What began as a great movement has become a headache for all citizens and the strength and basis of the demands have been lost.

My point of view as a professional

I’ve been working in education for the last 17 years and it was really difficult for me to fit in it since I wasn’t a teacher at that moment. I couldn’t understand why things where done that way.

But I think I have covered the best way to understand it. I started working in business area for private companies. There I thought “Higher Education is not doing its job.” We received students to do their practicum and we almost had to teach them everything again.

Then I moved to Higher Education (private), where we had to teach everything again to students before to start with our programs. When I say everything I mean contents from 7^th or 8^th grade. Sometimes students had to take oral test because they were not able to express in writing. So I thought “schools are not doing their jobs.”

Finally I moved to Public School System. At the beginning I thought “teachers are not doing their job,” but while I was more involved in the system I realized that the state was not doing its job.

Education in the general sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character, or physical ability of an individual. That means that everybody is responsible of everybody’s education. On the street, at home, at work… everywhere. As Gabriela Mistral said “Always teach: in the yard, on the street and in the classroom. Teach with the attitude, gesture and word.” Do Chileans do that? I don’t think so. Do you tell a person that is dropping a paper on the floor not to do it? Probably you think, that is not your job. But I think it is and now we have been witnesses of all that lack of education in the students’ demonstrations.

In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to another. That is the part that corresponds to the government: delivering and ensuring quality of education to all. But that can’t be done from one day to another. They have to make sure they have established processes, control systems and professionals capacities before to start. Are there enough people with the competences required in the Ministry of Education at this moment to face a big change as the one demanded by students? I insist, changes can’t be done from one day to another.

Now, let’s think in collateral damages. How many low income students haven’t been able to receive their nourishment? How many teachers won’t receive their salaries this month? La Granja commune already have a debt of 2,5 months to their teachers. Can you imagine how difficult is the job of those teachers? Most of them will probably resign for next year because of that. They also have families to feed. So the cycle will start again, vulnerable students won’t have teachers so they won’t receive their education. So at the end, all the ones that are fighting for those children actually are hurting them.

All those children who are not receiving their education right now are not only holding their learning but are going back.

My point of view as a mother

I work in education right now but I’m also a mother and I’m really disturbed by the environment lived in the school and the attitude of the whole community. There are parents that don’t know what to do with their children because they believe in the cause but at the same time they know they are running a lot of risks in the demonstrations and they are about to lose the school year. Some people say that is a myth but isn’t it better to learn with the frequency and the pace enough to really acquire meaningful learning than doing everything in a month just to fulfill the attendance percentages?

The Principal of the school is also confused about her position. At the beginning she was so proud of the students that were fighting for a fair cause and because they were growing and learning how to be good citizens. But when they went to do barricades, when most of the students that voted to go on strike stayed home doing nothing, when the ones that wanted to return to classes were victims of bullying, I don’t think they have learnt anything.

Are there solutions for this conflict?

Of course there are. Most of the things listed on the students’ petition have to be improved. But it is necessary to reach agreements and to analyze the way and the time required to make them true. It is not just the fact of inject money but how to use the money and if it is going to be used correctly. It is not just the fact of improving the educational system but to create social networks to support vulnerable families. Installing the capacities and the competencies in the professionals that will work on the system is urgent. Designing efficient control systems is urgent. Preparing good teachers is urgent.

I think that the previous government did a lot to improve education being the best the SEP Law, but there’s still a lot to do and we just have to continue and not get stuck.

This time I didn’t have the chance to do an interview as I did last year, since his agenda was really tight, but I participated in his talked that was, as usual, really interesting and full of practical examples.

Hugh is a teacher, a teacher trainer and a writer. He’s the co-author of the book series Innovation that is used by our students of the Bilingual Careers at the IPCHN. Currently he works for the University of Westminster in London, UK.

In this opportunity Hugh talked about the Lexical approach and some of the basic principles of this methodological approach that are the most important according to him.

The Lexical Approach is a method of teaching foreign languages described by M. Lewis in the 1990s. Lewis’ most famous statement is that “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar”.

