UNIVERSIDAD MAGISTERFACULTAD DE EDUCACIÓN

CARRERA DE BACHILLERATO EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS

TESINA PARA OPTAR AL GRADO DE BACHILLERATO EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS

“STUDY OF METHODOLOGIES TO TEACH ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL)

TO INDIGENOUS GRADUATES FROM HIGH-SCHOOL”

FRANKLIN CARTÍN BRENES

GENERAL OBJECTIVE

To explore methodologies to teach English as a foreign

language (EFL) to the indigenous graduates from High-

schools with the purpose of developing a proposal that

facilitate the learning process

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

1. To describe some of the characteristics of the indigenous graduates from High-school studying English at Universidad Magíster in Costa Rica.

2. To state the constraints in the learning of writing, reading comprehension, listening and speaking of the indigenous graduated from secondary schools in Costa Rica.

3. To recognise the traditional methodologies used for teaching English as Foreign Language (EFL) to indigenous graduates from secondary schools in Costa Rica.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

4. To determine the level of language acquisition and period of time spent while studying English as a Foreign Language inthe Great Metropolitan Area (GMA) in Costa Rica.

5. To identify the academic level of the teachers teaching English as foreign language in most renowned institutes providing English as a Foreign Language in the Great Metropolitan Area (GMA) in Costa Rica.

6. To propose an alternative methodology to teach Englishas a Foreign Language (EFL) to indigenous graduates from High-school.

1. Characteristics of the indigenous graduates from High-school.

2. Constraints the indigenous graduates from High-school may have in the learning of writing, reading comprehension, listening and speaking English as a Foreign Language.

3. Traditional methodologies used for teaching English as Foreign Language.

4. Level of language acquisition and period of time spent while studying English as a Foreign Language.

5. Academic level of the teachers teaching English as a Foreign Language.

VARIABLES

Three pillars support the institutional duties:

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

• Social responsibility.

• Proper environment.

• The humanized technologies working together with

indigenous communities, social problems attention

centres, International Red Cross and elderly program

Strategic objectives of Universidad Magíster:

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

• To manage knowledge among students, teachers, administrative staff and vendors in a platform for the development.

• To humanise technological advances to turn them into service of the development of society.

• To built up a consciousness upon environmental activities and social programmes.

• To permanently link Universidad Magíster to dynamical needs of the market itself.

• To train and to educate without any limits to different sectors of national economy.

Values of Universidad Magíster:

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

•Peace.

•Ethics.

•Discipline.

•Perseverance.

•Humbling.

•Charity.

•Beauty.

"Psychology and linguistics have caused a good deal of harm bypretending to have answers to those questions and tellingteachers and people who deal with children how they shouldbehave. Often the ideas presented by the scientists are totallycrazy and they may cause trouble...(...) The truth of the matter isthat about 99% of teaching is about making the studentsinterested in the material. Then the other 1% has to do with yourmethods.” Noam Chomsky (1928- )

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Design of investigation: Mixed (Qualitative / Quantitative)

Type of investigation: Mixed(Descriptive/exploratory/participative)

Population: Indigenous graduates from High-school studying

Teaching of English in Universidad Magíster (III-2016) / Privately own institutes providing English classes in GMA

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

1. Indigenous graduates from High-school studying

Teaching of English as a foreign language at Universidad

Magíster (III-2016).

2. Privately own institutes providing English classes in the

Great Metropolitan Area of Costa Rica.

PRIMARY SOURCE

Sex

Age

Exposure

First language

Languages at school

(Cultural Capital)

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

Characterization of subjects:

Writing

Reading

Listening

Speaking

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS

Constraints of the Subjects at:

LEVELS OF DIFFICULTIES AT WRITTEN PRODUCTION

Very little Little some Enough Very much

LEVELS OF DIFFICULIES AT READING COMPREHENSION

Very little Little some Enough Very much

LEVELS OF DIFFICULTIES AT LISTENING COMPREHENSION

Very little Little some Enough Very much

LEVELS OF DIFFICULTIES AT ORAL PRODUCTION

Very little Little some Enough Very much

TRADITIONAL METHODOLOGY BY INSTITUTES

Conversational Communicative Skills

TIME DURATION TO FULFIL INSTITUTES’ PROGRAMMES

16-18 months 24 months 36 months 60 months

NATIONALITY & TEACHERS’ ACADEMIC/ACCREDITATION

Eight institutes (53.36%) hireonly Costa Ricans as teachers

of English.

