Page 23 - Revista San Nico

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English as a foreign language at San Nicolás

High School

By: JORGE OMAR BARÓN HERNÁNDEZ, English Language Teacher at San Nicolas High School

Reflecting on the use of English as a second language, the San Nicolas educational institution
has been facing it up every day since the basic secondary school began with the first sixth grade
ten years ago. Since then, the teacher Teresa de Jesus Rojas has been charged of giving the English
Education for San Nicolas Headquarter and occasionally at Siderurgica´s branch. Mrs Rojas
implemented the English Language Syllabus by taking into account the Basic Education standards
established by the Ministry of National Education for both, primary and secondary students.

Three years later, the foreign language stage was taken by Julia Esther Peñuela, who started the leading of English
learners from sixth to eleventh grades. It was a revolutionary period due to the newer methodology, practical
language use and the design of a syllabus based on Education for comprehension. Mrs Peñuela time in English
teaching has an abroad experience, so she has improved the teaching-learning process by a dynamic and practical
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methodology with activities such as the English Song Festival held for the Language Day Celebration on April 23
2013. The guided contests and the daily student´s events are presented in her lessons and the grammar and phonetic
skills are developed by her.

The current English syllabus at San Nicolas High School is developed by teachers in the preschool, primary and
secondary levels. It is adapted to the Learning Standards, the Basic Learning Rights, the topics and strategies
suggested by MEN and the context and situations proper from the region. There are different options to carry out
the activities so the teacher Maria Elsa Becerra, who is a primary school one, nowdays is developing a project in
which the students involve their parents and relatives. Teacher and students prepare material for teaching to the
family. First of all, the teacher develops the lesson with the children and then the kids apply what they have learned
with their family members. The family prepares some learning evidences like pictures, videos and written production,
then the students and teacher analyze the production and make a feedback for correcting the possible mistakes. In
the same way, the teaching learning process is carried out by mean of transversal projects in which most of the
members participate including directives, administrators and teachers from the other subjects like mathematics,
natural sciences, social sciences, but specially with artistics, physical education, religion and so on.

The learners claim for the use of technology for the teaching of the English as a Foreign Language, and in this case
there has been designed and applied some projects by using the tablets, laptops computers but in special the
smartphones which are viewed as a good resource of learning. The connectivity is basic factor for increasing the
options of this kind of teaching-learning process, but when its performance is not so good, it is necessary to apply
complementary tools such as Bluetooth, WhatsApp and instagram, for transferring information. Those matters have
easy solutions and it is attempted projects with the methodology m-learning which is now used in Europe and The
United States.

Primary teachers have applied diverse strategies in which the environment is an essential topic, furthermore the
family, the friends and pets. Some students from eleventh and tenth grades have reinforced the process. The idea is
to evolve the whole educational community and to up to date the foreign language as a great sample from the San
Nicolas to the municipality, region and Boyaca´s Department. So go for the San Nicolas Institution English.