According to Dellar’s point of view, the 5 more important basic principles of Lexical Approach are:

1. Vocabulary is more important than grammar: “without grammar you can say little, without words you can say nothing”. If you don’t have the structure but you have the words you can solve simple things.
2. Lexical is bigger than words: Understanding by lexis collocations, chunks, fixed expressions, etc.
3. Prototypical is better than atypical: students must learn things that are going to be useful in the future, real situations in real contexts.
4. Grammar and vocabulary are interdependent: Dellar referred to the fact that words carry their typical grammatical information (colligation) so that learners should be taught to use words along with their typical structures. As an example Dellar demonstrated that the word “arrest” is almost always used in the simple past and often in the passive voice (“was arrested…”) and hardly ever in future tense.

Hugh also mentioned 2 other important considerations when teaching English as a foreign language.

-       Input is more important than output. Students have to be exposed to English as much as possible to learn how to use the language. Learning grammar without learning conversations and vocabulary is useless.

-   He also suggested that the teaching profession might need to change content (or focus), not so much the methodology of language teaching.

In The Lexical Approach published in 1993 Michael Lewis proposes several thought provoking ideas that build on the central importance of lexis. For Lewis a fresh look at how language behaves will show the central role of words and word partnerships as opposed to traditional dominance of sentence grammar. In Lewis’ words, “language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not lexicalized grammar.” This statement reflects an earlier insight by Linguist John Sinclair that language should not be understood as a dichotomy of vocabulary on the one side and grammar on the other. Dellar also suggested that students would take a look at another revolutionary book Lexical Priming (2005) by Michael Hoey which takes Sinclair’s ideas one step further and suggests a “new theory of words and language”.

And what’s Lexical Approach to me?

Listening to Hugh took me to the time when I learned English. I remember that it was so easy for me to learned it that when I strted to teach I couldn’t understand why was so difficult to others.

Now I got it. It was the method. I learned through chunks and collocations and just talking in English using those groups of words I learned. It was the same way I learned how to speak Spanish. I learned some chunks, then I tried them in different situations until I realized when that were really appropriate.

Then, when I started really using English in the “real life”, I used those big groups of words and I was able to communicate. Sometimes I didn’t find the way to say something, but I knew the opposite and I could make it. Or I just simply used gestures with isolated words and I did it. Because what you really need to do is to communicate.

I remembered once when I traveled to UK with a group of experts English Teachers. In that opportunity I saw one of those teachers so frustrated because even though she had an excellent level of English and several International certifications, she wasn`t able to communicate with a Pakistani’s taxi driver.  She was not able to communicate in a simple and daily situation because she was so structured and based on grammar that she just didn’t make it.

There are so many theories about how to teach English, so many methods and techniques, but the teacher is the one that have to choose which one to use in every situation. We, as teachers, have to observe the needs of our students and apply the method more appropriate to them.

If you teach English to students of Rural Areas in context maybe they won’t understand. In those cases you have to start teaching them the context. Or maybe it will be enough to show them how close they are to English.

I used to ask my students the first day of class how much they used English in their everyday life. They usually answered “none”. Then I gave them an example and asked them to bring a list of at least 10 words they frequently used in English every day for next class.  They always bought about 20. Shopping mall, sweater, sandwich, hot dog, CD, DVD, Fitness Center, Drugstore, where the most common. If you asked children or teens, they would list an endless list of words related to video games and computing, such as download, post, picture, search, etc. , and they understand the meaning. So words are really important. With words you definitely will be able to communicate. Then you can improve your English revising grammar, but first you just need to learn words and group of words. You probably don’t remember how you learned your mother tongue but maybe you had a younger brother or sister or cousin or your own children to confirm this. Actually is simpler than that. Do you remember when did you leaned grammar (of your mother tongue) for the first time?

Here you have some data of SIMCE 2010.

• The test was taken by 240.000 students.
• The score average was 99 out of 180.
• The minimum to get the certification is 134 (64 in Listening Comprehension and 70 in Reading Comprehension).
• In Japan students get an average of 119.
• 65% of high income students got the certificate v/s 0.3% of the vulnerable students.

Another data gathered by the results have to be with the age the students start and the methodology used by teachers. In this sense the best results are getting by:

• Students that start learning in an early age.
• Students that have more English hours.
• Students which teachers speak English during their classes.
• Students that attend to additional English classes.

Here you can get the Ministry’s report (Spanish).

And what does TOEIC Bridge measure?

This test identifies the students that have reached a basic level of English language, based on international standards.

Students to get the certification have to be able of:

Listening comprehension

• Understanding sentences and expressions related to daily routines.
• For example, understanding the main idea of short messages, ads and instructions.

