“English good results in SABER 11 TEST: an
exclusive benefit of the higher socioeconomic strata”.
By Angy Plata
Posted on May 24, 2016
Available on: http://l2socialfactors.blogspot.com.co/2016/05/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html
There is no doubt that mastering a second language, specially English, can
be decisive when accessing to job opportunities or higher education
opportunities as well as social aspects.
Bloomsbury, the important English School located in
London has a new blog available for people interested about the topic of
learning a second language.
One of the articles published there, reveals the importance of learning a second language
in this words: “today’s economy is increasingly globalized, and this means that many of
us are interacting across cultures in a way we never did before. (…) Additionally, the
importance of learning a second language is emphasized every day when we see the
diversity of earth’s cultures and the amazing array of people that make up our global
community”[1].
The called Marxist TELF group is a WordPress important
group developing topics about English learning. We can find online an article
named “Language Learning and inequality” (2010)[2]
which addresses the issue of economical strata and its incidence in English
learning.
This article also refers to a study of English
learning issued in Pakistan as follows:
“Keeping in view the favourable
attitudes to English of all stake holders in higher education for instrumental
reasons, and to allow effective participation from the public sector where English acts as a gate-keeper and a
powerful means of inclusion or exclusion from further education, employment, or
social positions (Tollefson, 1991; Pattanayak, 1981; Rajah, 1990), it
would be important to consider a language policy in education where all
students are empowered by being fluent in English. This seems to be the best
solution to a very complex and problematic issue. By removing the barrier of
English, students from the public sector institutions and lower socio-economic
strata would be able to access higher education and white-collared jobs. The
challenge of working on the notion of “English
for development” is that it would have to take into account not only
the concept of sustainable development (see Pennycook, 1994) and linking it
with “notions of local involvement, continuity, and ecological soundness,” but also
to ensure that development does not only “imply a linear path of development
that is easily conflated with notions of modernization, and westernization”.
This would involve that post-colonial countries such as Pakistan develop an
indigenous model for English language teaching that is suitable in its own
context”.
As a conclusion of the study, we can find that whilst
education (or the lack of it) correlates strongly with growing income
inequality, and for those not speaking English or another second language might
be discriminated against in the job market of Higher Education, because world
relationships are made by economics, and being globalized, the use of a second
language is demanded.
In Colombia the Saber 11 test shows as a general rule
that private schools do better than
public schools, which means that students with higher economical strata
get better grades than lower strata.
The thing is, sometimes people explain the phenomena
focus on the ability to pay and the
possibilities of paying high tuitions, additional courses and particular
tutors. But rarely focus on fact that impact of the economic factor doesn’t
refer only in the ability to pay for studying English, but also it’s about
paying to meet minimum human needs, and how this impacts on motivation when
learning.
Language learning
motivation has been researched since Gardner and Lambert’s (1959)[3],
they highlighted the significant effect of parental encouragement and praise on
students’ motivated behavior.
About this topic, two
United Kingdom researchers worked on Chile and the results suggest that social
class has an overall medium-size effect on motivational factors with
self-efficacy beliefs being the most strongly related to socio-economic status
(Kormos, J & Kiddle, T, 2013[4]).
These researchers said that
although the role of socio-economic factors in foreign language acquisition is
under-researched, the existing findings in this field clearly highlight the
importance of social context in influencing foreign language learning outcomes.
One of their references is The PISA (Programme for International Student
Assessment) Report (2003)[5]
which showed that students whose parents had higher qualifications performed
significantly better in the language proficiency test administered to European
school-age children.
They also quote to Munoz
(2008)[6]
which explained the strong links between socio-economic status and achievement
by arguing that students from different social backgrounds have access to
different types of schools (public vs. private) and to varying degrees of
extracurricular exposure to the target language (e.g. private tuition, learning
resources, study abroad etc.).
New literature about second
language is available in many spaces, in order to develop the topic. Narendra
Rathod (2012)[7]
posted online a paper he presented at
Vivekanand Institute of Technology in Jaypur (Rajasthan-India) on 5th
November of 2012 in an
International conference on Global English. There he enlighten about the
relationship between social
contexts and L2 proficiency.
He remembered,
that there are three types of social structures which can affect the
acquisition of second languages: sociolinguistic setting, specific social
factors, and situational factors. Sociolinguistic setting refers to the role of
the second language in society. Specific social factors that can affect second
language acquisition include age, gender, social class, and ethnic
identity. Situational factors are those which vary between each social
interaction.
The author also said that an
individual’s social class is a composite determined by income, level of
education and occupation. Usually, it is divided into four groups: lower class,
working class, lower middle class, and upper middle class, and that the
relationship between social class and L2 achievement is really close because
most of the studies show that children from lower socio-economic groups are
less successful in L2 learning than children from higher groups.
Also the
participation of home support is important for successful second language learning, his author said that some
educators believe that parents of English language learners should speak only
English in the home However, far more important than speaking English is that
parents value both the native language and English, communicate with their
children in whichever language is most comfortable, and show support for and
interest in their children’s progress (Narendra Rathod (2012).
