BILINGUALISM IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN COLOMBIA

Colombia is one of the countries with the lowest level of English, compared
to other Latin American countries, since education is not aimed at fulfilling
this area. This type of education adopts foreign educational standards,
mainly, American. Their method is to culturalize their students into an
environment of an English-speaking foreign country, influencing them all
kinds of practices, customs and beliefs of that culture. By 2004, the Ministry
of Education created the Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo (PNB). The
principal objective of this Program is to have citizens able to communicate in
English among them, with internationally comparable standards, to insert the
country in the processes of universal communication, in the Global economy
and cultural openness. Nevertheless, there are 3 reasons why this Program
has not show the expected results.
Firstly, there are few hours in the academic plan for English area. It is not
logical to think that students of public institutions in Colombia will be
bilingual for 2019 because in many schools there are not even 5 hours per
week for this subject. The goverment must implement more hours at least 9,
to achieve that the student become bilingual by 2019. Also, they have to
study and work hard at home. Another problem with this program is that
there is a shortage of materials. One of the strategies of the Program is that
classes should be didactics and students should interact with their
professors, but classes still are masterful.
Another reason why the Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo has problems is
that teachers are not qualified. The requirement that the Program has is that
students must have B1 level when they reach eleven grade and that teachers
rearch B2 or C1 level. In most of the cases, this level does not exist and some
students have more knowledge that teachers. According to some studies the
student only learns 10% of what he listens to, 30% of what he observes, 60%
of what he does and 80% of what he discusses. This shows that the professor
has to capture the attention of his students and make them to understand in
a dynamic way so that they learn everything and the classes would be fun.
Also, the student will feel love for English and he is going to be interested in
the process of learning. In that way, the student could reach the required
level when he graduated from school.
Thirdly, there are lots of students in each classroom. Some schools has not
enough space or suitable facilities, and the Ministry of Education have to
verify this because students deserve comfortable classrooms. Also, it is very
difficult to teachers trying to teach to more tan 40 students in small spaces.
The ideal would be 25 students maximum per classroom.
Opposing views claim that Programa Nacional of Bilingüismo is a waste of
money and time. Usma Wilches says that the Ministry of Education has given
much power to private agencies such as the British Council to manage the
program, as they implemented a test of English proficiency as the Teaching
Knowledge Test. Despite their shortcomings, the implementation of the
Programa Nacional of Bilingüismo is very important for Colombian students
and for the country. However, the test that the British Council implemented
has been very useful to determinated the English level in students. Opposing
views have not enough arguments to say that the Program is going to fail.
To sum up, there is too much time to correct the falencies that the Programa
Nacional de Bilingüismo have. Althouhg the bilingual plans and politics of
Colombia must once again go through an educational reform to correct little
things as the small classrooms, teachers with a lower level of English and the
few hours that students receive to this subject, to ensure a meaningful
learning of a foreign language.