Reading comprehension

• Understanding short and simple texts containing frequent words.
• For example, understanding information from ads, menus, schedules, public signs, letters, catalogs and short articles from a newspaper.

My point of view from my experience in public and private system

When English SIMCE was announced last year I received several calls asking for help. Teachers, students and parents were all panic because of this test. Everybody wanted to do something to prepare for the test… at the last minute.

I tried to explain them that learning a language is a process that takes time and there was nothing they could do to improve their students’ performance.

But there was an Educational Corporation that asked to help them to reduce students and teacher’s anxiety. They had a very smart English Coordinator by the way. We* prepared a workshop for teachers to explain them the components and methodology of the test. Then we designed a practice test for students which we applied about a month before the SIMCE test. The objective: to expose students to the “experience” of the test. The test included time management and format familiarization.

Although I do not agree with test preparation I thought this was a very good idea to let students face this test with another attitude.

At the same time we started working on a long term project, to improve English teaching from the first levels (they started in 5^th. grade).

Why do I tell you this? Because thinking in long term is the key.

About the results

We couldn’t expect better results if we don’t have enough teachers of English to cover all the demand.

We couldn’t expect better results if there’s a very high percentage of primary teachers teaching English without enough training.

We couldn’t expect a narrow gap between private and public schools if there’s a difference of about 900 hours of English classes (considering just 4 hours a week from PK).

And this is just the obvious part. Because there are several other factors that nobody think about.

I’ll tell you another story. Some years ago I was working for two municipalities in Santiago. One of them the richest one and the other a middle class one but with very vulnerable students. I taught K students. The first class I asked the high income students, why do you think learning English is important? All of them raised their hands and gave me several reasons such as: to travel, to know people of different countries, to study in another country, to go to Disneyworld, to talk to my cousins that live in the States when they come over. I asked the same question to the low income students. Nobody raised a hand. They looked at me like I was speaking in Chinese and actually I asked the question in Spanish.

What I mean is that the need of communicating in another language is an issue. The awareness of the purpose of learning a new language is the starting point. But if students don’t understand this, if they don’t have an environment that push them to learn even the most trained teacher won’t make it.

Solutions?

Create the need of communicate in English. I did a focus group with students from 7^th and 10^th grade in municipal schools. Most of the students said that they didn’t need to learn English because they were not going to be Engineers or Doctors. But when we received English-speakers volunteers, they were the first trying to communicate with them. They had the need of speaking English to know about them, their traditions, their hobbies, their lifes.

Create opportunities of exposure to the language. If you don’t listen to English, if you don’t have anything to read in English, if you don’t have anybody to practice with, how are you supposed to learn?  Or even more… how are you going to keep the level of English you already reached? This happens even to English teachers. Once I worked for a wonderful project called ”English Town” that was going to be a place where people could learn and practice their English. There wasn’t money enough to make it real… (I think there wasn’t enough willingness to do it).

Involve the whole community. How are parents supposed to help their children with their homework if they don’t know English? Actually, in vulnerable schools most of the students’ tutors are their grandparents. What about the other subjects’ teachers? And the school staff? If the only person interested in improving English performance of their students is the English teacher we won’t get anywhere. I’ve met English teachers very frustrated for the lack of support, because they felt alone, isolated.

I think initiatives like English SIMCE are going to put some pressure to achieve all of this, but there have to be policies to support it, political willingness, and private investment.

What are the Ministry’s proposals?

The only actions I’ve heard so far in the news are:

• The launching of a “Plan Nacional de Inglés” in about two more weeks.
• Students will have the chance to participate in extracurricular classes to complement the hours of the subject.
• Mineduc will bring foreign teachers and will create a bilingual TV program for pre-schoolers.

And… what do you propose?

In 2007 I wrote about how to teach English nowadays. I still think the same. Teaching English is not teaching just the language but the culture. Why? Because the understanding of another culture expands people’s horizons. The common arguments for learning English in our country are “getting a better job” or “for traveling”. And it’s true. English is in full development, and knowing or not knowing the language markedly increased the difference between those who can and cannot seize the opportunities of globalization. But we cannot focus just on that. There are many other benefits.

