bilingualism in Bogotá

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UC Davis 2018 Colombia Fulbright TEFL Program
BEST PRACTICES TO INCREASE THE LEVEL OF BILINGUALISM IN THE
DISTRICT OF BOGOTÁ’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS
This document is a compilation of the 2018 Colombian teachers’ responses to the following
questions:
What best practices would you like to adapt/adopt from your experience in Davis/Sacramento
(included your classes, observations, discussions, etc. at UC Davis and LAS) to your teaching
and/or school?
1. To apply most of the strategies and activities addressed during the classes. Mostly cooperative
learning, scaffolding, classroom routines, etc.
2. To get students to do autonomous work
3. To have teamwork among teachers
4. To divide our students at tables into groups of four students and classify them according to
their strengths and weaknesses.
5. To adapt and adopt most of the strategies and devices used during the classes at UC Davis
in our schools in order to be more dynamic and create a real meaningful learning process for
our students.
6. We think all the practices we learned are useful for our groups and contexts, and it also
depends on our creativity to adapt all the activities to our contexts, but we have answered the
next questions in order to give more details about our answers.
7. To use cooperative learning in our classes in order to take advantages of our students’ skills
to support each other in their learning process based on the observation in LAS. Also as
teachers, we would like to work with our colleagues to achieve the same goals based on our
students’ needs.
8. To include the Five Principles of Effective TEFL Instruction in our lesson plan design,
according to our classes at UC Davis.
9. To apply most of the strategies and activities addressed during the classes—mostly
cooperative learning, scaffolding, classroom routines, etc.
A. What are the critical things and best practices that need to be in place minimally to
increase the level of bilingualism in the District of Bogotá’s public schools?
1. Bilingual education should start from preschool by providing enough English teachers to
begin the process.
2. We should increase the number of hours of English per week to a minimum of four hours
per week or include content and language-integrated learning with subjects such as science
and social studies.
3. During English classes, interaction among students and teachers should be one of the most
important challenges that is dealt with and overcome.
4. We should create a bilingual context.
5. We need resources and the organization of these resources in the classroom
6. We should organize meetings with the English teachers in our schools and meetings for
zones to share experiences, methodologies, and practices among the English Teachers.
7. We should have fewer students per class—maximum 25 students per group. Smaller class
sizes will support the students’ learning process and give more time to identify their
individual needs and help them work on those needs.

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8. There should be one specialized classroom per level.
9. We need to improve the bilingual classroom environment (labels, posters, etc.).
10. We need to have routines in the classroom to construct meaning and then understanding.
11. We need to encourage teachers from different subject areas to speak English with each
other.
12. We need to plan collaborative work with all the teachers of the school and focus on a same
objective (cross-curricular plan).
13. We should place names and functions in the corners of the classroom.
14. We need to ask for training teachers to support the process.
15. Increase the level of English of teachers starting at the primary school level.
16. The Ministry of Education needs to include English as one of the compulsory subjects at the
primary school level by providing enough English teachers to begin the process.
17. There should be a flexible and contextualized District Bilingualism Policy that ensures the
continuity of the programs and that supports institutional proposals.
18. We need to promote cooperative learning.
19. We need to developing teacher leadership through professional development workshops
20. We need to design and implement an interdisciplinary curriculum – Teaching content
through the English language.
21. All English teachers should be trained in this kind of English immersion program because of
its real and useful intercultural exchange in order to increase EFL teachers’ knowledge
about the language and the real U.S. context.
22. To be updated in ICT tools in order to have and work in a place that is conducive and
suitable to teach English.
23. To organize class schedules to enable teachers to work as a team in order to obtain feedback
and create better strategies and alternatives to improve the English level of our students as
well as update the curriculum and the topics that need to be taught.
24. We consider that these critical things are important to consider and something needs to be
done to improve them, for example, the students’ and teachers’ pronunciation, and not just
the English teachers but all the teachers of the schools that have bilingualism projects.
Teachers (not just EFL teachers but all teachers) lack time exposure to the language; training
in different methodologies, and technological resources (not only computers, smart boards,
and tablets but also Internet access. Most of our schools have many technological resources,
but we lack Internet or at least reliable connection. Additionally, we lack the economical
resources to invest more in all the items mentioned above. However, the Secretaría de
Educación de Bogotá, has been doing many things to overcome this situation. Some things
we consider continuing to do are: continuing bilingual teachers’ immersions and promoting
mentoring and leadership from teachers to teachers.
25. It is necessary that all the teachers’ be trained in the English language in order for them to be
able to teach their subjects in both languages.
26. All staff should also be bilingual in order to be able to speak to the students and teachers in
both languages.
27. There must be English teachers at the preschool and elementary school levels to reinforce
the learners’ language acquisition process.

