An overview of the TEFL situation in various countries (continued)

An overview of the TEFL situation in various countries (continued)

Philippines

Until very recently, English has been the sole medium of instruction in both public and private schools here in the Philippines. For years, the Philippines had been dependent on the U.S. for her textbooks, so naturally, English was and still is very important to Filipinos who most likely all want to go to school.
The quality of English written and spoken by Filipinos, however, varies according to the schools we attend. Filipinos who attend(ed) private schools most likely speak and write grammatically correct English and can carry conversation with relatively correct diction. The quality of English written and spoken among Filipinos also varies according to private schools. We have cheap private schools and we have expensive private schools. The very expensive private schools produce students who can speak and write English almost like a native. These students may even swear that they can express their feelings and ideas clearly and fluently only in the English language.
The Department of Education, Culture and Sports of our country dictates the content of the English curriculum and the amount of time to be spent in each subject/course from kindergarten to college levels.
In the secondary level, English as a subject is taught for an hour, five times a week. The content of the English course from kindergarten to college would include reading, literature, spelling, grammar, usage and mechanics, and composition. English, however, is used in the teaching of such math courses as general math, geometry, trigonometry and statistics and such science courses as general science, biology, chemistry and physics. English is also used in the teaching of music, arts and physica education. Private schools, especially the very expensive ones, also provide a speech laboratory course in their curriculum to ensure that their students will not be using the diction of their native language when speaking English. News reporting in civics is also done in English.
However, the quality of our English is getting to be bad. There are a hundred and one reasons. We now have a ratio of 1 teacher to 50-60 students in one class. In the rural secondary schools, the ratio could go as many as 1 to 100. We have also just too many students and not enough textbooks and speech labs to cater to everyone. Also, many of our students find learning English irrelevant to their present life, especially if they know they will go back to their farms after high school. Since English is not used in the rural ares in the Philippines, I guess, many Filipinos now would rather use our native language rather than English in their written and oral communication. [Corabel Y. Diel: Cagayan de Oro City]

You might get more information on the Philippines from the following site:
Education Systems of SEAMEO Member Countries
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Czech Republic
The Czech educational system is massively underfunded. Thus, the teachers who actually speak English at an international level have been drawn to multinational firms and the like, leaving only the least talented to teach at the secondary school level. The pay at the secondary schools is about 10,000 Czech Crowns or about $300 per month. It's a sad thing for the students. Besides, English is an optional subject.[Darren Crown]

You might get more information on Czech Republic from the following sites:
The Information Database on Education Systems in Europe - Czech Republic
Education in Czech Republic
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United Arab Emirates
The UAE, "United Arab Emirates" is an open country. English is the second official language and is taught starting at the kindergarten stage except in government schools where it starts at grade 1. There are two types of approaches to language teaching in secondary schools. Either English is taught as a separate subject with no support from other subjects -government schools- , or all subjects are taught in English except in secondary government schools. English is still suffering. Syllabuses are rather old fashioned and not that interesting. Plans to develop the English teaching and learning are going on. Next year grade 7 will receive their new developed textbooks. [Sheikha AL Muhairi: Abu Dhabi]