To better understand the importance of learning English, will discuss the following:

a)     According to research by the British Council: ”English has official or special status in at least seventy-five countries with a total population of over two billion. English is spoken as a native language by around 375 million and as a second language by around 375 million speakers in the world. Speakers of English as a second language will soon outnumber those who speak it as a first language. Around 750 million people are believed to speak English as a foreign language. One out of four of the world’s population speaks English to some level of competence. Demand from the other three-quarters is increasing.”

b)    Access to knowledge: 95% of scientific publications are written in English (source: Institute of Scientific Information, ISI).

c)     Access to information: 90% of Internet information is also in English (source: British Council).
c) Access to continuing education: increasingly more universities in Spain, Belgium, Japan, Korea and other countries where the native language is not English are taught at the language and demanding a Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL)-the same required for entry to American universities.

d)    Income: on a study of bilingualism and income in Canada between 1971 and 1991, Christofides and Swidinsky report that French-speaking Canadians who invested in learning English income increased substantially compared to those who did not. Thus, also improved their quality of life through greater and better access to goods and services.

As you can see, to get better job opportunities is one of the reasons to learn English but not the most important. In my opinion, access to information is one of the most important nowadays.

But there are other reasons that some researchers have pointed out, such as the brain development.

In an interview with the BBC World Service radio program Science in Action, Professor Diamond said that individuals reared bilingually were better able to focus in confusing situations.

“A baby that has been reared bilingually has learned from the age of three months to pay attention to the sounds of Italian and to ignore mummy who speaks Chinese,” he says by way of example. “But if mummy starts speaking, the baby will start paying attention to Chinese sounds and ignore Italian. An infant reared bilingually has to practice at paying attention which the rest of us don’t.”

In another Canadian study he examines, it was suggested that those who speak more than one language were less likely to develop forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s. A survey of hundreds of elderly Canadian dementia patients, found the bilingual patients on average developed symptoms at least four years later than their monolingual peers. The possible explanation was that bilingual individuals were exercising their brains in ways which their monolingual peers were not, and thereby delaying dementia.

And what about our country?

Most of these researches are focus on ESL while in our context we teach EFL. There are not researches about EFL in our country but we could infer that cultural issues and to open new opportunities are the most important effects of learning a new language.

What can we do to get more information about the effects of learning a new language in our children?

Improvement of Language Policies: determine how languages are going to be tough to meet national goals is a priority that we have accomplished. The last 6 years our local policies have been focused on promoting English learning at different levels and areas. Despite there’s been a clear policy on this, there’s been a lack of integration with Universities. More funds are needed to support researches on this field.

Schools and Universities should work collaboratively: usually universities are too focused on the theory that they forget what is really happening in the real world. Then, new teachers don’t know how to deal with students and they feel frustrated. If Universities would work together with schools –preferably public schools- they could learn from each other. This would be a great opportunity for Universities to do research as well.

Exchange information with other Spanish-speaker countries in EFL: we could learn from other countries experiences with a similar context. This could be done creating a Latin-American TEFL Online Community.

Anyway, I think there is awareness of the importance of managing this language, nation wide, which will help us to improve our results.

Here you can find some researches I suggest you to read:

American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages:

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3651

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=4724

http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=4524

Cornell University

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May09/bilingual.kids.sl.html

National Education Association

http://www.ncssfl.org/papers/BenefitsSecondLanguageStudyNEA.pdf

Focus on education, bilingualism could be described in different ways according to the function or used given to this concept. Cazden and Snow (1990) pointed out bilingual education is “a simple label for a complex phenomenon.” According to Baker (2001), bilingual education refers to education in more than one language, often encompassing more than two languages.

To analyze and reflect about bilingualism we have to revise all this definitions and models as a started point.

Models of bilingualism

Bilingualism has adopted different forms at various times and in different places. Traditionally there have been two models of bilingualism in scholarly literature to reflect these different forms: subtractive and additive. The first one –subtractive- refers to the students that speak a first language and a second one is added while the first one is subtracted.  The second one is a model where the second language is added to the person’s repertoire and the two languages are maintained.

There are other forms of bilingualism that are recursive and dynamic. Recursive model refers to the development of the community’s mother tongue that for any reason had been suppressed. In this case is not a simple addition that starts from a monolingual point.  Dynamic model encourages communicative and dynamic bilingualism. Ergo because of the world’s globalization is increasingly calling on people to interact with others in ways that defy traditional categories.

There are other concepts that have been used in the bilingual education literature, such as semilingualism, language dominance, mother tongue, second-language learners, and heritage-language learners.

