WHAT ARE THE EXPECTATIONS WITH THE CAREER?

Vicky Londoño

Publicado en Capital Letter No. 1

Junio de 2002

Reflection

As students of English at advanced level in Philology and Languages we have reflected upon our process since we began the career.

Probably some of us did not have clarity regarding the expectations of our studies in English or maybe we do not have them clear yet. For many the idea of be­ing teachers is not the principal goal, for others it could be the best option. Studying English as a career is not a matter of speaking the language as such, it is to know what we really want to do with the career and what the expectations are.

Opinion Poll

Studying Philology and Languages with emphasis in En­glish covers many fields. Philology as such is a science that studies the languages, their roots, structures and all the meanings that languages express. The study of English and Spanish is one of those fields in which a philologist can be interested in.

For some students the expectations of studying Philol­ogy and Language s as a career is not clear. Certainly some of us do not know how to focus our studies in English. In order to get information about this hypothesis we did an opinion poll with a group of 70 people among 17-28 years old. All of them students of first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth semester. In relation to the question What do you think you are studying? -Philology and Languages -Modern Lan­guages-English -Pedagogy, there is an equivalence in the answers of the students from first to sixth se­mester between English and Philology and Languages.

With respect to the topic that Teaching is the main purpose of Philology and Languages, there is an equivalent tendency among the students from first, second, third and fourth semester. On the other hand, students from fifth, sixth semester think that teaching is not the main purpose of Philology and Languages. Regarding the expectations the students have when they finish their studies, there is an equivalent ten­dency to say that they like translation and teaching. More than half of the students from first to sixth semester think that the subjects they are study­ing are focused on teaching; less than half think the contrary.

Finally most of the students from first to sixth se­mester think that becoming a teacher is what the university expects from them when they finish the career. Becoming a translator or becoming a bilin­gual person who works in a multinational shows a poor tendency regarding what the university could expect from the students.

By means of this opinion poll we could say that most of the students of Philology and Languages from first to sixth semester have a common tendency with re­spect to seeing the career within the teaching and pedagogy fields. It is important to keep in mind what the purpose is regarding the teaching concept. The teaching of English, for example, could be developed for academic purposes or for occupational purposes.

On the other hand, there are different fields in which we can be interested in. Being a translator of texts or being an interpreter covers other expectations in which we are interested too. Certainly, there are fields in which we can de­velop our expectations and it is important to recog­nize our skills in order to focus our work when we finish our studies.