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B. What are the important resources that are necessary in order to increase the level of
bilingualism in the District of Bogotá’s public schools?
1. Provide schools with enough prepared bilingual teachers.
2. Provide technological devices for each classroom such as document readers, updated
projector system (ladybug projector, video beam, a main computer for the teacher,
sound/speakers, etc.), one laptop per student, software, and audiovisual material.
3. Provide an effective Internet/Wi-Fi connection not only for the teachers but also for the
students and our educational purposes. For example, students need to have wireless
access in order to use their gadgets (e.g., computers, tablets, or smart phones) as a learning
tool to improve their skills, to find information while they are in class, and to do different
activities online in class. Our world is opening its arms to an online interaction to be close
to other worlds, and we do not provide that resource to students. We are limiting them if
they do not have access to the Internet in school.
4. Each school throughout the District of Bogotá should have at least two English
specialized classrooms for all the students.
5. Each classroom should have more didactic materials for English (books, readers,
textbooks—both students’ and teachers’ versions as well as workbooks—SEC,
dictionaries, flash cards, visual aids/materials, games, etc.) for each individual student.
6. Provide all teachers with appropriate and effective English language, ICT, and TEFL
methodology teacher training programs. All English teachers have to be updated in
English teacher training programs continuously in order to bring provide them with
different strategies to better teach the language.
7. There should be a larger budget for education.
8. English teachers should be assigned to teach EFL in primary school.
9. There should be leadership in teachers´ planning meetings and a more frequent tracing
and assessment of the bilingual curriculum behalf of the Bilingualism Coordinators or
Area Representatives at each school.
10. Each school should have contextualized teaching and learning resources.
11. There should be support to provide learners with field trips.
12. The government must engage certified English teachers.
13. All the government schools need to be provided with enough and the latest
technological devices and the teachers should be trained on how to handle the ICT tools.
14. Teachers need to have access to photocopies.
15. Each public school in Bogotá must have a specialized room with enough ICT resources to
guarantee real learning of the language in context.
C. What changes will you make in your teaching and which best practices will you adopt to
increase the level of bilingualism in your classes?
1. Cooperative learning strategies and principles (PIES); implement activities that promote
Cooperative learning in order to promote critical thinking among students.
2. Interactive activities among the students
3. Effective lesson plans
4. Timing and implement the methodologies we have learnt here at UC Davis.
5. Organization of resources; optimize the resources we have in the schools.
6. Project-Based Learning—develop one project per year.
7. Content-Based Learning
8. Collaborative and autonomous work to maximize student’s motivation and interaction.