Bilingual abilities

Depending on the reasons for using their languages, bilinguals may have only oracy abilities –the ability to listen and speak- and not literacy abilities –the ability to read and write. Sometimes bilinguals only have receptive bilingual abilities, that is, they may understand, read or attend to, or interpret, signs in more than one language. Other times bilinguals also have productive bilingual abilities, that is, they are capable of also speaking, writing and producing signs in more than one language (O.García, 2009).

The distinction between being a receptive and a productive bilingual has to do with levels of language abilities or skills. But bilingualism can also be a consequence of language function, that is, the use to which one puts either language.

And, what about bilingualism in our context?

We cannot analyze bilingualism without reference to the social order, because is strongly linked to social and political constructions.

So here you have some questions to reflect about bilingualism.

-          Have we established a clear policy of bilingualism in our country?

-          If so, are we using the correct concept of bilingualism to establish our goals?

-          Do we have the conditions to become a bilingual country?

…to be continued

Is bilingualism the solution? What do we have to do to become a bilingual country? There have been many public and private initiatives that have contributed to improve English in our country, like the English Opens Doors Program of the Ministry of Education or CORFO Scholarships. But sometimes I think that we have to do more to advance faster.

I am not an English Teacher but I have trained English Teachers and most of the times I have realized that the professional experience I’ve gained has allowed me to do so.

I have worked in the Tourism Industry where English is the main requirement; in Higher Education where some areas have a lack of training in English; in Continuous Education where English hasn’t been an issue; and in Language Centers where people go expecting to learn English overnight without any effort or commitment.

I think that the first step is taken. Nobody can say that English is not important. People know that English is the most important tool to improve their quality of life, because of several reasons: better access to education, better job opportunities, better understanding of international issues, among others.

But what do we have to do now? Becoming bilingual is not just a few people’s effort. I think we have to start checking our Language Policies, establishing ambitious goals and involving public and private sector as well.

As I said before, there have been many initiatives to improve English teaching and learning in the school system, some Universities have installed Intensive English Programs, Companies have trained a lot in English -but still not enough- but what happens next? Nobody has a chance to practice what they have learnt. Here is where private sector should be involved, creating initiatives where people could practice their skills.

When people talk about bilingualism they immediately think of Canada, the immigrants in the States, or the experience in European countries. I don’t think this could be our reference. Why not? Because our reality is different, we don’t learn English as a second language.  Here people don’t have the possibility to practice their English in a real context. They study; some of them really make a big effort –in time, money and intellectually- but once they finish… all the effort is lost.

I’m going to take my own experience as an example. I studied English at school, but I didn’t learn. Then I did a short English program of 100 hours. I really made a big effort to finish all the levels, I had very good Chilean Teachers and at the end, I was speaking English fluently, not perfect, but I was able to communicate. After that I had the chance to work in Tourism industry where I had the opportunity to practice and improve my English. The best thing there was that I had the chance to practice with foreign people, so I learnt how to recognize different accents. Next I had the great opportunity to study abroad, which was an amazing experience. Not only because I had the chance to practice my English with native speakers but because I practiced my English in context. I learnt about their culture, their traditions, and their life. Finally I learnt how to think in English because I attended classes in English, I had to take notes in English and present projects in English. After that, I have had the chance to practice my English from time to time because of different jobs requirements and because of some scholarships I got abroad.

But that is my experience. Do average people have all these opportunities? Do middle and lower class people have the chance to study abroad or travel for tourism to practice their English?

I remember when I went to London for a grant and I visited a school where they offered 3 different languages as elective: Spanish, German and French. The field trip once they finished their courses was in Spain, Germany and France… another reality.

I really believe that we can become a Bilingual country, but we need more “bilingual spaces” where people could practice what they’ve learnt. A TV channel in English without subtitles or with subtitles in English, for example. More instances where people could speak English with native speakers. Having more books and magazines in English available in Schools, Universities and Public Libraries.

But the first thing that we have to stop doing is comparing ourselves with countries with no similarities. Sharing more experiences with other Latin American countries to learn from each other’s experiences.

Now we know which test will be applied, the date, the grade and the skills that will be measured.

The test chosen was TOEIC Bridge from ETS which will be applied to 11^th graders nation wide in October. Let’s talk about the characteristics of this test, its strengths and weaknesses.

About the Test

The TOEIC Bridge test is an international test designed for beginning learners that measures the listening and reading comprehension skills used in an international environment. Several Institutions worldwide use the TOEIC Bridge test to assess English-language proficiency.

