Session Information
31 SES 09 C, Negotiating Identities in Multilingual Contexts
Paper Session
Contribution
Spanish universities are determined to offer the most up-to-date training to pre-service primary school teachers. In this context of transformation, numerous bilingual and multilingual programs have recently been promoted by higher education institutions (Ramos, 2013). Although many recommendations exist in this regard (Pavón and Gaustad, 2013), these studies do not follow a common national policy of action and lack specific evaluation protocols that examine the academic and professional credentials of potential bilingual higher education faculty.
Whether such bilingual programs offer adequate training at non-university levels for primary and secondary education has been questioned within the educational community as well as within society in general (El País, January 7, 2016). In order to respond to this national concern, evaluation reports in primary (Lasagabaster, 2001, Ramos, 2007, Lorenzo, Casal, Moore and Alfonso, 2009, Pavón and Rubio, 2010, Laorden and Peñafiel, 2010, Lova, Mellado, Bolarín and Porto, 2013, Alonso, Delicado & Ramos, 2018) investigated the positive and negative aspects of these programs, offering alternatives to enhance them (Bobkina and Domínguez, 2015). In the absence of sufficient data, combined with a scarcity of specific analysis in this field in higher education, this article considers whether this kind of untethered training (not being tied to any type of national program or protocol), which has not developed under the umbrella of common national policies, can be enriched.
This research is of particular interest to the educational community because it will make it possible to obtain detailed information on different indicators which are crucial for the university stakeholders in charge of designing teaching from a language policy point of view as well as from higher entities such as CRUE (National consortium of Spanish universities) or prospective national bilingual programs.
The context of this research addresses the study and evaluation of different indicators for a bilingual program offered in the first year of study within the Primary Education BA in the Teacher Training College at the University of Extremadura in Cáceres, Spain (Universidad de Extremadura, 2013).
The aim was to identify the individualities of the students who completed the first year of the Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education in the dual program, inquiring into their impressions, motivation, expectations and level of satisfaction.
Method
Methodologically speaking, the study was carried out following a quantitative and descriptive perspective. The selection of the approach was based on the guarantees of internal and external validity offered for our research, as well as the type of data sought. Participants The sampling was intentional (non-random), since the participants were the totality of the students of the Bilingual Program of the Bachelor’s in Primary Education. At the time of the study, students were in their first year. It should be emphasized that the sample was a total of 63. Taking into account the data from the sample, 76% of the participants (n = 47) were women and 24% were men (n = 15). Regarding the age of the respondents, 83.1% were between 18 and 20 years old, while 10% was between 21 and 30 years old and only 3% of the respondents were over 30 years of age. In short, the average age of respondents was 19.5 years. Instruments In order to compile significant information, a questionnaire was composed of 23 items, among which there were: six written questions, two multiple choice questions, six categorizing questions, one classification question and seven Likert type questions. The questionnaire validation from experts was performed on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest and 5 the highest value) in terms of Concept Singularity, Relevance and Importance. In general terms, a concept singularity score of 4.4, a relevance score of 4.9 and an importance score of 4.7 was obtained.
Expected Outcomes
Some of the most significant results are: (1) the GPA in this group, of 8.78 has raised in contrast to the last decades where the average high school GPA of the entering class did not go beyond 7; (2) 78% of the cases the students’ first choice was this program at our institution, which was quite revealing given that the tendency is that a degree in education is selected as third choice or even later; (3) level of satisfaction with the bilingual program was very favorable and although students positively value both the level of English of the faculty who teach in L2, as well as the teaching methodologies used.
References
Alonso, L., Delicado, G. y Ramos, R. (2019). A Comparative Study of Bilingual Teacher Preparation Programs in California and Spain. En G. Guzman, Bilingualism and Bilingual Education: Politics, Policies and Practices in a Globalized Society. Texas: Springerlink Bobkina, J., and Domínguez, E. (2015). English language and literature: Towards a model for implementation of the English/Spanish bilingual curriculum in Spain. English Language Teaching, 8(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v8n2p1 Laorden, C. y Peñafiel, E. (2010). Proyectos bilingües en los centros de la Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid: Percepción de los equipos directivos, Revista de Investigación Educativa, 28(2), 325-344. Lasagabaster, D. (2001). Bilingualism, immersion programmes and language learning in the Basque Country, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 22(5), 401-25. Lorenzo, F., Casal, S., Moore, P. y Alfonso, Y. M. (2009). Bilingüismo y Educación: Situación de la Red de Centros Bilingües en Andalucía. Sevilla: Fundación Centro de Estudios Andaluces. Lova, Mellado, M., Bolarín J., Porto, M. (2013). Programas bilingües en Educación Primaria: Valoraciones de docentes, Porta Linguarum, 20, 253-268. Pavón, V. and Gaustad, M. (2013). Designining bilingual programmes for higher education in Spain: Organizational, Curricular and Methodological decisions. International CLIL Research Journal, 1(5), 82-94. Pavón, V. and Rubio, F. (2010). Teacher´ s concerns and uncertainties about the introduction of CLIL Programmes, Porta Linguarum, 14, 45-58. Ramos, A. M. (2013). Higher Education Bilingual Programmes in Spain, Porta Linguarum, 19, 101-112. Ramos, F. (2007). Programas bilingües y formación de profesores en Andalucía, Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 44, 133-146.
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