You might get more information on the United Arab Emirates from the following sites:
Education
United Arab Emirates University - Faculty of Education
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Vietnam
Like most other developing countries where foreign languages are vital means for economic development, teaching and learning foreign languages in general and English in particular is given great importance in Vietnam. Children begin to study a foreign language - English, French or Russian when they enter junior high schools at the age of 11. Before 1975 in South Vietnam students were taught 2 foreign languages right from the first year of junior high school - English and French, one as first and the other as secondary, by each student's option. Now they are taught only one, either English, French or Russian, and most students prefer English because it is simpler and more popular and useful. The Vietnamese still like French and Russian, especially French for their pure beauty as cultured languages and their heritage of great literature. In fact, the Vietnamese as a people are very friendly and like learning any foreign languages they can afford, but because of economic and time limitations, now each of them can afford to learn only one - the one that can help them develop their economy and international communication the most. Besides these traditional school foreign languages, Vietnamese people have also begun to study Chinese and especially Japanese and some other neighboring countries' languages like Thai, Indonesian, though these languages are not included in formal school education.
The methods of teaching foreign languages in Vietnamese high schools is theoretically advanced but practically still backward like in Japan and Korea due to the following reasons: the teachers themselves have not been trained in communicative ways, the lack of suitable textbooks and teaching aids, and the limited contact with foreigners (The degree of contact with foreigners is not limited so much by political reasons now as by the still little presence of foreiners in Vietnam and still few chances for average Vietnamese to go abroad). Theoretically Vietnam has caught up with new approaches in teaching and learning foreign languages like teaching the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing communicatively with the student, not the teacher, as the center of the process, but in practice, few teachers can achieve this level. School teachers still have to intensively use tradional methods like grammar-translation and reading comprehension to prepare their students for entrance exams, semester exams, end-of-school-year exams and graduation exams. If the teacher strays way from the curriculum and gives more time to training communicative skills he may find his class behind the schedule and be criticized for this. To fill this gap, like in Japan and Korea, there are a lot of cram schools and day and night languages centers, teaching a sort of more communicative English.
Teaching English has been one of the most popular and high-income jobs in Vietnam, and teachers of English have always been popular among students (together with teachers of math who are more feared and respected than loved). With the gradual spread of computers and greater presence of foreigners and foreign businesses and increasingly growing freedom and economy, more progress is being made in the activity of teaching and learning foreign languages in Vietnam today. [Hung Nguyen]

You might get more information on Vietnam from the following site:
Education Systems of SEAMEO Member Countries
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Portugal
Almost all TEFL teachers in the state school system are Portuguese and speak English as a foreign language, most at lower than CPE level in my experience. The government-supplied curriculum is very outdated and unusable, at least the ones I've experienced in private vocational high schools. Some of my 13-year-old students at the British Council use the Hotline series in their junior high school classes, but I think it was chosen by their teacher. My experience with the vocational high school (escola profissional) is that classes are large; 20-25 students, all students must attend English classes for 100 hours a year and rooms are quite cramped and noisy, but are well equipped with OHP, video, white board, etc. The non-profit public or state schools are not nearly so well equipped. The biggest problem for effective teaching though is that the students are of very mixed levels, all the way from beginner to native speaker (in the case of children of immigrants who have returned from South Africa or the United States). This is extremely difficult to cope with, and by the 2nd year only those students who are self-motivated really make any progress. Most students have to be passed eventually however, so in the end it comes down to giving simplified discrete item tests which the students have already had some attempts at passing previously, or perhaps the teacher is asked to accept a project that was probably done by someone else. In the public (state) schools English instruction starts at age 10, but I think it is optional because many of my vocational high school students had previously taken French and had no knowledge of English. There are quite a few TEFL jobs around if you have your feet on the ground here, and the pay is quite good. [Gordon Grams]

You might get more information on Portugal from the following site:
The Information Database on Education Systems in Europe - Portugal
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Colombia
The students in Colombia receive English classes when they begin the sixth grade until they finish the eleventh grade. In the tenth and eleventh grades, the students receive the business English class. Each grade receives two English classes a week.
They learn vocabulary and translate sentences, and we give them communicative activities. They can work in pairs or individually, depending on the work that they are doing. Also, they listen to the English course in cassettes and I'm going to use a new English course with videos. They also like to listen to and learn songs. [Maribel Maria Borrero]

