Are Chilean School Teachers of English as a Foreign Language encouraging the personal growth of students in order to tackle inequality?
English as a Foreign Language in Chile has become increasingly relevant since 1998, when the country began a period of rapid economic growth. In turn, this growth meant that forming international relationships became a crucial part of the national strategy. Since then, successive governments has inv...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2015 |
| País: | Chile |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositorio.anid.cl:10533/237744 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10533/237744 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Humanidades Otras Humanidades Otras Especialidades del Lenguage y la Literatura |
| Sumario: | English as a Foreign Language in Chile has become increasingly relevant since 1998, when the country began a period of rapid economic growth. In turn, this growth meant that forming international relationships became a crucial part of the national strategy. Since then, successive governments has invested in policies and reforms aimed at transforming Chile into a bilingual country. This has been an extremely difficult process, with the issue of inequality representing one of the greatest barriers regarding the education of Chileans. It is well documented that Chile has one of the most unequal education systems in the world; largely the consequence of neoliberal policies in force since the dictatorship. This situation is also affecting the teaching and learning of English. The level of English proficiency of Chileans depends mainly on their social standing, as well as the type of school they attend. This study aims to discover whether teachers are taking measures to tackle this prevailing inequality. Personal growth is a multi-faceted concept based on several premises. The majority of these relate to the abilities and tools bestowed on an individual, which they can subsequently use to change their lives. Therefore, this thesis focuses on gauging whether teachers are encouraging personal growth in English language teaching in order to tackle inequality. To investigate this phenomenon, qualitative semistructured email interviews were conducted with six Chilean EFL teachers, to discover their perceptions and practices of personal growth, inequality and EFL inequality. Results indicate that all teachers try to include and encourage personal growth. Nevertheless, their efforts are manifested through different approaches, perceptions and practices, and not all of them adopt this strategy in order to tackle inequality. Therefore, it is impossible to confirm whether the encouragement of personal growth offers an effective way of tackling inequality. Nevertheless, this study offers initial insights into certain perceptions and practices of Chilean EFL teachers concerning personal growth, inequality and EFL inequality which can be used to influence future research in Chile. |
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