to acknowledge authorship to these assertions. Feuerstein developed a whole theory on these principles when he tested his proposal by helping people to overcome the psychological problems derived from the Second World War.

As Williams and Burden (1997) assert when they try to explain Feuerstein’s theory, educators need to become aware of the distinction between the instructional-methodological aspect of teacher behavior and the interpersonal aspect. The former involves the selection of contents, materials, methods, strategies and forms of assessment. The latter, which I personally consider more important because of its social and emotional essence, concerns the creation and maintenance of a positive and warm classroom atmosphere conducive to learning.

I’ll close my presentation quoting Feuerstein once more:

“Hope reflects the fundamental belief that there is the possibility to bring about significant change, which in turns leads to a more optimistic future.” Reuven Feuerstein