Teaching English

 

The problem with the English language is caused by four reason: Political status, family responsibility, the educational system and the teachers. Puerto Rico is a colonized island by the government of the United States.  This colonization affected our culture and political status. The arrivals of the military government of the United State change our customs and our style of life.  This union with the states make that our government is tied to a greater control. Since 1950 we are having problems with our status languages. The PNP said that English should be our first language and the PPD said that should be our second language. This controversy with the languages has brought many problems with the puertorricans. This decision has affected the educational systems. Suddenly has affected the schools and family. Everything comes from this decisions.

The status of languages has affected the way of living in Puerto Rico. Before 1950 everything was in Spanish. After the invasion of the United States, all has changed. Now he have English TV programs, if you going to the social security office all the instructions are in English. This change of political and language status has affected and confused the people. Right now we have many people that speak Spanglish. They do not speak well the English and Spanish language. Also we have other percent that speak a good English.   And finally we have another percent that just speak Spanish and do not understand the English languages. We have a heterogeneous language society.

The educational systems also has been affected but do not means that affected all the systems. By my experience I can talk about the public and private systems. In the public system I had teacher that they talked everything in English and they do not explain nothing in Spanish. In my private school also the teacher talked and teach in English. The different is that in the public I never use a book to practice and for read short stories. In the private school I had a book that explain me everything. That book has short and long stories and questions about the stories. We read novels, poesy and many other literary genres. . The big difference is that in private school the student are in more constantly practice.

Finally the teacher also are a big and important part of this cause. In the case of public school the systems bring them a guide to follow. And that is the problems. I think that teacher have an academic preparation and they can give a class without a systems guide. I would say that system moor them and they can’t teach what they want to teach. . In conclusion we a have a heterogeneous English society and is difficult to make change that get better all the students. But right now in this era, the English language is very important to us because if we know it, we have bilingual and we will have many opportunities to get jobs. So I don’t know that is the solutions for this problems but I know that every puertorricans must be disciplined and practice the English language.