Teachers of with or without accreditation or university

degree.

Six institutes (40.0%) hire only native speakers to.

Whether or not they are university certified or

volunteers.

Four institutes (26.6%) hire Costa Ricans or natives.

Only with a university degree or accredited for teaching

English as a foreign language.

• Characterisation

• Constraints

• Traditional methodologies used

• Time duration and level achieved

• Nationality and academic level of teachers

CONCLUSIONS

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Characterisation

• Constraints

• Traditional methodologies used

• Time duration and level achieved

• Nationality and academic level of teachers

To propose a set of alternative methodologies for

indigenous graduates from High-schools with the

purpose of improve the performance in the four

skills of the English language.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE OF THE PROPOSAL

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSAL

To optimise the teaching / learning processes in

specific populations in terms of improving the skills

acquisition at: oral production, written production,

listening comprehension, reading comprehension.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSAL

To reduce stress generated in the previously

mentioned specific population while facing the

learning process of English as foreign language.

• 90 to 100 minutes for the written test

• 30 minutes for the listening test.

• 15 to 20 minutes on the speaking / interview.

DEVELOPMENT OF PROPOSAL

Placement test:

Duration of the training

DEVELOPMENT OF PROPOSAL

DAYCLASSROOM

HOURS

VIRTUAL

HOURSMORNINGS AFTERNOONS Evenings

Monday

and

Thursday

3 hours

3 hours4 hours 8.00 – 11.00 14.00 – 17.00 18.00 – 21.00

Tuesday

and

Friday

3 hours

3 hours4 hours 9.00 – 12.00 15.00 – 18.00 19.00 – 22.00

Saturday 5 hours 5 hours 8.00 – 13.00 -- --

Total of hours of Total Immersion English Programme: 960

• Build up own language

• Begin with short stories and personal anecdotes

• Keep lesson homework oriented

• Permanent introduction of cultural issues

• Incorporation on ITC’s

DEVELOPMENT OF PROPOSAL

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACH

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

The proposal of a new methodology is more than a mixture of

different tendencies and approaches:

THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH

THE HUMANISTIC APPROACH

THE PEDAGOGY OF EMOTIONS

THE SILENT WAY METHOD

DEVELOPMENT OF PROPOSAL

1. In the short-term, the subjects of the study will beginto take classes of English under the Total Immersion English Method immediately improving thus their learning of the target language.

2. In the mid-term will be able to stand out in a joint teaching / learning alternative methodologies; Univer-sidad Magíster would be improving teaching /learning methodology student oriented and developing strategies for a better language acquisition.

INSTITUTIONAL IMPACTS

1. In the mid-term, indigenous graduates from High-school studying English will be able to develop their own strategies and this population will replicate thealternative methodologies in their future classrooms and encourage others to apply them and use them.

2. In mid-term or long-term will be the possibility to implement these methodologies to other social English studying groups with specific characteristics: imprisoned persons and senior adults.

SOCIAL IMPACT:

SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE PROPOSAL

Strengths:

Low cost in the sense of the requirements to deliver the lessons,not a lot of equipment and the enrolment fees are not higherthan other fees in other institutes.

Adaptability in the sense of the nature of this alternativemethodology itself; this is a blend of state of the artmethodologies to adapt the best characteristics of them in theteaching/learning process of English for the characteristics andneeds of the students

SWOT ANALYSIS OF PROPOSAL

Weakness:

The socio-economic profile of the students to be might beconsidered weakness; even though the low cost is consideredstrength, due to the socio-economical profile of the students,the cost could be a turn off.

