CAPITAL LETTER 2: EDITORIAL
Publicado en Capital Letter No. 2
Octubre de 2002
From September 12th to 14th of the current year, at The National University, the annual ELT conference was took place. This event has a great importance for all of us who, in some way, are involved either in learning or teaching English.
Over those three days foreign as well as Colombian teachers got together in order to share their personal experiences in the English teaching field with a general purpose: "Professional development". The meeting allowed participants to know about the latest researches related to the issue made by some universities around the world, Colombian ones included, and how the teachers have been looking for new learning strategies.
We must know that teaching English faces lots of problems, even more so in a country like ours, most of them because of the environment: public-private schools, universities, crowded classes, etc. But one of the more generalized worries, which was emphasized during the conference, is the lack of student's investigative and critical stand. In general, teaching in our country lacks this, that is, the students are not using the knowledge learnt to solve every day troubles and thus complex ones.
Nowadays, teaching is recognized as an interactive and communicative process within which the teacher and student establish an information chain. The teacher gives the bases and the student takes them and has to contrast them with his reality. Finally s/he should transform the knowledge to provide appropriate answers.
In this way, participation of both, the teacher and the student, is essential to keep the process going. But participation will be guaranteed by motivation. Teaching and learning a foreign language implies extra work for the teacher as well as for the student. This means that motivation has to be in a higher point. The teacher should maintain the student's interest to a degree that it will not be difficult for him to study in depth by himself, which is fundamental if one wants to acquire a good level.
If the teacher is not able to motivate his students he will lose her/his students' trust and therefore their interest to keep on learning. As a result the student will not be able to analyze and to give answers. Language being essentially a communication channel, it is so overwhelming that a person cannot be prepared to react to any message by giving own opinions without firm bases.
There is a stereotype about the non-native teachers because of the belief that all the best ones come from abroad. Such a stereotype will be broken by enhancing our critical spirit and by creating spaces to participate, either inside or outside the class. The lack of criticism and investigation is due to the lack of inquiry. We have to be in contact with the whole world as a reflection of the teaching-learning process, if a teacher of English, or any other language, is able to maintain the communication-answer chain, the student will know that his level is good enough to face the same problems of a native speaker.
Octubre de 2002
From September 12th to 14th of the current year, at The National University, the annual ELT conference was took place. This event has a great importance for all of us who, in some way, are involved either in learning or teaching English.
Over those three days foreign as well as Colombian teachers got together in order to share their personal experiences in the English teaching field with a general purpose: "Professional development". The meeting allowed participants to know about the latest researches related to the issue made by some universities around the world, Colombian ones included, and how the teachers have been looking for new learning strategies.
We must know that teaching English faces lots of problems, even more so in a country like ours, most of them because of the environment: public-private schools, universities, crowded classes, etc. But one of the more generalized worries, which was emphasized during the conference, is the lack of student's investigative and critical stand. In general, teaching in our country lacks this, that is, the students are not using the knowledge learnt to solve every day troubles and thus complex ones.
Nowadays, teaching is recognized as an interactive and communicative process within which the teacher and student establish an information chain. The teacher gives the bases and the student takes them and has to contrast them with his reality. Finally s/he should transform the knowledge to provide appropriate answers.
In this way, participation of both, the teacher and the student, is essential to keep the process going. But participation will be guaranteed by motivation. Teaching and learning a foreign language implies extra work for the teacher as well as for the student. This means that motivation has to be in a higher point. The teacher should maintain the student's interest to a degree that it will not be difficult for him to study in depth by himself, which is fundamental if one wants to acquire a good level.
If the teacher is not able to motivate his students he will lose her/his students' trust and therefore their interest to keep on learning. As a result the student will not be able to analyze and to give answers. Language being essentially a communication channel, it is so overwhelming that a person cannot be prepared to react to any message by giving own opinions without firm bases.
There is a stereotype about the non-native teachers because of the belief that all the best ones come from abroad. Such a stereotype will be broken by enhancing our critical spirit and by creating spaces to participate, either inside or outside the class. The lack of criticism and investigation is due to the lack of inquiry. We have to be in contact with the whole world as a reflection of the teaching-learning process, if a teacher of English, or any other language, is able to maintain the communication-answer chain, the student will know that his level is good enough to face the same problems of a native speaker.
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