MY REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE PRE-ASSIGMENT

Workplaces in Colombia and Vocational Education in your country. 

  

I   would  like  to  start this  reflection with these  statements: “Education is the master key to innovate, grow and to give equal opportunities to all “.

Everybody  Knows  this, however, in Colombia “ this Education” comes  to  few  people, those  who  have the  economical capacity  to pay  the right to get it.

Only  the  Sena as  a public  Institution  meets   the requirements  for  those  people who does  not  have that  capacity because it is  free. Sena   tries all the  time  to  update, to  innovate  , to  improve  the  quality  of  its  education not  only  for  its  students but  of   its  instructors  too.

Now, Talking  about vocational Education in Colombia I  can  see many  contradictions ,taking into  account  the  first  reading about  the  new leaders and  the  strategies  and  politics  that  Colombia is  considering  to  be  in  this  process of  having  those  kind  of  leaders, we  realize that Technical schools, Sena and  universities in charge of  this  work, have  to make deep changes. First,   they should  update curriculums and programs to make the  students to  have not  only  technical  knowledge, skills and qualities   but  also values  and  principles to  face  new  challenges  successfully.

We  as  Sena  Instructors, see how   our students get a  very  good level  of Technical  Knowledge and Skills  to  work in  their  areas  of  study, but their  behaviorism  in  places  of  working  are not  the  best. They  give up easily when  they find  a  big  problem  to  solve, Most  of  them have  problems  to fulfill schedules, to be  on time, to  interact  with others, to be  responsible.

However, when they  have to develop  a  project, they  get  excellent  results. Then;  to  get those  new  leaders

How  we  improve  in   our  students to have deep integrity and intellectual openness, or to  find new ways to create loyalty,  to teach them how  to   work  in a team is  necessary  to  create a  new  culture in  the  classrooms.

Now, if we want to  have leaders, the leadership of principals and teachers is a determining factor in the quality of education, so  we must  start doing  the  things  very well by ourselves.

We design the culture of leadership in a learning environment and we determine which faculty, course or  group of students should be related to this platform.

It is also needed the organizational culture, to give managers more time to think about the big picture of what the institutions have to do.

In our society we need good leaders and globally we have a deficit of leadership. So the questions should be: how can  we get good leaders? and how is it possible that in a society of seven billion human beings  we  have a difficulty finding them? That's where education start  its  real work.

*****

Other  aspects  to consider  at  macro  level is  that In Latin America there is little long-term planning to define the number and quality of Teachers at each grade level, the number of technicians and people with graduate degrees would be required  form, curriculum content and cultivating essential values in a changing world.

The role play technology, the content should be given priority to train and promote happiness in a changing world, the role of memory when all available knowledge and ways to improve cognitive skills are some of the issues tracking. At  Sena, we  are   trying to  develop new digital citizens and students against of  their  awareness  of  bad  use of  technology.

The role play technology, the content that should be given priority to train and promote happiness in a changing world.

The subject that you teach

Nowadays, English is a subject that is covering a high importance and the government center its efforts is English language acquisition.  As many countries, Colombia is targeted national educational agendas focuses on the attainment of competitiveness in this globalized world.  A world that changes with the years and within the language, in this case with teaching and learning English occur the same thing.  Graddol (2006) explores these changes through the analysis of factors that influence in language learning process and how they impact in the vision of world and English language as a bridge of connection between all social spheres.  One of teaching and learning language goal from government policy is that everyone, students, teachers, professionals should be competent speakers of English and have the skills in the use of ICT’s as a part of our curricula, but world-wide performance in language by students in Colombia, especially from some public schools is poor. 

         According to the results about National English test, the MEN has found that teachers in Colombia are limited to make their labor as ELT should be, the government based on national tests results affirms that teachers are not qualified.  Since the application of evaluation to teachers and students, these tests only have been used to show what they know about the language and the results are used as a tool to evaluate teacher’s development (Decreto 1278, 2002).  Even so, in public schools is notorious to find creative, hunger teachers to find better ways to teach English in a communicative way.  Hence, to study other curriculums from other countries, especially from countries where the English has another position inside the educational system can give us idea in how to apply this methodology, materials in our Colombian public schools contexts.  Teachers and especially teachers administrators need to understand the principles of CLT.  These principles involve the goals of language to teach and to learn, the ways learners learn languages, the kind of classroom activities, the role of teacher and the role of student to at the end of the course students are more capable subjects to communicate with others in English, obtaining at least B1 (CEFR, 2006).

The future of English in Colombia is focus in how the government is centered on the preparation from universities to future teachers, but it would be better that such training was initiated at the Escuelas normales where it would actually initiating process of bilingualism at an early age with the educational practices of these pre-service teachers.  On the other hand, some aspects that influence in the successful of this global language is that in public schools this signature is taught in three hours per week, teachers use in creative way all the materials that the school environment gives him/her, and all sources that learner use to self-internalization of the language, overcrowded classroom affect not only teachers health, relations between students and teachers, and teachers with other peers.

 In conclusion, it could be interesting if the government (MEN and  SENA )reorganize their trends related with the Bilingual Program according to the school context, to give the teaching labor the place what is and the government could offer to teachers better opportunities to improve their salary level and health conditions, and in this way they are interested to update their English level, because it results very expensive to pay for specializations, masters or PhD.