| | |  News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2009 
Mexico Launches Effort to Teach Its Students English
 Marion Lloyd - Houston Chronicle
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Ciudad Victoria, Mexico — With its economy increasingly hitched to the United States, Mexico’s government has launched an ambitious plan to teach English to every schoolchild, even those in kindergarten.
Currently, educators in 21 states and the Federal District are offering the language in a smattering of elementary schools and experimenting with teaching methods. Beginning next fall, 5,000 schools will begin a pilot project with federal textbooks and funds. And within just six years, federal officials hope to have all 12 million public elementary school students learning English.
“The ability to speak English in the 21st century is a must if we want to insert ourselves in the global economy, improve our standard of living or simply live as happier human beings,” said Fernando Gonzalez, the federal official in charge of public education through ninth grade.
It’s a daunting goal. The government must train another 85,000 English teachers and improve the proficiency of the 35,000 existing teachers, most of whom only have a basic grasp of the language, Gonzalez said.
But the potential rewards are great, he said. As proof, he offered the example of Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas.
Starting in 2001, the state government began introducing English in fourth-grade classrooms. Gov. Eugenio Hernandez ramped up the program after taking office in 2004, and educators expect it to reach all 400,000 first-through-sixth graders in the state by the next school year.
Currently, English is mandatory in all Mexican schools from seventh through ninth grade, although many private schools start as early as preschool. The result is a growing divide between rich and poor.
Educators hope that by giving all Mexican students access to basic English, they will not only even out the playing field, they will also boost Mexico’s economy.
Fifteen years after Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, exports to the United States have grown 500 percent, according to government figures. The United States also is by far Mexico’s largest trading partner, accounting for more than 80 percent of its exports.
“If 15 years ago, it was added value to know English, today it’s a necessity,” said Juan Carlos Gonzalez, the president of the main business chamber in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital.
The scene inside one light-filled classroom in the city’s Jose Vasconcelos school, educators and business leaders hope, will soon become the norm.
First-grade class
There, children as young as 6 were playing show-and-tell the other day in English.
“OK class, today we’re going to review the seasons,” said Venezia Revilla, the 22-year-old language teacher.
She held up a pair of shiny track shorts and asked: “Are these for winter?”
“Noooo!” shouted the first-graders.
“Ah, you guys are too smart,” said Revilla, laughing.
English is particularly in demand in Tamaulipas, which shares a 230-mile border with Texas and accounts for half of all Mexico-U.S. border trade. The state is home to hundreds of maquiladora export factories, whose employers give preference to English-speaking workers.
The state government is footing the entire $11 million annual cost of English classes, a rare investment in a country where education is largely funded by the federal government.
Supporters, including many parents, argue that it’s money well spent.
“They need English to get ahead, because life is very hard,” said Agustin Murillo, a farmer in the dusty agricultural hamlet of Ejido la Aurora, 20 miles north of Ciudad Victoria.
Cut out middlemen
The $9 he earns a day picking oranges is barely enough to feed his three sons, who attend the village’s tiny elementary school.
“Now they’re learning English, and they’re not going to have to struggle to survive,” said Murillo, whose wood-and-tin shack sits across a muddy irrigation ditch from the school.
He and other parents in Ejido la Aurora said that learning English would allow their children to negotiate directly with orange buyers in the United States, instead of paying a hefty cut to local middlemen. The language skills could also help them land jobs as managers at the maquiladora plants in nearby Reynosa and Matamoros.
Jose Rivas, a 10-year-old in a torn school uniform, had a different idea.
“I can use English to get a job in the United States,” he said, as he wolfed down quesadillas under an orange grove that serves as the school’s cafeteria. “You can’t get a job if you don’t understand.”
Perhaps ironically, state officials hope that by teaching children English, they will encourage them to stay home.
“If they speak English, a whole world opens up to them here,” said Alicia Zarate, the program’s director and a veteran English teacher.
marionlloyd(at)gmail.com |
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