Trying to teach English in Ecuador
For three months I was volunteering my time to help teach English in and around Quito. I enjoy teaching English and I enjoy meeting the students. I visited preschools, primary schools, highschools, public schools, private schools and universities.
In general, the experiences and the things I saw being done to the students were so bad that I feel a responsibility to tell the people of Ecuador. While these experiences occurred in Ecuador, I have seen and heard about similar things in other countries. Therefore I believe what I have to say about education in general has relevance around the world.
My hope is that my writing will help improve the system.
Here is a summary of what I found:
- The classes are much too large classes of over forty students were common.
- Many English teachers have terrible pronunciation and often make many mistakes.
- Often the teachers don't even realize they are making mistakes, nor do they realize when students are making mistakes, thus the student will never know that what he or she has said or written is wrong and they are likely to repeat their mistake in the future.
- The teachers do not have time to check the work of all the students.
- When the work is checked it is usually just marked wrong if it is wrong, but the right answer is not given. So most students will never know what the right answer should have been because most will not be motivated enough to try to find it on their own.
- Too much time is spent on repetition and memorizing. For example, it is common to have the students try to memorize tenses of verbs. Such as give, gave, given. But the students don't know how to use these words in actual examples.
- One day when I tried to get the students in one high school class to give me examples of sentences using the words so they would understand how to use the words, the teacher stopped me and told me there wasn't enough time for that. She only wanted me to read the words and have the students repeat them. In other words she didn't want the students to think. Just repeat. This is the rule, not the exception.
- Students are being taught things which they are unlikely to ever use in actual conversations before they have mastered the most simple things. For example, I saw highschool students being taught the words "sieve" and "grate" in a lesson about cooking, but these same students could not all count to twenty. In the notebook of a 13 year old I found the word "beseech" which was the translation of the word "suplicar." I don't think I have ever used the word "beseech" in my life, so why are they trying to teach it to thirteen year olds? In the same notebook, the student had copied the teacher's translation of "levantar" as "to arise". But no native English speaker says, "I arise at 5:00 AM so I can catch the bus to school." We say, "I get up." So why are they teaching "arise"?
- Students are given a lot of homework which they don't understand. They do the work only to get the grade, not to learn English. They will do it the easiest way possible. They will copy from other students, they will use the Internet to automatically translate from Spanish to English or English to Spanish.
- Students are not being taught to have a desire to learn English. They are not being internally motivated. Nearly all the motivation is external. It is the fear of failing the class and failing the year in school which motivates them to do the work, not an internal desire to learn.
- Since they are not given any internal motivation, most students do not want to practice English outside of the English class. Most students don't try to do anything on their own to learn English. They don't have books at home in English. They don't have English- Spanish dictionaries. They don't try to translate the words to the songs they hear in English. They don't try to talk to English speaking visitors.
- The students who really do want to learn English were often not allowed to leave the class so they could practice conversation with people who actually spoke English.
- In many schools when I tried to take small groups of 6 students out of the class to sit in a circle and practice conversation, I was told that this was not allowed. Or there was no place to go.
- The school inspectors have more authority than the English teachers. If an English teacher wants to try something new, the school inspector can say no. For example, one day some students wanted me to spend an extra period with them. We had started talking about how to improve the education system in Ecuador and we all wanted to continue the conversation. This was a topic of much interest to the students. The English teacher talked to the teacher who had the next period. They both agreed I could have the hour to practice English conversation. But when I took the students outside to sit in a circle on the ground, an inspector told the teachers that I was not allowed to do this and the students had to go back inside to their regular class. Because this was one of my last weeks in Quito, these students never again had the chance to continue this conversation.
- Many teachers showed little respect to the students. Here are two examples. At one highschool the teacher arrived about ten minutes late. By this time many students had left the classroom to go get something to eat or drink or to use the bathroom etc. But when the teacher came, she closed the door behind her. When the other students realized she had arrived and tried to come in the class. She made them stand outside for nearly 15 minutes till she was satisfied she had punished them enough. When she let them come in she only motioned to them with her hand in a very arrogant way. She didn't say anything to them even when one of them said good morning to her.
- And in an English class at University Central, the national university of Ecuador, a similar thing happened. But when the professor came he locked the door behind him and started taking attendance. Several students were outside knocking on the door but he ignored them till he had finished taking attendance. Then he walked over and opened the door and let them come in, again very arrogantly and disrespectfully, without saying a word to them, as if they were too unworthy of even his words or sight.
- Most teachers used threats to control the students. As one example, when some highschool students tried to follow me outside so they could talk to me longer, the teacher threatened to give them a zero if they didn't go back inside.
- The assignments often have very little to do with English. Often they have more to do with cutting and pasting pictures. If you look at a student's English notebook you will see it is full of cut-out pictures. In comparison, in all my classes of Spanish, French and German I never once was told to cut and paste a picture.
- If you look at student's English notebook, you will also see it is full of mistakes. Often a teacher has checked the page and not noticed the mistakes, so as I mentioned, the student will never have any idea they have written the wrong thing.
- Many of the public schools in Quito use a book written in England. It teaches British English even though American English would be more useful to most Ecuadorians. It teaches them to spell color like "colour", for example.
- Here is another example. Americans say "Put a check in the box next to the correct answer." But the British say, "Tick the box next to the correct answer." If an Ecuadorian uses the word "tick" like this in the USA most Americans will have no idea what they are talking about. In the USA "tick" is a kind of insect. And it is also used as part of the noise the clocks make. We say that clocks go "tick tock tick tock". But "tick" is not used to describe putting a check mark in box.
