Ponencia: Are we holding Mexican students back?
Spanish speakers ought to learn English faster than most because of the rich common ground shared with English. Sadly, all too often, they don’t. Of course there are multiple reasons, but I’ll focus here on the methodological choices we’ve been making. I believe we hold Mexican students back by not exploiting the full potential of their linguistic advantages. Instead, we follow the same old, universalist, ‘one-size fits’ all approach found in the CEFR and promulgated by international course books. We teach words at A1, A2, B1, etc. based on an ‘idealised levelling’ rather than consideration of their utility and facility for our students, here in Mexico, in monolingual classes, learning English as a Lingua Franca. Context, audience and existing knowledge must underpin any good teaching. Foreign language learners constantly refer back to their L1 for meaning and equivalents. Contrast and translation are inevitable, especially now digital translation is ubiquitous. Rather than pretend they don’t or shouldn’t happen, we ought to build these natural processes into our day-to-day pedagogy. If you begin by asking ‘What do Spanish-speaking classes already know, can assimilate and express easily moving from Spanish to English, and where do they need most help?’, then work accordingly, you make efficient use of precious class time, and should get students to a better place more quickly. That’s what this pragmatic, eye-opening session will illustrate. Multiple ways to use Spanish effectively, before, during and after class. And thus, accelerate English learning in Mexico.