It is a paper-and-pencil test that measures a test taker’s ability to listen to and read everyday English. It is composed of 100 multiple-choice questions and takes approximately 90 minutes, with 60 minutes to complete test questions and 30 minutes to complete a brief questionnaire about the test taker’s educational and work history.

The Two Main Test Sections:

Listening Comprehension: Test takers will listen to recorded statements, questions, short conversations and short talks in English via audio cassette or CD and answer 50 questions based on what they hear. There are three parts:

• Part 1: Photographs (15 questions)
• Part 2: Question-Response (20 questions)
• Part 3: Short Conversations and Short Talks (15 questions)

This section will take approximately 25 minutes to complete.

Reading: Test takers will read single sentences as well as texts and then answer 50 questions based on what they read. There are two parts:

• Part 4: Incomplete Sentences (30 questions)
• Part 5: Reading Comprehension (20 questions)

This section will take approximately 35 minutes to complete.

On this link you could find a sample of the Test.

Experiences in Chile 

TOEIC Bridge has been used in higher education institutions to certify their students once they have finished the English Program.  DuocUC for example has been using this test for the last 4 or 5 years.

 TOEIC has been used also in some Chilean companies to recruit their staff.

In 2006 the English Opens Doors Program applied TOEIC Bridge to 12th graders of Municipal schools.  I was working for the municipal system at that time. Most of the students mentioned that it was an easy test even though they were kind of nervous. Those students were supposed to receive their results in March and a certificate with their level of English. This was really motivating for students, especially for those ones that were leaving high school.  But in March, nothing happened. April… nothing. May? No again. Finally students receive partial information in July.  I hope this won’t happen this time.

 Pros and Cons of testing

As I said at the beginning of this note, I was participating in a plenary of IATEFL-TESOL Conference when I knew about the test. The plenary was about “Chile Bilingüe-VISION2020” with very interesting experts in the panel. But I will mention especially one of them: Amos Paran. Dr. Amos Paran is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Education, University of London, where he is Program Leader of the MA TESOL. He has been involved in testing projects in a variety of different languages. When one of the experts mentioned the word “testing” he immediately reacted and said “testing could be awful”, and argued three important things:

1. Schools concentrate on testing preparation instead of learning achievements.
2. When schools do a good job teaching, parents demand teachers to prepare their children for the test.
3. Students know how to answer these tests at the end but they don’t know how to use English functionally.

I think he’s right. Nevertheless, I think that we have some differences that make this test be not “that” bad.

• Despite all the efforts to make English subject a priority, most of the schools still prioritize math and language, and that’s because schools are measured according to those results. If students miss a math class… guess when they are going to make up classes… in English class (or Arts or any other subject that is not measured). Now that English will be part of the national testing, schools will be aware of the subject: its quality, the teacher, the resources, etc.  This test will stress the system, and that is a great help for English teachers and students.  
• Teacher training should be improved also and universities should pay attention to teachers of the youngest levels.  Better quality of teachers is the starting point.
• And finally, the certification is a motivational element for students too. Motivation is a key issue for teachers and this will be a big help.

TOEIC Bridge and the national curriculum

Will this testing give us some input for decision making? Will results promote new policies related to English teaching-learning issues?

Minister Lavin said in the news that this test responds to the contents of the programs.  As I said before, TOEIC Bridge measures the listening and reading comprehension skills which are the skills that the programs focus on.

But the Ministry was about to update those programs this year, changing the focus from the receptive skills to the productive skills. So at the end, the information we’ll receive won’t give us enough information to take decisions. At least it won’t be different than the one of the test applied in 2004 and 2008 by Cambridge University.

According to the presidential speech “To accomplish the goal to transform Chile in a bilingual country (…), we need to know where we are and how we are progressing (source: Prensa Presidencia, www.prensapresidencia.cl).

But…what is SIMCE?

SIMCE is the acronym for Quality Measurement System of the Education (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación in Spanish).

Its main purpose is to contribute to the improvement of the quality and equity of the education, reporting on the performance of the students in different subsectors of the national curriculum, and relating to the social and school context in which they learn.

SIMCE evaluates the achievement of the Minimum Contents and Fundamental Objectives of the Curriculum Framework in Language, Math and Sciences, through a measurement that applies nation wide, once a year, to the students that study a determined educational level. By 2005, the application of the tests alternated among 4th, 8th and 10th grade. From year 2006, 4th grade is evaluated every year, and 8th and 10th grade alternate.

