March 10, 2007
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http://www.utp.edu.co/comutp/archivos/documentos/105144ILEX.WMV
Talent Show
Dear friends:
When I decided to reform the previous situation in the University about the way to understand the need of a second language, I never thought of how fast things were going to happen. I am incredibly surprised about the tremendous progress you are having in terms of learning.
To overcome the difficulty of talking in public is not easy; everybody has suffered that kind of panic which common people usually refer to as the real cause of their lack of interest in studying a second language. You have defeated this weakness in an excellent way according to the references I have received from your teachers.
I would like all the University students to do what you are doing. How great would it be if we could offer classes in English in different topics as something familiar. A few days ago I was talking to Clemencia about the convenience of having a policy dealing with the handling of English in all classes. We are working on it.
The last ECAES brought some surprises, our performance wasnt good enough in English reading comprehension, I mean some other Universities were better than us. This is because we dont practice English in technical contexts as a fundamental complement to the communicational English we are teaching. It is true that the universal language in the academic world is English and we need to communicate in this language. That means, we need to speak it fluently, besides that we need to understand the technical vocabulary and be able to comprehend it in a technical speech.
If I had to choose between Technical English and communicational English I would definitely choose the last one, but this is not the dilemma, the answer is to learn both. So lets begin!
I think that if all our teachers, other than the ILEX teachers, invite the students to look for specialized information, lets say on the Internet for example, they would be forced to read and understand in English, and if the teachers would take written papers in English into class as part of their teaching I am sure it would help a lot.
Of course, that implies that teachers have to make efforts to know and use information in English. This is why we are hiring new teachers with good English skills and also promoting that all the community studies English even the administrative one. Some one could think that the community rejects this idea .On the contrary my experience tells me that people share and support this way to meet our actual needs.
On the other hand, we know that the number of courses we are offering now is not enough to be proficient, so we have decided to modify the degree requirement in a progressive way until it reaches the number of sixteen courses. This will happen in the second semester of next year, I mean the new students in that semester will have to fulfill that goal, taking 16 courses, or submitting an equivalent exam.
I should tell you that this is the only University which offers this amount of courses for free. Most of them charge a fee to cover the cost or let the students fulfill the requirement by themselves.
It would be a big load to the University if there wasnt a similar effort in secondary school. The actual government is encouraging the educational Institutions to improve the English teaching they are offering. For example, the government has contracted Universities like ours to train teachers and to certify them and it is financing internships for teachers in bilingual contexts such as San Andres.
In the long run the Students that we are going to enroll in the future will be more skilled in English, so our effort will be less, I mean in terms of cost.
So far, We have emphasized in English but that does not mean that the proficiency in other languages is not valid. Now, for instance, we are offering French, Mandarin Chinese, German, Italian and Portuguese; of course beginner courses, but sooner or later we will have a complete offer to be displayed.
I am not dreaming; my English teacher says that I am a day dreamer because some times I loose track of things , but believe me, in this case I am right, the world tendency makes us very foreseeable.
Finally my dear Students I deeply hope you continue doing as you have done without rest. The future is yours.
Thanks and Good luck.
LUIS ENRIQUE ARANGO JIMÉNEZ
Rector
Fecha de expedicion: 2007-03-10