Freire, Giroux & Kumara Documents

The documents we had to read about Freire, Giroux & Kumaravadivelu reflects on the role the modern teacher should take. The text talks about how teachers should take a more important role in the life of students and their own life as professionals in the field of education. Clearly, the documents want teachers to be more proactive and go beyond just the transfer of knowledge to their students and to go beyond the reflection of their teaching perspectives and practices. Teachers should strive towards becoming transformative intellectuals who go beyond making a difference inside the classroom with their students, these teachers are the ones who attempt to make a difference in the lives of their students and make them into productive citizens for the benefit of the world. A very important aspect I see in these documents is that it brings a message of empowerment to teachers, that teachers can change the world by giving their students a possibility to reflect upon the world they live in and too change the injustice and inequalities that exist in the world through them.

EFL Teaching in a Public School in Medellin

The documents of Liliana Maturana "Teaching English in Times of the National Bilingual Program in some State Schools: Linguistic and Pedagogical Factors" and Jose Vicente Abad's "Pedagogical Factors the Influence EFL Teaching: Some Considerations for Teachers' Professional Development" showcase some major flaws found in teachers in elementary levels who teach English in the public sector in the city of Medellin. Some of these flaws are a lack of teacher preparation in teaching the language and the lack of instruction on giving classes in English by these particular teachers. Teachers in the public school sector are resorting to what they know and improvising many times in accordance to what they know of the language. Hence, students don't appropriately get the level requested by the National Bilingual Program and the standards established by the Ministry of Education are therefore very difficult to achieve. In the texts teachers expressed 5 aspects that make it difficult for these teachers to achieve a successful English level with their students in accordance with the standards established by the Ministry of Education. These were, difficulty with the Communicative Competence, the influence of the Mother Tongue when learning a new language, Interlanguage, Learning Strategies and Teachers Role when learning the language and External & Internal Factors such as motivation, anxiety, background, age etc. 

I think these two text show how difficult it will be for Colombia to achieve the plan established by the Ministry of Education to have Colombia become bilingual in English. These 2 documents show the incoherent politics taken in the public school sector where teachers' who are not licensed to teach the language must teach it to the elementary level students (1st - 5th). Although these teachers try their best to teach what they know, they are not prepared to teach the language appropriately. My belief is that licensed English teachers should be allowed to teach the language from the very early stages of school (kindergarten - 5th grade) to be successful in achieving a Bilingual Nation by 2019.