Besides the associated tests to the curriculum, the SIMCE also collects information on students and parents educational background through questionnaires. This information is used to contextualize and to analyze the results of the students in the tests.

Pros and cons

Testing our students is going to provide valuable information that will let us take decisions in English teaching strategies. But, will these strategies be effective?

The test itself will stress the system. The key players will be aware of English teaching and it won’t be the subject to make up classes anymore. From now on, everybody will be thinking about finding the way to improve English results to get the best scores.

I wonder… Is there anybody thinking about learning objectives? Is there anybody thinking about the cultural issues related to a foreign language learning? Is anybody thinking about teaching a functional English to allow our students to communicate with others in English? Is anybody thinking about helping our students being more educated? Are the results of this test going to improve the conditions in schools or just categorize schools?

If the goal of this test is having a ranking of the best schools, then we will widen the gap among the students. It is not the same to compare the results of students that are receiving 2 or 3 hours of English a week from 5th grade with one that is having 6 or 8 hours a week since pre-school.

If we want to measure the knowledge of our students we should consider the 4 skills of a language. And how are we supposed to test the oral communication to almost half a million students nation wide?

There are too many good things about having this test, but we have to be careful about what we are going to measure and also about not making the gap between students wider.

What have we done so far?

1. There was a national test on 2004 that showed the current situation of students’ outcomes.
2. International standards have been established nation wide (ALTE scale).
3. Teachers have been trained to reach the ALTE 3 level.
4. English speaking volunteers have been supporting teachers in municipal schools.

…and many other things… but there’re still too many things to do.

Is this test going to help to improve English learning in our schools?

What do you think are the pros and cons of this test?

But what is Digital Storytelling? It is a new way of narrative. Telling stories using images, pictures, sounds, music combined in a way to show the mood and feelings of the narrator.

I have worked using technology in the classroom; I have seen how technology is used by different teachers in several places. But this is something really powerful. 

Let’s see an example.

What is it?

Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digi­tal content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. Sophisticated digital stories can be interactive movies that include highly produced audio and visual effects, but a set of slides with corresponding nar­ration or music builds up a basic digital story. Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective. The resources available to incorporate into a digital story are virtually limitless, giving the storyteller enormous creative latitude. Some learning theorists believe that as a pedagogical technique, storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject. Constructing a narra­tive and communicating it effectively require the storyteller to think carefully about the topic and consider the audience perspective.

Digital storytelling is evolving from the simple narrated video to forms with interactivity and higher production values. These include websites and online videos created to promote causes, entertain, educate, and inform audiences. There are some examples of its use for immigrants’ integration in the Center for Digital Storytelling website. 

How may I use it in education?

Joe Lambert, considered the founder of Digital Storytelling, opened the Center for Digital Storytelling. They developed a unique computer training and arts program that has become a workshop spread all over the world.

The Center for Digital Storytelling model has also been adopted in education, especially in the US, where some practitioners use it as a method of building engagement and multimedia literacy.

Cathy has several examples of videos in her Blog made by students from 6th grade to university students.

Thanks to Cathy we have created a network of teachers interested in developing Digital Storytelling in their classrooms, to whom we will create workshops to learn more about multimedia and to support the implementation of this engaging method.

Here you have a video of an interview to Cathy before she left.

For me passion is life. If you do something without passion you don’t accomplish anything. 

Any goal, challenge, wish and task has to be conducted by passion, even in the smallest detail. I’ve seen passion in artists, teachers, women, politicians… and it is always the same, they get their goals and somebody else’s goals.  But unfortunately I haven’t seen passion very frecuently because is not easy. Sometimes people don’t understand the enthusiasm and energy that is put on an enterprise to be achieve. Even family and friends don’t understand them. So passioned people’s life is sometimes kind of solitaire.

I invite you to watch this video from TED talk site of Isabel Allende. Here she tells a story where combine humor, tragedy and passion into a speech that calls on all of us to make the world a “good” place.

About Isabel Allende

Novelist Isabel Allende writes stories of passion. Her novels and memoirs, including The House of the Spirits and Eva Luna, tell the stories of women and men who live with passionate…

To read more about her visait her website on Isabel Allende’s Website

Author and activist Isabel Allende discusses women, creativity, the definition of feminism — and, of course, passion — in this talk.

Isabel Allende’s Talk