This paper will sketch the current landscape of the teaching of the English language in Argentina and, to some extent, Latin America. It will trace the roots that reflect the background of English language teachers and English language professionals. Then it will outline the options or routes followed by teachers as part of their continuing professional development and work life. Finally, the ramifications of these options in relation to our context, with particular emphasis on the past two decades, will be presented and some current trends will be briefly discussed.
18 2. Roots and routes
When we explore the professional roots of English language teachers we first turn towards their educational background. As members of FAAPI associations in Argentina what teachers have in common is a degree of Teacher of English. This may have been obtained at a university or teachers‘ college; it may be generic, i.e. for all levels or specializing to teach in Primary or Secondary schools; it may even have been designed as a four or two- and-a-half-year degree. However, in spite of this evident diversity, many teachers are not aware that their course of studies can trace its roots to the pioneer plan included in the decree issued by President Julio Argentino Roca and his Education Secretary, Dr. Juan Ramón Fernández on February 10th, 1904 as part of the creation of the institution currently known as IES en Lenguas Vivas ―Juan Ramón Fernández‖ (see Banfi & Moyano, 2003). The number in between parenthesis indicates the number of weekly periods taken by students over the course of each year.
1styear 2ndyear 3rdyear
Foreign Language (12) Foreign Language(12) Foreign Language(12)
Geography (3) History (3) History (3)
Special Pedagogy(12) Special Pedagogy(12) Special Pedagogy(12) Spanish and its literature (3) Spanish and its literature (3) Spanish and its literature (3) Argentine History(3) Argentine History(3) Argentine History(3)
General Psychology(3) Child Psychology (2) Moral and Logic(3)
This is my translation of the Spanish terms used in the decree. Note that where the translation says Geography / History, the original plan referred to Geografía / Historia de ese pueblo to draw a distinction with Argentine Geography / History. This is owing to the fact that this generic plan was intended for teacher training programmes in English, French,
19 German and Italian. In those days, the reference to ―the people who speak that language‖ did not require further clarification. Nowadays it could be considered a more ambiguous term and, yet, the content of the courses has not varied significantly. In the first instance only English and French were implemented. This programme was a great innovation for the time in that it provided specific and specialised education for language teachers, something that was viewed as a matter for the State to be involved in directly. This model would be emulated and expanded in subsequent plans in different institutions at various stages.
A trait that appears evident in that plan, and that has continued to be present in the design of these programmes, is its interdisciplinarynature. Contents and approaches are drawn from different disciplines and, with the passing of time, new disciplines that emerged were incorporated, e.g. (Applied) Linguistics, Phonetics, Discourse Analysis, to mention some. One of the current challenges in the curricular design of teacher education programmes is, in fact, finding ‗space‘ in any given plan for all the content areas that are deemed ‗necessary‘. A related challenge is the nature of teacher educator appointments and the level of (in-) flexibility when it comes to updating content in rigidly assigned slots. This is not a minor issue and is linked to the academic vs. professional nature of the programmes and institutions. Pierce (1991) writes:
Although most studies fail to define the term [discipline] explicitly, they typically assume that boundaries of disciplines closely follow those of academic departments. The use of such boundaries may seem to fix overly concrete limits on a highly abstract phenomenon, excluding too large a number of people with interest in the subject. But its importance in creating and maintaining disciplinary communities makes the academic department the building block from which disciplines are created.(Pierce, 1991, pp. 22-23)
20 A related aspect of the programmes that has been present from the outset is the devotion of considerable time to the language development of prospective teachers, hence the presence of a significant number of hours allotted to ‗Foreign Language.‘ This overarching objective has on occasion distorted the boundaries between instrumental content/skills development and those areas that are discipline-bound (see Banfi & Iummato, 1998).
At a comparativelevel, the common ground that Argentine teachers share may lead us to the mistaken belief that this is the way teachers of English have always been educated everywhere. However, models for educating foreign and second language teachers are as varied as the contexts and traditions where they exist. There are various reviews of foreign language teacher education in Europe (Kelly et al, 2002), in various countries from a US perspective (Pufahl, Rhodes & Christian, 2000), in Chile (Vivanco Torres, 2012), in Mexico (Ordoñez, 2009), in Colombia(Moss & Salamanca, 2012). Some elements that can be observed in the programmes in many countries in Latin America are the recent creation or major reform of English language teacher education programmes reflecting the expansion of English language teaching in schools and the active participation of agencies such as the American Embassy and the British Council.
The parameters for differentiation are not only geographical or national but temporal. The late 1990s saw the passing of new educational legislation (Ley Federal de Educación – LFE – Ley24.195 and Ley de Educación Superior – LES – Ley24.521) and the birth of Licenciaturas for teachers (i.e. two year university conversion courses for holders of tertiary level degrees) and postgraduate courses, particularly Master‘s programmes. There
21 was also the formalization of different in-service and continuing education courses and programmes with greater or lesser recognition at an official level. Professional associations have played a part in providing information about these programmes as they appeared and expanded to ensure that teachers had access to the information necessary to make a choice (e.g. Moyano, 1999a &b for the summary produced by APIBA following the 1999 APIBA Seminar). They also participated in the field of courses with accreditation. Crucially, they have acted as networks where teachers could share experiences and information (see APIBA SIGs, Kandel, 2002).
A concomitant effect of the LES was the segmentation and differentiation of two sub- sectors within the Higher Education area, i.e. ‗universities‘ and ‗non-universities institutions,‘ as labelled in the law, a clear distinction in status. A direct effect of the passing of the LES and a related law concerning funding of education (Ley 24.049 – Ley de Transferencia de Servicios Educativos) was the transfer of non-university higher education institutions to the sphere of the provinces and the City of Buenos Aires. There is insufficient time to analyse this situation in depth here (see Banfi 2013 and forthcoming), but we can say that the effect has not been altogether felicitous in strengthening the teaching profession and raising the status of teachers. Several projects to reform the LES have been under study in Congress but have not yet obtained sufficient consensus to redress this situation, as well as other shortcomings of the current law. It would be most important for teacher‘s associations, as well as colleges, to play a role in these discussions, although to date they have been underrepresented.
22 Teachers‘ multiple and often overlapping jobs have taken them down various roads. Teachers of English in Argentina may work in the state or private sector or both. They may teach at one or more educational levels (i.e. Pre-school, Primary, Secondary, Higher Education). The courses they teach may fall under the label of ‗curricular‘ or ‗extra- curricular‘. Other possible, and often concurrent, jobs may include: materials writer, examiner for examiner body, consultant or advisor for different institutions, teacher educator, etc. (see APIBA, 2006). Along these paths teachers have often needed to go back to ‗school‘ to update their knowledge-base and acquire news skills in areas as diverse as educational management, age group specialization, school management, online teaching, etc., all in the spirit of the much-discussed continuing professional development(see Craft, 2000 and Banfi, 1997). This often took teachers down the road of degree-plus programmes (NB: Licenciaturas are undergraduate degrees according to Argentine law, even if for teachers they are second degrees, see Marquina, 2004 for clarification), and has frequently implied making a choice between specializing, changing track (or even discipline), or taking a broad outlook.
Along the road teachers often realize that there are different benefits and challenges associated with the diverse professional and educational paths they have chosen.