TOP 100 NEWS SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Chile's drive for English faces first test A six-year campaign to raise the foreign language skills of students and schoolteachers and in turn boost global competitiveness is about to undergo its first formal evaluationThis year marks the first formal assessment of Chile's six-year campaign to raise English language skills: English Opens Doors. At the end of this month 240,000 students in their third year of high school (aged 16-17) will take the Toeic Bridge test to demonstrate that their comprehension of English is equivalent to B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) scale.An informal test in 2004 revealed that only 5% of Chilean students reached this level, but the ambitious target set by Opens Doors is that all students going into their final year of high school in 2013 will have achieved the equivalent of B1.The programme, created in 2004, promotes English learning through teacher-training programmes and scholarships abroad, inviting native-English speakers into Chilean classrooms and giving students the opportunity to participate in public speaking, debates and English camps."I had a great year while perfecting my English. I think study-abroad grants have helped improve teaching levels a lot," said Victoria Cuadra, who returned last year from the UK after spending 12 months as a teaching assistant in Hull, on a grant from the Chilean government. "There are still problems like teachers' salaries being too low and some schools not having enough resources to teach English."The Chilean government awards scholarships to university students on track to become teachers. These students spend either a term studying English abroad or a year working as assistants in English-speaking countries. In return the students must work for two years in state-funded school after they qualify as teachers. Many though, like Cuadra, are not planning to stay in the state system. "I think two years is enough. The money is much better in private schools, not to mention the better teaching environment," she said.Currently 8,200 English teachers work in establishments that receive state funding and 5,400 of these teachers have participated in courses designed to develop and update their language skills. The courses are offered on Saturday mornings, sometimes with an additional weeknight, and teachers contribute about $160 towards course fees with the government covering the remaining 85% of costs.The government is hoping that the first formal assessment of teachers' English skills, scheduled to take place in 2011, will show that the training has delivered results. Next year all teachers in government-funded schools will be expected to have reached B2 on the CEFR framework. The fate of teachers who do not achieve the level has still to be revealed.Isabel González, director of the Opens Doors programme, says its rationale is simple. "English is imperative to Chile in terms of business investment. Raising the level of English in schools will ultimately lead to a higher-quality workforce, which will in turn attract foreign investment and increase economic development."But she acknowledges that Chile's relative isolation has been a major challenge in the drive to improve skills. "Chile's geographical, economic and cultural characteristics have limited communication between the majority of our population and English-speaking communities. This isolation makes the quality of English learning and student motivation quite difficult."In an attempt to connect students and teachers, English-speaking volunteers have been invited into Chilean classrooms, in an exchange project supported by the UN Development Programme. Since 2004 almost 1,400 volunteers have been placed in schools."The students benefitted from having the presence of a native speaker in the classroom," said Emily Edwards from the UK, who worked as a British Council language assistant in the southern city of Concepción in 2008. "Many of them just needed the push of believing they were dealing with a non-Spanish speaker to spur them into talking in English in the class."However not everyone is happy with the way in which native-speaker assistants are used. Katty Kaufmann, a leading English interpreter and former director of a major US study and volunteer-abroad programme in Chile, is critical of the lack of training. "Neither the volunteers nor the teachers receive sufficient instruction on how the assistants should be used in the classroom. Most teachers simply don't know the capacity in which they should use the volunteers. The assistants could be helpful, but an effective policy needs to be implemented."Kauffman, who works with high-level government personnel across the southern hemisphere, says Chile is far behind its stated goals. "English in Chile at international standards? We're not even in the neighbourhood of international standards," she said.That view is shared by Jorge Cuevas, who supervises English language teaching at Bolivariana University in Los Angeles, near Santiago. "The government feels pressure to conform to international standards because of Chile's new political standing in the world, for example as a recent OECD member, but the reality is we are very far from achieving these standards," he said."Although it is possible all teachers may reach level B2 in the national testing, I think it is highly unlikely students will reach the goals that have been set. Even if they did, the Toeic Bridge test the government is planning to use only tests passive skills, so speaking levels will still be substandard."Government expenditure on Opens Doors is approximately $10m annually, but while the investment is welcomed questions remain about how the programme is being implemented. Kauffman cites bureaucracy as the "greatest shortcoming of the programme"."You have tremendously valuable ideas buried in paperwork. The programme could succeed if they get rid of the red tape, start to analyse and come up with quantifiable means to ascertain the programme goals."TeflChileInternational education newsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Balancing Act Tried With China The Obama administration patted Beijing on the back over recent currency moves but opened a fight over whether the Chinese improperly subsidize clean-technology manufacturers. online.wsj.com |
Papua New Guinea gives green light to deep-sea mineral mine Plans for a new mine for ore that contains copper, zinc and gold have caused alarm among scientists and indigenous peopleThe green-lighting of the world's first deep-sea mineral mine in Papua New Guinea waters has caused alarm among scientists and indigenous people who fear it will damage local marine life.Papua New Guinea's prime minister, Michael Somare, today licensed the new mine for ore that contains copper, zinc and gold, to be run by Canadian company Nautilus Minerals. Sited in the Manus Basin within Papua New Guinea's territorial waters, it will be near hydrothermal vents 1,600 metres below the surface.Driven by rising copper prices around the world, Nautilus' Solwara 1 project will excavate 1.2 to 1.8m tonnes of high-grade sulphide ore a year.Scientists are concerned about the scale of the mining. Paul Tyler from the University of Southampton and chair of the Census of Marine Life said: "Hydrothermal vents have a very distinctive fauna that is only found on hydrothermal vents so mining close to the vents could wipe out the vents or cause a large amount of damage in the surrounding area."Nautilus says it has carried out extensive environmental research and impact assessments, and has conservation mitigation strategies in place such as moving organisms for later recolonisation. But Tyler said: "When you mine near a hydrothermal vent you change the flow of fluids through the sea floor. You might switch the vent off or create another one elsewhere – that might affect the distributions of animals around the vent." Deep-sea organism populations do not have resilience to disruptions and have slow grow growth because of limits in food supply and the cold water."These organisms catch, store and break down carbon that is removed from the atmosphere by shallow water organisms," said Elliott Norse, president of Marine Conservation Biology Institute in Washington DC. "The deep sea also harbours organisms that could be important to humans as anti-cancer medicines – but that we might not even know about yet."The indigenous communities of Papua New Guinea are also against the mining operation, and have petitioned the government to prevent it.However, one expert said the risks had to be put into the context of damage caused by other types of mining, such as excavating a mountaintop. Linwood Pendleton, the director of Ocean and Coastal Policy at Duke University, said: "Hydrothermal vents are naturally combustible habitats, they blow up, they become colonised, then the vents die and the ecosystems around them die, so if mining were done at a small scale and low frequency then it may fit very well into this chaotic system of destruction. Mining a mountaintop, once it is gone, it's gone."It is unlikely that concerns will stop the mining project going ahead as no one from the international community can interfere in Papua New Guinea's territorial waters of the Bismark Sea.Comment was not available from Nautilus Minerals.Mining environmental impactOceansMarine lifeWildlifeConservationPapua New GuineaChristine Otteryguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Karzai says his office gets cash from Iran, US By RAHIM FAIEZ 2010-10-25T16:52:34ZKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Monday that once or twice a year, Iran gives his office $700,000 to $975,000 for official presidential expenses and that Washington also provides "bags of money" because his office lacks funds.... hosted.ap.org |
Meet PandaBoard - Video Meet PandaBoard: Low-cost, open OMAP™ 4 processor-based mobile software development platform feedproxy.google.com |