The learning teaching process of English as a foreign language in Chilean Public Schools: Production or reproduction?

Abstract

The national curriculum for teaching English in Chile does not always correspond to the learning teaching process in the classroom. The Ministry of Education proposes the development of students’ communicative competence, and contrarily, according to scientific evidence, English lessons in public schools are focused on lexicon repetition and translation and on the explicit use of grammar structures. In addition, the human and cultural components of the learning teaching process are not dialectically related in order to reach a common goal. Through the analysis of the sixth grade curriculum, the author critically analyses these contradictions and states the urgent need to define, in a cooperative manner, the theoretical fundaments of the teaching learning process of English as a foreign language in Chile, with the purpose of reaching components harmony and therefore, allow a natural and effective communication.