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9. Include/Incorporate more communicative activities in the classroom in order to
strengthen levels of interaction in the target language. The communicative approach
must be adopted in all English classes.
10. Use scaffolding to help students reach successful experiences
11. Use of the board- Agenda to plan and check the assignments.
12. Integration of English skills in the lesson plan and application of the different strategies
and activities to develop these skills.
13. Involve parents in the teaching-learning process.
14. Study in detail all the documents that lead us as English teachers and use them as
guidelines in the process of updating and implementing the institutional curriculum.
15. Keep in mind the students as the center of the process and plan activities according to
their needs and interests.
16. Implement activities that support the students´ learning and that challenge them to
continue improving their abilities in the foreign language.
17. Connect the students´ experiences and other fields of knowledge with the process of
learning a foreign language.
18. Promote peer work among teachers.
19. Ensure there is both English and Spanish signage around the school. Create a bilingual
environment by labeling all the places and objects in the school and use classroom and
daily language inside the school with the whole community.
20. Implement, adapt, and apply the innovative and appealing methodologies and strategies
learned at UC Davis in order to help students develop different communicative skills and
improve their English skills.
21. Implement a teaching routine according to students’ necessities.
22. Reinforce teamwork strategies with students and co-workers.
23. Speak more in English in our classes to provide students a real context to improve their
communicative skills.
D. What will you do to become a leader and agent of change to increase the level of
bilingualism in your school?
1. Make English teachers conscious of the importance of improving their English level.
2. Demonstrate to students the importance of learning a foreign language as a tool to
obtain better opportunities in their learning life and work wages.
3. Lead an academic English teaching network.
4. Increase teamwork and cooperation among teachers by sharing successful experiences
as well as sharing the experiences, information, methodologies, and materials we
received in the UC Davis TEFL program with peers as much as possible. Encourage
them to carry out this innovative and updated way of teaching English.
5. Improve the use of the resources we have in our schools.
6. Develop action research as a part of our professional development and keep studying
and improving our teaching practices.
7. Exchange ideas with colleagues and propose opportunities to share teaching experiences
and ideas about different effective teaching practices in our educational contexts.
8. Share experiences within a teachers’ network.
9. Set common criteria for all English teachers in our schools.
10. Help teachers when they need it.

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11. Start with our own classes by implementing new methods in order for our colleagues to
see the change and be motivated to emulate us.
12. Promote public activities in English for the whole community through new projects
using PBL.
13. Make a presentation for our students so that we can show them several opportunities
they have to study abroad.
14. Organize workshops and events with other teachers regularly to share successful
experiences.
15. Engage and motivate other teachers in the implementation of projects and new
proposals.
16. Keep the leadership in our English projects and carry out new ones with innovative
ideas.
17. Work as a team with our colleagues on the implementation of interdisciplinary projects
(i.e., foster projects with teachers in other subjects) and on curricular organization.
18. Create appropriate environments to ensure effective communication among the school
community,
19. Model effective teaching practices.
20. Contextualize our classrooms and schools with English visual resources.
21. Promote communicative opportunities to practice English with teachers at schools.
22. Share our personal experience in an immersion program to motivate our colleagues to
participate in those programs
23. Maintain the connection between the participants of this program.
E. What changes do you suggest take place at the universities in Colombia in teacher training
in order to increase the level of bilingualism in the District of Bogotá’s public schools?
1. Include in their curriculum immersion courses to have contact with English speaking
countries.
2. Start practicums for future teachers at schools right from the first semester(s).
3. Most of the English teaching professors at the universities should be native speakers of
they should at least hire teachers who are native speakers in order to improve students’
communicative skills.
4. Students, at both public and private universities, who plan to be future English teachers
should participate in a cultural exchange/immersion program abroad for one semester to
improve their English during their studies.
5. Methodology workshops should be offered on how to manage large classes and how to
teach in a dynamic way.
6. Include classroom management in the methodology curriculum.
7. Include training for special needs students.
8. Include classes about public education policies.
9. Work deeply on didactics more that on approaches.
10. Create networks to share all the advances and research done by the students.
11. Training teachers should start observing real classes at public schools from the first
semester.
12. Students should be given international standardized tests before starting at the
university, during their studies, and after graduation to check English proficiency levels.

