My Experiences In and Beyond the Classroom: Public School Students and English Learning in Mexico

Juan Olmeda, Mexico

Juan Olmeda is a psychologist and a student of pedagogy, and has been working as an English teacher for several years for both public and private schools and colleges. He is very interested in educational psychology and specifically in that concerning language learning. He has done investigation about different theories and approaches to language learning as part of his professional studies. E-mail: professor_olmeda@yahoo.com.mx

Menu

Introduction
Examples
Background
Conclusions

Introduction

It is very important for me to let everybody know about the experience I have had teaching English in public schools in Mexico. Students of public schools, in my experience, lack the will to learn English because the English teachers have had deficient education as teachers. This discourages students from keeping on learning since they have had a bad experience with one of these teachers at elementary school and they feel 'marked' with this experience, so they see English as a boring and uninteresting language.

Examples

Another factor that I have detected as a common excuse for public school students to not study English is the well-known phrase 'I just don't have an ear for English, meaning that is a very difficult language or at least, a language almost impossible to learn for them but they make no efforts to have a further approach to this language. Regarding this, the problem I have detected is that students in these schools have serious lacks of knowledge even in their own language, having problems in distinguishing the elements of speech, correct conjugation or even what the conjugation is.

Another important thing that I have detected as a negative factor toward the attitude of learning English is that they have a bad reference or impression of the language, since they identify it with the language of the globalization and the language which is going to destroy their own cultural roots.

Background

A very intensive campaign on how useful English is has been launched in recent years, and as the time goes by more and more students of elementary and superior levels are conscious about the importance of learning English but they just do not know how to start learning.

I think a good thing to do would be to prepare our teachers better, professionalizing them and recognizing the importance of their labor in preparing people in Mexico who will be more competent internationally and will join the global cultural, social and economic dynamics, and to make conscious the importance that learning English as a second language is breaking all the attitudinal barriers to achieve this goal.

Conclusions

In order to get that, students may get more information about English certifications, international programs and in general all the advantages that learning English has, rather than making them to perceive English learning like an obligation or something they must do, without giving any motivation or explanation.

One thing that I have tried and worked for me is to have them consider that learning English is not an easy task, and I tell them that they are making an investment of time and money rather than an expense. English students in Mexico need much motivation and a clear guide that shows them what they will get after learning, and I am not talking only about monetary benefits, but also a great amount of unknown experiences they had not underwent before. I like to repeat the following phrase all the time so they do not forget that the effort they are making has sense: "if the best things in life were easy, everybody would do them".

Please check the Building Positive Group Dynamics course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Skills of Teacher Training course at Pilgrims website.