Gina Marcela Villafañe Granda

Have Foreign Languages university students enough pedagogical competences to face an effective educational practice?

Foreign Languages university students are enrolled through a substantial exam which demands some basic skills to get in the University; it encloses some abilities students might have to initiate the career, like to build unknown grammatical constructions up and organize them as coherent statements; even recognize, understand and apply English abilities in order to handle them in a specific context. Everything with the purpose of verifying beginners are able to acquire an advanced education. However those skills drive students to make their debut inside of a classroom starting career and without the adequate pedagogical training.

In one hand, foreign languages beginners start teaching, most of the time, without a training in pedagogical components mainly in (Foreign Language, linguistics bases, didactic, pedagogy, researches, etc). It’s seen that a juicy quantity of foreign languages students feel confidence of speaking other language and think they are able to face a group of students. However, the educational practice requires a specialized grounding, even more that a career can hand on; as an example of that we have the recognition of skills, competences and abilities a student posses and how to take an advantage of them to enhance his learning process which a trainee, at the beginning of a career, doesn’t cover. Besides it’s possible they feel limited on counteract deficiencies presented in their public, and methodology implemented becomes useless. For those reasons once a committed teacher knows the different kinds of strategies people have experimented and studied inside a classroom to improve the process of learning a second language, the result will be significant.

On the other hand, some institutions let students of earlier semesters from Foreign Languages start teaching with a low-payment. The ability of knowing a second language let students to teach about it, but schools or institutions make a profitable deal paying less what they deserve. In conclusion, some of those prefer a person who has a well-speaking-aptitude in a second language than a graduated one.

There is another fact inside of the Foreign Languages field, and it’s that learners hurtle toward teaching practices in order to get work experience due to once the career ends they can access easily to a labor market and their resume becomes attractive to achieve excellent payments and to be admitted in ideal jobs. As a result, students from initial semesters find the teaching practice a way to apply their knowledge with a real public and at the same time, remain all the aspects inherent to a second language.

To sum up, I would say the experience of being teacher as a beginner can restrict the teaching practice because doesn’t exist a plenty construction of a professor that knows everything about his learners and the methods to guide them toward an outstanding learning.