Also, the fact that this methodology is planned to be implement(currently) at Universidad Magíster premises, could beconsidered a weakness due to the physical space limitation

SWOT ANALYSIS OF PROPOSAL

Opportunities:

The possibility to make out of this methodology a NationalStrategy to teach indigenous populations could be consideredopportunity.

To implement this methodology to other populations with

specific characteristics could also be considered opportunity.

SWOT ANALYSIS OF PROPOSAL

Threats:

The only threat that could be mention at the moment could bethe broad competence in the market.

Even though there are a lot of antibodies towards the newregulations towards private universities and costs establishmentin Costa Rica at current time; those could be also considered asthreats, potential threats to this methodology implementation.

COSTS OF ENGLISH TUITION PROPOSAL PAID BY THE STUDENT

RUBRICUNIT COST

(COLONES)

MONTHLY

COST

(COLONES)

YEARLY

COST

(COLONES)

YEARLY

COST

(DOLLARS)

Tuition enrol fee25.000 25.000 25.000,00 44.61

Tuition

50.000 50.000 600.000,00 1.070,83

Book

acquisition25.000 25.000 50.000,00 89.23

Total per year 675.000,00 1.204,67

COST OF PROPOSAL FOR THE FIRST TIME

AREA AMOUNT ACTIONUNIT COST

(COLONES)

SEMESTRAL

COST

(COLONES)

ANNUAL COST

(COLONES)

ANNUAL COST

(DOLLARS)

CLASSROOM

1 Classroom 12.000 576.000 192.000 342,66

1 Video-beam, 150.000 150.000 150.000 267,77

1 Speakers 18.000 18.000 18.000 32,12

½ Internet 8.000 48.000 96.000 171,33

LANGUAGE

LABORATORY

½ Internet 8.000 48.000 96.000 171,33

1 Head-set 6.000 6.000 6.000 10,70

CLASSROOM

SUPPLIES

1 Paper dictionaries 5.000 5.000 5.000 8,92

6 Markers, 3.000 18.000 36.000 64,25

1 White-boards, 36.000 36.000 36.000 64,25

1 Cork-boards, 25.000 25.000 25.000 44,61

--Magazines,

news papersDonated Donated Donated --

-- Reading books Donated Donated Donated --

1 Books photocopies 4.000 24.000 48.000 85,66

ENGLISH

BOOKS1 Book series 25.000 25.000 50.000 89,23

ENGLISH

TEACHER

Six hours

per week

Face-to-face tutorial

classes12.000 1.728.000 3.456.000 6.168,01

Two hours

Teacher for

planning and

checking at

12.000 576.000 1.152.000 271,27

TOTAL COST/

SEMESTER

Three million two hundred and eighty-nine

thousand colones

(Five thousand eight hundred and sixty nine

USD)

3.289.000 5.869

TOTAL COST /

YEAR

Five million three hundred and sixty-six thousand colones.

(Nine thousand five hundred and seventy-six USD)

5.366.000 9.576

Source: Cartín Brenes, Franklin (2016.)

Exchange rate of ¢560,31 for a 1 USD, accordingly to Banco Central de Costa Rica web page (January, 2016).

1. To design a specific methodology for teaching Englishas a foreign language to other populations with specific characteristic similar or not to the indigenous graduates

2. To go deeper in the characteristics of the indigenous population to find better their socio-economical chara-cteristics to help them develop their total potential.

FURTHER POSSIBLE INVESTIGATIONS

3. To analyse common phonetics between the Costa Rican indigenous phonemes and the English phonemes to simplify learning processes.

4. To explore the methodologies applied in privately own institutes to make a change in the teaching.

5. To implement the new methodologies proposed in this research to validate with students in a real environment of English as a foreign language classroom.

FURTHER POSSIBLE INVESTIGATIONS

THANK YOU, VERY MUCH!