You might get more information on Colombia from the following site:
Colegio Nueva Granada
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Germany
In the English language classroom in Germany the students are supposed to speak English only. From the very beginning of their activities (children start learning English as their first foreign language at the age of 10 or 11), students are encouraged to use English as fluently as they can; as the progress in learning becomes more intense, German is restricted to short intervals when newly introduced grammatical structures are integrated into their linguistic context. After that, the corresponding exercises, which should also be integrated into a communicative context, are again performed and discussed in English. The main idea behind that is that teaching grammar to students only makes sense to the extent that it helps them in getting along in their everyday communication with potential native speakers. Teaching grammar just for the sake of teaching grammar makes English lessons boring and may even lead to the paradox that students become able to explain grammatical structures in the abstract while not being able to virtually communicate in simple everyday situations in an English-speaking country. As a matter of course, such a disastrous experience would also have a negative impact on any further motivation for learning English which then would possibly be considered as a "dead language" in one line with Latin or (old) Greek.
In senior high school (i.e. the 11th to 13th grades prior to graduation which are called "Oberstufe"), the main emphasis is laid on text reception and text production in English; teachers and students speak and write English only. [Joerg Bartikowski: Gymnasium St. Mauritz, Muenster]

You might get more information on Germany from the following site:
The Information Database on Education Systems in Europe - Germany
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Chile
Learning English as a foreign language is very important in our country nowadays. Parents want their children to learn English because it is a necessary tool for their professional development. People who want to achieve higher positions in their careers need a certain knowledge of English. In Antofagasta, our city, English is even more important due to the existence of a lot of American, Canadian and Australian mining companies.
In public schools in Chile, English is mandatory from fifth to eighth grade. Students in high school have the opportunity to choose between English and French, but most of the students are becoming aware of the importance of learning English. On the other hand, in most private schools English is taught from preschool to 12th grade high school and students do not have the opportunity to choose another foreign language. Concerning motivation, we can say that most high school students are not motivated to learn English, but younger students are highly motivated and eager to learn.
It is difficult to find teachers of English because students who finish high school do not want to pursue a career in Pedagogy; they prefer to study other careers so they can get a better socioeconomical status. Besides, teachers of English prefer to work in mining companies where they can get better salaries because the pay at schools is low. There are some native speakers working as teachers of English in private schools, but not all of them are certified teachers. They quit because they cannot get used to our teaching system. [Hilda Cerda: The Antofagasta British School, Antofagasta]

You might get more information on Chile from the following sites:
The British Council
Schools and Education
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Ecuador
Here in Ecuador there are three kinds of schools: Particulares, fiscales and municipales. The education is supposed to be the same, but there are some differences. The municipales are run by the city council, meanwhile the fiscales are run by the government. They teach EFL and only 2 or 3 hours a week, because that is the syllabus. Teachers generally go on strikes because of the low salary. On the other hand, the particulares or private schools are classified in bilingual and non bilingual. The non bilinguals teach EFL following the syllabus given by the ministry of education. The bilinguals teach ESL so that the students will be able to communicate with others in English. Others, like the Americano High School, teach half of the subjects in English and half of the subjects in Spanish.
In some schools you need to have a degree in English to teach. In others, you only need to know the language. In some cases this works, but in others it doesn't. The salaries in private schools vary from one school to other; some of them pay by the hour (starting at US $5.00) and others by the month (starting at US $222.00). We get the basic salary plus what we call compensaci�n and bonificaci�n (around $50.00).
The students begin high school at the age of 12. The number of students per class varies from school to school. In private schools there is an average of 30 students, but in others there is an average of 60. [Mauricio Vizca��o]