The idea is not only to criticize the situation of the Estate lack of action,
it’s about create creative and innovative proposals that enable students to get
a good performance in SABER 11 test regardless of their social or economic
class.
For developing the problem was necessary to formulate three research
questions:
a. ¿How
does childhood economic strata correlate with academic performance in SABER 11
test?
b. ¿How does the education level of the parents’ impact
students’ performance in SABER 11 test?
c. ¿What can the State make intervention programs in the
elementary schools to improve students’ performance in SABER 11 test?
For developing the research
according to the chosen educational problem collecting data was required through
the survey, which is a very valuable tool for assessing opinions and trends.
The tool designed had this
10 questions and was applied to 20 people, getting the following information:
1. ¿Do you
consider that Colombia is a bilingual country?
YES 0
NO 20
Colombians are aware of the reality of the country as regards bilingualism, and therefore
do not perceive themselves as a bilingual community.
2. ¿How do you
consider the performance of the Colombian students test SABER 11?
Excellent 2
Good 4
Regular 8
Bad 6
Colombians tended not to worry about knowing or understanding the results of tests
such as SABER 11, today, thanks to the disclosure made by the media know the results
and perceived mostly as Regular performance in the test.
3. ¿Who you
think go better on tests public or private schools?
PRIVATE 12
PUBLIC 8
It is noteworthy that even at this time, Colombians believe that public education is of high
quality, although revised results published on the official website of ICFES, it’s possible to
notice that private schools perform better than public schools in SABER 11 TEST, especially
in English.
4. Do you think
that socio-economic status of students has impact on test results SABER 11?
YES 11
NO 9
This response had a margin similar to the previous question answer, showing that there
is no awareness of the results of the ICFES according to the economic status of students
in public.
5. Do you
consider that the parental level of education has an impact on the test SABER
11 results?
11 results?
YES 3
NO 17
Persists the idea of that student performance in this test depends only on the training
acquired at school.
6. ¿Do you
think that students require doing an additional English course in other
institution
to get good SABER 11 test result?
to get good SABER 11 test result?
YES 18
NO 2
It is considered that when someone wants to get a good result in the test SABER 11
basically requires looking beyond the academic training offered by the educational
institution and conduct additional courses in other institutions.
7. ¿Do you
believe that to ensure good results in the test SABER 11, schools must teach
subjects entirely in English?
YES 20
NO 0
Unanimous is the perception of the importance of teaching entirely in English during basic
training primary and secondary.
8. ¿Do you
think that students require educational motivation for learning English?
YES 20
NO 0
The role of motivation in teaching is increasingly valued by the academic literature, and
similarly begins to be perceived by the community in general.
9. ¿Do you
consider that the State has some obligation to the teaching of a second
language?
YES 19
NO 1
10. ¿How do you
think is the role of the Colombian State in teaching English as a second
language?
Excellent 0
Good 2
Regular 8
Bad 10
It’s possible to perceive a direct indication of the community to the State as regards
its role or role in teaching and mainly as regards the second language.
FINAL
VIEWPOINTS
It’s somehow contradictory the responses obtained address issues closely related,
for example, a high percentage was obtained answerable to question 4 about that there
is no greater incidence of socio-economic status of students in results SABER PRO test,
but equally responded in majority in question 6 that the way to get good results in this
test is taking additional courses in other institutions, since this requires having economic
capacity.
It is worrying that Colombians know that we are far from being a bilingual country, and
that we should significantly improve our students' scores on tests SABER PRO, however,
the answer is sought out in the State, the schools, institutions, and not the student, as
a subject who must be motivated and protagonist of their own learning. Should be sought
so that the strategies, tools and concern for bilingual learning is not just something
exclusive to the upper class or people with high economic capacity , but also be accessible
to the disadvantaged sectors.
[1] Bloomsbury English School News
Blog. (2013). Importance of Learning a Second Language. Retrieved May 20, 2016
from:
http://www.bloomsbury-international.com/blog/2013/09/13/importance-of-learning-a-second-language/
[2] Marxist TEFL Group (2010).
Language Learning and Inequality. Retrieved April 27, 2016 from: https://marxistelf.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/language-learning-and-inequality/
[3] Gardner, R., & Lambert, W. (1959). Motivational variables in second
language acquisition. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 13, 266–272.
[4] Kormos, J & Kiddle, T. (2013). The role of socio-economic factors in motivation
to learn English as a foreign language: The case of Chile. Retrieved April 27,
2016 from: http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/63008/1/chilesocioeconomicfactors.pdf.
También disponible en:
http://www.academia.edu/4418185/The_role_of_socio-economic_factors_in_learning_English_as_
a_foreign_language_The_case_of_Chile
Publishing.
[6] Muñoz, C. (2008). Symmetries and asymmetries of age effects in
naturalistic and instructed L2 learning. Applied Linguistics 29, 578-96.
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