Colombia Towards Bilingualism Polices, Achievements, Failures, and Challenges
Blanca Lucia Cely Betancourt is associated professor at Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios-UNIMINUTO. She holds a master’s degree in applied Linguistics (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) from Universidad de Jaén in Spain. She is a PhD candidate at the Universidad Iberoamericana Internacional in Mexico. She is a researcher, language teacher and a teacher trainer. Her research interests focus on teaching English as a foreign language, teacher education and teacher professional development. She is also a member and part of the research group Cibeles.
Marta Osorio de Sarmiento
Marta Osorio de Samiento is Doctor in Education, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences (Juan N. Corpas Foundation, Bogotá), leader of the Cibeles Group (Categorized in B, Minciencias 2022), teacher-researcher in educational management, pedagogy, Didactics. Qualitative Research, Didactics for the teaching of English in Bachelor's Degrees. Post-doctorate in Narrative and Science at the University of Cordoba Argentina, PhD in Education University of Granada Spain, MBA in General Management Instituto Europeo de Posgrados Madrid Spain, Specialization in Management of Educational Centres Universidad de la Sabana Bogotá Colombia, Degree in Social Sciences Universidad de la Sabana Bogotá Colombia
Abstract
In recent years in Colombia, the Ministry of Education has been creating policies to strengthen the development of communicative skills in English classrooms to generate better education, support national progress and prosperity, and prepare young citizens for the competitive job market. Bilingualism policies in Colombia have been implemented to contribute to reducing the inequality gap that at currently exists among the citizens since there are significant differences in schools in the public and private sectors. These differences are related, among others, to school facilities, teachers’ qualifications, and the ongoing professional development for teaching staff, which at the same time shows that Colombian policies have not been fully successful in promoting bilingualism. The main objective of this research was to know about the impact of bilingualism policies in Colombia, achievements, failures, and challenges, taken from teacher’s perceptions and experiences. This exploratory research has shown that Colombia has greatly advanced in including strategies to provide equal opportunities for everyone, especially the least favoured populations, but there is still room for improvement. The results of this research show that despite having bilingualism policies, the teaching conditions in educational contexts have not allowed for clear and successful processes and the Colombian population continues to demonstrate a low level of communication skills, which reduce of job opportunities for new professionals. The purpose of this article is to show preliminary findings related to the teaching of English in vulnerable communities in Colombia in contrast with the bilingualism polices. Findings show that the policies are not coherent with the real teaching contexts, there are situations that are unknown by the police makers therefore become the cause of the failure to achieve the goals, the country is still far from bilingualism.