You might get more information on Ecuador from the following site:
The British Council
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India
In India English is a powerful language, which starts from lower kindergarten in our schools. It has become the medium of instruction and we can feel the oneness with this language in India. It is highly flexible even at the age of 3. Rhymes have been taught in the Indian early schools. In the primary school level English has been taught 3 hours daily. They are Prose, Poetry, Grammar Non-Detailed. We do give stress to composition classes, where we allow students to write their own ideas in their own languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Kashmiri and Bengali. We feel their writing potentiality improves extremely.
The same pattern and curriculum is followed in the secondary school, where we have five hours of English classes per week. Reading and listening exercises are frequently given to the students. Speaking in English is another important aspect, which enables the students to talk in English. They are given chances to read about a topic in the class, speak on the topic in front of the school assembly and attend seminars conducted among the inter schools to discuss topics such as 'national integration', 'information technology' and 'mass media'.
The same methodology of teaching is followed in the high school. In the case of high school, language has been taught in the examination point of view. Students forget to enjoy the essence of the poem, and they become the reproducer of the textbooks because generally the students are required to memorize some poems. The annotations and the summary of the poems are studied by them to score higher marks. As a result, the essence of the poem is lost and student creativity is also curbed. Pleasure reading should be given much importance. Fortunately, there are English teachers, who really make the students feel the joy of language. Thanks to them, English language plays a vital role in our country. [Janaki Balasubramanian: Madras, Tamilnadu]

You might get more information on India from the following site:
Education in India
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Puerto Rico
The teaching of English in Puerto Rico has suffered many changes throughout the hundred years of being part of the United States of America. Right after the USA dominion, English was used as the language of instruction and not as a subject. Eventually, due to many political changes, English came to be just another subject or class. Our students have to take English since first grade up to high school, and two more years in college. One would believe that with all those years of instruction, our students are able to communicate effectively in English. However, the story is another one.
It so happens that people have realized that they are teaching English as a second language in a foreign language environment. Many Puerto Ricans have succeeded in life with very little English. So the theory that you need to know English to improve economically failed.
The Department of Education in Puerto Rico has launched a campaign in a new project: "Project for Developing a Bilingual Citizen." On paper, even though it has some minor flaws, the project seems feasible. However, people have made of it one of the biggest political issues ever. It is true that originally English was taught in Puerto Rico as a means to "Americanize" us in an attempt to "tame" us. But that was years ago and things should be different now. These "educators" cannot realize that, now that we approach the third millennium, being bilingual is a must. So TESOL in Puerto Rico has a new meaning and a new perspective.[Benjam�� M�ndez-Valent��: Caguas]
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Switzerland
It is too difficult to give you any information about Switzerland as each canton or state has its own programme and there are 23 cantons altogether. It is often a bit of a problem for students to move from one canton to another. Students usually begin studying another national language when they are 10; German in Geneva or French in Lucerne, for instance. English courses are introduced either three or five years later. Here senior high school students study both German and English as foreign languages for 3 or 4 hours each week. There is a maximum of 24 students per class, but in my classes I have an average of 19 or 20. A few years ago, we used to have fewer students, but now the budget is tighter! At the end of their four years in high school, there is an oral and a written exam, centred on literature. They are requested to read a number of books and analyse them. There are finals like that in each subject, and the diploma thus obtained allows students to register in any Swiss university. [Laurie: Geneva]

You might get more information on Switzerland from the following sites:
Education in Switzerland
Education
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Indonesia

Indonesia is an archipelago with more than 13,000 islands with hundreds of regional languages. Children learn the national language, Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) formally by the time they enter the first grade of elementary school. When they reach the fourth grade, they are introduced to English language. So around the age of 10, Indonesian youngsters are expected to master three languages. Also, around this age kids in Indonesia start to learn Arabic language as well for it is the language of the country's major religion, Islam. Their mother tongue is influencing their Indonesian and English greatly. Other than that, there are too many subjects in the curriculum for those young learners to study. Many educational experts have been complaining about this for years. Some of them think it is just too much for elementary pupils to learn English at such young age. Especially with other subjects they have to study at the same time. [Ario Helmy: American English Language Training (AELT) Center, Jakarta]