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13. Establish and support collaborative agreements between the university programs and
the schools so that they can help each other in the organization of the “licenciatura”
programs and make sure that they are contextualized with the schools´ needs.
14. Think of the possibility of offering real bilingual programs that form not only future
English teachers but also teachers who can develop programs for other subjects in
English.
15. Not just adopting foreign curricula or following models from other realities, but taking
into account our own context.
16. Strengthen practicum cycles to ensure effective mentoring and feedback.
17. Classes need to be more practical than theoretical and reflect a real context.
18. Promote exchange and immersion programs for all future teachers not only English
teachers but all those who are being trained to be teachers in Colombia. All TEACHERS
in Colombia need to know English.
19. All universities have to implement immersion programs during the students’
undergraduate studies so that they can achieve a C1 level of English proficiency before
graduating.
20. During the undergraduate studies, students of all majors have to be trained to take three
international standardized proficiency tests.
21. All Colombian universities should unify the English curriculum with a standardized
goal of achievement.
F. What changes do you suggest take place at your own school’s organizational level in
order to increase the level of bilingualism at your school?
1. Since our school is changing to a single shift, the extra hour should be used to teach
English.
2. We need to keep adapting our school to a real bilingual environment (Science,
assemblies, etc.)
3. All subject teachers should learn English.
4. Students from public schools need to live experiences where they can use English like
immersions and outdoors activities like camps.
5. It is necessary to organize all the public schools to plan events like this year’s Spelling
Bee. Ideas for some other activities that could be organized each year might include the
following: a fashion show, a talent show, a musical festival, etc. These types of events
could help the students feel motivated to get involved, and the community of teachers
could get engaged and participate as well.
6. Set up skills clubs with the best students.
7. Make syllabus changes.
8. Get the teachers to do some teamwork to plan and define common goals.
9. Promote administrative staff leadership and teamwork.
10. The number of English class hours must be greater.
11. Permanent training needs to be offered for teachers in different aspects (technology,
didactics, pedagogy, etc.)
12. Technology resources need to be provided in the form of an English lab.
13. The universities need to prepare students to become specialized TEFL/TEYL (Teachers
of English for Young Learners) for elementary/primary school students.
14. International assessment teacher training needs to be applied to students at school.

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15. Seating arrangements that promote collaborative work as a strategy need to be
implemented.
16. Immersion activities need to be implemented such as labelling all the places in the
school.
17. Analyze and understand the school’s own context and its needs first, and then observe
some other experiences from other realities. Take from other models what could work in
our own schools.
18. Work on collaborative interdisciplinary teams.
19. Organize support teams to help solve individual situations.
20. Involve parents in the teaching-learning process.
21. Assign an official bilingualism coordinator.
22. Establish a content curriculum, moving from language to content to create a bilingual
curriculum.
23. SED should take the definition of Bilingual Leaders´ duties and responsibilities
seriously, provide them with effective sources of knowledge in bilingual education, and
support them closely for decision making in curriculum design, implementation, and
evaluation.
24. There needs to be continuity and tracing of the bilingual policies and educational
processes regarding bilingual education.
25. Test and do an exhaustive analysis of the curriculum and PEI.
26. A minimum of 4 or 5 hours of English classes must be required.
27. Our school should find a way to help teachers and students be in contact with native
speakers and offer different kinds of English training programs for English teachers.
28. We consider that it depends on all the items mentioned previously. Each school has its
own necessities, but mostly we feel that everything we have already mentioned has to
do with our 5 schools.
29. The biggest change is to have more time to work with the students in English. We need
more than two or three hours per week.
30. To increase the level of bilingualism in our students, it is necessary for them to have a lot
of opportunities to practice speaking—80% of the time in English at least.
31. We expect that our colleagues will be motivated to change old strategies and learn new
things in order to implement them before, during, and after classes.
32. Highly qualified teachers.
33. Very well structured planning.
34. Administrative control of the classrooms.
35. Invest in teachers, resources, and the schools.
36.
G. What timeline do you envision for the steps necessary to make this transformational
increase in bilingual education take place in the District of Bogotá’s public schools?
1. If we continue working with the British Council, we think that the results of bilingual
education could be visible in about ten years, because, in fact, the learning has gradually
increased in the schools where the process of bilingual education hasn´t been
implemented yet. Therefore, there is certain evidence that some changes are starting to
take place already.
2. If we have the right physical and human resources, we can improve skills in English as a
foreign language in about ten years. However, it is not possible to think about bilingual

