GOOD BYE LINGUISTICS,... BUT JUST BY NOW..!!

The first semester went away, and gave us a lot of new things, new expectations and new knowledge.

Personally, I want to thank you professor ALBERTO FAJARDO, because thanks to your classes, you allow me to know new things about the linguistics. And for that reason now, I love linguistics and I feel motivated to keep on learning and searching information about it. 

Finally, I appreciate very much, all the knowledge and the opportunity you gave with this blog, to express what we feel and think and to interact and read our partners compositions as well. 

We are now with the end of Linguistics class,  the flame of linguistics burns inside us, but we do not be sad, we must be happy because now it is time for us to take the linguistics flame, and carry it into the world, take the flame of linguistics  let it iluminate the darkness because if wen keep the light burning we can return next semester with a new chapter of Linguistics! 

DYSLEXIA

HAPPY TEACHERS DAY!!

Happy Teacher's Day.. 

God Bless you every day of you life my dear colleagues..!! 

APPLIED LINGUISTICS

Applied Linguistics is an interdisciplinary field in which there are many real life problems of the language, that are studied. Likewise, the applied linguistics are related with many academic aspects such as sociology, education, antrophology, psycology and many others. 

On the other hand, applied linguistics is related as well with the language assesment, the discourse analysis, the contrastive linguistics, the language planning, second language acquisition, language pedagogy, among others. 

According to this we live with the applied linguistics, we can find it anywhere and we use it all the time to fixe problems and solve doubts about the language. For this reason, as foreign languages teachers we must be aware of the importance of knowing about the linguistics because in this way, it possible for us to identify many difficuties in the learning and acquisition of a foreign language and at the same time to find a possible solution. 

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_linguistics.

Brainy Quotes..!!

I'm not a professional politician. I'm a professional problem solver, and I believe we should cut the salaries of senators and congressmen 10 percent until they balance the budget. I call that conservative common sense.
Herman Cain 

I love being a woman and I was not one of these women who rose through professional life by wearing men's clothes or looking masculine. I loved wearing bright colors and being who I am.
Madeleine Albright 

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Khalil Gibran 

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

Robert Frost  

Education is the key to success in life, and teachers make a lasting impact in the lives of their students.
Solomon Ortiz 

Myths about Biligual Children

....Based on  the Bilingual Students and citizens that the Ministry of Educationof Colombia asks for, I would like to share with you a video about some interesting Myths about Bilingual Children that we as Foreign Languages teachers should know...!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVYhpCprtzQ

How can I reconcile the identity of being professional with the realities of ELT in Colombia and my own context?

How can I reconcile the identity of being professional with the realities of ELT in Colombia and my own context?

INTRODUCTION

Colombia is a country with a really conflicting education, this country is worried about schooling  its citizens and about making them bilinguals, but there are many contradictions in the system of the education, starting by the human and physical  resources and the policies of the Ministry of education, because there are many things that the Colombian people should know and be able to do, but unfortunately the system and the methodology of education that are being adopted are not good enough to supply of the education needs that are in all the schools from the country.

For these reasons in the following paragraphs you will find a Literature Review about the realities and policies of Education and ELT in Colombia and a deep reflection about how new education from some private and public schools make us reflect about our situation as professionals in Foreign Language Teaching.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to the agreement that was done in the foro “ Education for Everybody[1] ” in Senegal on April 2000, all the countries that were members of the ONU have to work for the same objectives in education of its boys and girls, starting for the children, everybody needs to be able to read and write, and with a high quality, but what is the real situation? Are all the children and teenagers studying? And the government asks for a high quality of education, but teachers are good enough for this task?

 From my experience, I can say that not all the children and teenagers are studying and the students which are at the schools, they are not receiving a high quality of education, I have seen that most of the teachers are over fifties and they do not love their profession anymore, but they keep on working with the same methodology from 50 years ago without taking into account that our children have grown up in a very different environment, full of technology full of visual knowledge and full of interaction, nevertheless, teachers continue teaching only with a marker and a board, so what kind of education is that?.

On the other hand, since November 2006 the Ministry of education adopted the Common European Framework    of Reference for Language, Learning, Teaching and Assessment as a system of reference for the processes of learning, teaching and evaluating in Colombia. This Framework of reference established some standards of proficiency according to the age and the grade.

Taking into account these categories the Common European Framework[2] divides learners into three broad divisions that can be divided into six levels, Chart 1.

LEVELS OF PROFICIENCY
A	Basic User
A1	Breakthrough or beginner
A2	Waystage or elementary
B	Independent User
B1	Threshold or intermediate
B2	Vantage or upper intermediate
C	Proficient User
C1	Effective Operational Proficiency or advanced
C2	Mastery or proficiency

Chart 1. Information taken from Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia.

According to this divisions the Common European Framework describes what each learner have to be able to read, listen, speak and write at each level, as we can see in chart 2.(check this link for looking at the Chart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages)

So what kind of education is it? The Ministry of education adopts some really high European standards, without taking into account the reality of the English conditions, resources and techniques to teach and learn English which Colombian people count on. Nevertheless the Ministry of education ask for great scores in English and it was able to say and affirm that the Vision (2019)[3] from MEN (2006) it is that everybody must be bilingual by the 2019, must be able to read, write, comprehend and communicate in a foreign language in this case the English, taking into account that in times of globalization and according to the new free trade agreement between Colombia and United states (TLC)[4]  which was signed recently in Colombia, the people must be able speak and understand this language in order to be part of the new social, economic and political relations  with people from USA.

REFLECTION

Nowadays is more and more difficult for us as Foreign Languages Teachers to be teachers and to teach English, first at all because the policies of education as we can see below are really demanding, the standards of education are high, for this reason schools are always looking for high quality of professional of the foreign languages, for that reason to have only a BA is not a good reference, it is important to keep on studying an Specialization a Master and something really important at the present time is to have been out of Colombia in a country of English native speakers, in order to grow up as human beings in charge of the education of thousands of children, teenagers and sometimes adults as well,  but what for?

 Let is start talking about private schools, Why those schools are looking for high qualified professionals? for reference, for fashion, or for real quality, for publicity? Well, me as a teacher who started working in private school in Villa de Leyva and in Tunja, I can say that it is really hard to reconcile my identity as professional according to the realities that the schools offer us as teachers.

In the first place, because I started working Villa de Leyva in a private school, I got only a BA in Foreign Languages, and I always tried to have a high English level, and really good bases and knowledge to teach it, and even without being abroad I got great results with the students, for instance one of my students got one of the highest scores in ICFES on 2009 in Boyacá, so with those results,  my professional life was working for me, I did not have problem I felt I was doing my job in correct way, and I agreed with the policies of the school, my identity was perfectly fine, however, the school was a good one and the administrative were really open minded and flexible, but they did not have audiovisual resources enough, so I  decided to go to Tunja, and work there and have a different experience.

CONTINUE READING IN THE NEXT ENTRY!