The teaching of English in Indonesia begins at the fourth grade of elementary school. In elementary, we usually give only vocabulary and a simple conversation. There is no English test for the junior high school entrance exam. In junior and senior high, our emphasis is on speaking and reading. Grammar is also taught, but not so strict. We usually teach grammar in the conversation activity. Even though grammar is not our main learning area, the senior high and university entrance exams test the students' grammar and reading comprehension.
We have a lot of traditional languages, Sundanese, Javanese, Padangnese, etc. The traditional languages are taught also in the school, besides Indonesian and English, but they are taught only for the local area. For example, Sundanese is only taught in West Java. It's only an additional lesson. In my city, Jakarta, the traditional language is Betawi. The language is not taught at school, because it is almost the same as Indonesian. Our government doesn't think it is necessary to be taught because Jakarta is a multiethnic city. [Novri Helmawan: Jakarta]

You might get more information on Indonesia from the following site:
Education Systems of SEAMEO Member Countries
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Canada (Quebec)
As you know, English is the first language of Canada except for one province, Quebec, where French is the first language. In the regular public system (not private schools), children are exposed to English in Grade Four (9-10 years old) for only 75 minutes a week. By high school, the students (aged 13-16) speak little English. Unfortunately, it seems that the program begins too late in order for the majority of students to become fluent. Outside of classtime, students hear little English except for TV and music. The programs themselves vary from board to board and from class to class. Many of the teaching personnel are not TESL qualified and struggle with pronunciation and idioms themselves. Theoretically, the communicative approach is suggested, but it is happening in few classrooms. The thrust is on reading, writing and grammar. Textbooks are used religiously, and little creativity is apparent. Students generally dislike their English class so there are negative and unmotivated students in the class. [Suzanne Okeefe: Montreal]

Here in Canada, English is taught from the age of 10 years old when children are in the 4th grade. They start by doing some exercises with others and develop reading comprehension and writing production during all their studies. From secondary 3, so at 15, teenagers begin to really go in a higher level and study more of the reading pieces of some authors that are really popular such as Mark Twain, Morley Callaghan, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. In Canada, English is really seen as equal as French, our first language, so each of us has to really work hard to be able to express ourselves in both languages. [Annick Charest]

You might get more information on Canada(Quebec) from the following sites:
Education in Quebec
Curriculum Publications
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Romania
In Romania, the study of foreign languages is given special attention now that we are free from communism. It goes without saying that English is number one but French and German even Italian and Spanish are also studied in many Romanian schools. The study of foreign languages begins in the second grade and continues until the end of high school.
At primary school stress is laid on the oral aspect of the language. In the fifth grade elements of grammar and phonetics are introduced in order to give the students the possibility of studying by themselves. In the sixth grade the study of a second language is introduced. At this level i.e. elementary school, there are schools with intensive classes where students have four hours a week.
At high school level there are "normal" classes having three hours a week, "intensive" classes with four hours and "bilingual" classes with seven to nine hours a week. For the bilingual classes we invite native speakers to teach conversation classes, culture and civilization, history and geography. The Romanian teachers teach the "English Book". In Romania we have a national curriculum and the books are made up with British specialists and the students and teachers can choose from three textbooks. Even if English is studied as a foreign language a lot of Romanians know English very well, the Romanians being well known for their ability of learning foreign languages. At university level students study with native speakers as well as with Romanian professors specialized in Great Britain and USA. [Irinel Stan]

You might get more information on Romania from the following sites:
The Information Database on Education Systems in Europe - Romania
The Educational System
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Bolivia
In Bolivia, where Spanish is spoken, English is taught as a foreign language. Although English has become the most important tool in university educationas well as in business, schools just dedicate three hours a week to the learning of the language.
Besides, English education in schools is so weak that most of the students have to take classes in private institutes, taking up to three hours of English every day for about 18 to 36 months. Most of the students in these institutes learn at the ages of 12 to 18. This means that they take advantage of the school years, since they are to attend university after that age.
Unfortunately, not all the Bolivian students have the opportunity to learn English in these private institutes due to the lack of income in their families. Hopefully, there is going to be a time when everyone would be able to learn such an important language in their own schools, because I consider English as the key to the world. [Oscar F. Silva]

You might get more information on Bolivia from the following site:
American Cooperative School
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An overview of the TEFL situation in various countries (continued)

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