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education in a country like Colombia because our context is so different and does not
allow for a real effort to be made towards becoming bilingual.
3. The level of bilingualism will increase in one year, but it will take three years to process
the assessment.
4. 2019
 Training about suggested curriculum, effective use of resources.
 English courses for all the teachers who work in the schools that develop bilingual
programs.
 Organization of a team in charge of working on the policy for bilingual schools. This
should include principals, coordinators, and leaders of bilingualism.
 First draft of the policy for bilingual schools.
 Assign the English teachers for primary grades in all the schools.
2020
 Official document that regulates the implementation of bilingual schools in Bogotá.
 Socialization of the document.
 Socialization of best practices.
5. Follow these steps:
 Set short- and long-term goals
 Assigning responsibilities and steps
 Assess and evaluate the process
 Identify strengths and opportunities for improvement
6. Bilingualism in Bogotá has been a process that has been changing during the last five
years. For our schools to become bilingual, all English teachers in both primary and high
school must be offered constant English training. Colombia can become bilingual, if the
government continues to understand that English is a necessary language for the
country. The government needs to mandate that teachers and educational institutions
have to be trained with the latest English strategies to become a bilingual country in ten
or fifteen years.
7. Maybe in five years; we don`t have clarity on the timeline. It also depends on the
political decisions made in our country. That is something is out of our control.
8. Please refer to the chart below:
2019 2020 2021
*Start the training of the future
teachers of the different subject
areas in order to achieve a B1 level
of performance.
*Check the universities’ curricula in
order to implement a standardized
document in order for the students
to achieve the C1 level when they
finish their undergraduate degrees.
*To put into practice the
suggested curriculum in the
schools with enough
materials and consolidate the
document to be implemented
in the universities.
*To establish public polices
for bilingualism to be
established in the public
education institutions in
Colombia and to continue the
programs in the schools in
spite of the government.
All public schools will be
bilingual taking into account
the established public polices.

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H. Any additional thoughts or ideas?
1. Political will
2. Make an assessment of current bilingual practices
3. Create a teaching community that shares experiences in an established network; we can
start with the projects in Prezi that we already sent in order to participate in this call for
participation.
4. It would be worth letting teachers from all over Colombia continue participating in these
kinds of immersion programs.
5. It would be worth having our students also participate in immersion programs as well.
6. Maintain contact with the teachers and the immersion programs; to ensure that there is a
follow-up process.
7. Create a network with our 47 schools.
8. The TEFL program at UC Davis has provided a group of teachers with resourceful tools
and a development of skills to act as change agents. This group of teachers should be
included as leaders and/or trainers to replicate what they have learnt in other English
language teachers.
9. If teachers who have benefitted from this program can change their teaching practices,
then they can act as change agents to help the expected change happen.
10. It is essential to keep this English Immersion program at UC Davis for all Colombian
English teachers so that each one can obtain a wealth of personal and professional
experience.
11. To be in contact with the English language and English native speakers will contribute
greatly to the improvement of our English.
12. We are in the process and we feel well at our schools. We are doing well and everything is
improving, not in big steps but everything is improving. When we go back to our schools,
we won’t be the same teachers that we were one month ago. We are now better teachers,
and we have improved in many aspects of our lives. Moreover, we would like many
teachers to come and live the same experience we had.
Developed by Tina M. Castillo