- Many public schools do not have libraries. If they do, the libraries usually do not have any books, magazines or newspapers in English. Often they do not even have an English-Spanish dictionary.
- School directors and inspectors seem to be much more concerned about whether a student is wearing a school uniform than whether the student is learning English. For example, students can often be sent home for not wearing part of the mandatory school uniform, but they would not be sent home for failing to do part of their homework one day.
- School authorities also seem more concerned about singing the national song every Monday and about the student kissing the flag, since failure to sing the national song or failure to kiss the flag can result in the student being expelled from school or not graduating, even if the student has perfect grades in all their subjects.
- Students are forced to sit through English classes when they don't want to be there. Teachers are forced to try to teach English to students who don't want to be there. In one class of 50 I asked the students how many really wanted to learn English. Three students raised their hands. The time spent trying to keep the other students quiet is time wasted for those who really want to learn English. And it is time wasted for those who don't want to be there. The teachers also get frustrated and discouraged. I promise you it is no fun trying to teach someone something when they don't want to learn it. It is like trying to hug or kiss someone who doesn't want to be touched. Everyone loses in this system.
- Students are not allowed out of the schools so they can go meet English speaking visitors. Nor are they encouraged to invite visitors to come in and practice conversation.
- When students have wanted to come up to the front of the room to get closer to me so they can hear me better or to see my laptop computer screen where I have had words to songs, their teachers have told them to go sit back down in their chairs.
- In one primary school I was sitting with some children in the school gymnasium waiting for the teacher's day program to start. I took out my laptop and started teaching them to spell words in English. They were very interested and excited. Quickly a group of them came to join in. But a teacher told them to sit back down and she told me to go sit with the rest of the teachers.
- In Otavalo I was in another gymnasium with children who were being forced to watch a presentation. The students near me were more interested in practicing their English, but their teacher told them to stop talking to me and she made two of them go sit next to her.
- In one highschool some students invited me to their class to practice English, but when the teacher came in and saw me she started yelling at them and lecturing them. She said this was "her" hour and it was "her" class and no one had given them permission to invite me in. And she didn't like that some of them were up in the front of the room talking to me. She said if I was going to help some of them with English then I had to help all of them. (I have heard this kind of thing before, even though not all students want to learn English and it is much more efficient to work with just those who want to.)
- At another highschool a teacher was late so I stayed to keep talking to the students. Then the teacher came in, someone who is also a university professor at University Central in Quito. He seemed very offended that there was a stranger in "his" class. I introduced myself and said I was helping teach English. Very arrogantly he said, "Yes, but not in my hour." Then he walked away.
- At this same highschool, they say they have a "bi-lingual secretaries" program. One day I asked the students how many of them actually wanted to be secretaries. Less than ten percent of them did. So I asked why they were taking the specialty of bi-lingual secretaries. Most of them said it was so they could learn English. But they are learning things which are designed for secretaries. Things like shorthand in Spanish. When I started asking too many questions about things like this, the English teachers told me not to come back anymore. This was at ITS Gran Columbia. For a month, I also tried to start an English conversation group at the school, and there was a lot of interest by the students, but the teachers made it too difficult for the students to participate, so the group never got started.
- In another highschool where some of the students wanted to practice English I offered to stay after school and meet with anyone who wanted to practice English. But the teacher said they couldn't do this.
Here are some of my experiences in private institutions.
In one, CENDIA, in Quito, I was told I could not teach unless I wore long pants to class. When I said I can still speak English in my shorts and that the students don't care if I wear long pants, the director told me that it was the "culture of Ecuador for teachers to wear long pants." I don't like wearing long pants, nor do I like someone telling me how to dress, so I didn't return there. As a result of this director's closed-mindedness, the students lost the opportunity to practice with a native speaker. This school has over twenty teachers, but not one of them is a native speaker.
In another, the Salesian University, a director told me one day that I could visit all the classes anytime I wanted to. The next week evidently one of the teachers felt threatened by me correcting her English. She complained to the director and the director told me that I had to leave and I needed to call her before I came back again.
At another, I was told by several of the Ecuadorian teachers that they were too busy with their course plans to have time for me to visit the class. They didn't ask the students if they wanted a chance to talk to a native speaker. When students are asked if they want a chance to talk to a native speaker they always say yes. They know they need the chance to talk to native speakers, but the teachers, school inspectors and school directors often will not give them this chance.
There was one institute where the director welcomed me every time I came to visit and all the teachers seemed to really appreciate me coming. This was the Haggai Institute.
From all of this I can say that there are many, many children and teenagers who want to learn English. In fact when I recently asked several classes of 9-13 year old students who wanted to be able to speak to foreigners nearly all raised their hands or shouted "yo!", which means "I do!"
But the educational system and the cultural mentality of those who are teaching English and directing the schools is making it very difficult for them. To me, this is a very sad situation.
Because of my extensive traveling I know first hand how important English is and how many opportunities it opens up. If Ecuador really wants to be a country for tourism, it will need a much better English educational system. And a different attitude on the part of the school authorities.
It is sad to see such poverty in such a beautiful country, with such wonderful, enthusiastic children. The poverty is so pervasive that the government schools in Quito often are not paying their electricity bills and can't even afford to buy toilet paper. And in the national university the elevators to take students to the English department on the fourth floor have not worked for so long there are posters taped across the section where the two doors join.
The children and teenagers of Ecuador need a better education system. The future of Ecuador needs a better education system.
S. Hein
Quito
June 30, 2004