English Open Doors Program

Ingrid López

Hellen Quintana

Cristian Sandoval

María Jesús Villa

"La educación es la riqueza de Chile y el inglés abre puertas para aumentar esa riqueza"

Sergio Bitar, Ministro de Educación

English Open Doors Program (EODP) is, be worth the redundance, a program that has been created by the Minister Of Education to improve teaching and learning English in Chile to increase the most important fortune of the country, that is its people's education. The English Opens Doors (EOD) program was launched in 2003 to improve the quality and availability of English language teaching in Chile with the aim of enabling Chilean citizens to communicate in English.

Nowadays, English is an importan part of education, because it is a language that open doors in order that our young people may surf easily on the Internet, follow a better education or technical bachelor's degree, obtaining better jobs and earning better salaries.

The "English Open Doors Program" is the motto of the plan of the Minister Of Education to intensify the English learning in order that Chilean students may have better opportunities in the present-day world. The aim of the program is, in long terms, that all the 15 million citizens of Chile can be bilingual.

Four lines of action have been circumscribed in the program to encourage the English in the next decade: defining learning standards, professional teaching development, support learning at school and support the creation of jobs.

1. Defining learning standards

It is about the use of International Standards because it has been recognized for many countries that is a very effective way to assure the quality of learning English. At the same time national proofs are going to be elaborated with the aim to measure the achievement of learnings of the English Sub-Sector.

2. Professional teaching development

The idea of this, is to guarantee that the 6,000 teachers that teach English have the international standard that is "First Certificate of English (FCE)", and for that, long-distance courses will be offered.

3. Support learning at school

Additional support will offer to the school to improve its didactic resources, like school texts, radios, computers and educational softwares.

During the year 2004, a program of Foreign volunteers whose native language is English, was initiated with the aim of help teachers and develop initiatives that motivate students. Also, new school texts are delivered to seventh and eighth students in primary Education.

4. Support the creation of jobs

Courses of English will be offered to improve the options of job and the capability of doing business in micro and small businessmen, through the united work with Chile Califica, PROCHILE, SENCE, CORFO and other entities.

You can realize, the program is an ample, long-term initiative and with also far-reaching goals, that will require the support of various sectors of the population for its implementation and success.

ENGLISH OPEN DOORS PROGRAM Goals

2007 Around 1,500 teachers that teach English in primary schools must have the international certification equivalent to Preliminary English Test ( PET )

2008 English language skills will be tested for the first time in schools nationwide.

2011 Deadline for all EFL teachers to be certified at a minimum level of English equivalent to ALTE 3.

2013 Students will have achieved the following language proficiency levels:

8th graders: equivalent to ALTE 1

12th graders: equivalent to ALTE 2

Advantages	Disadvantages
Teachers participating in EOD have access to a number of opportunities according to their language skill level.	The order of importance of the skills should be Speaking and Listening, THEN Reading and Writing.
Every student raise the English level with the aim to amplify the future works opportunities.	Learning a foreign language should starts in pre-school years bot in 5th grade (middle school)
International Certifications for English teachers, to show Effectiveness and Quality at the time to learn	Comparison with other countries is not good because Chile is very different in all the possible aspects
1500 English Primary Teachers will obtained the PET level	Foreign university students probably don't have the teaching experience or the pedagogical training
6000 English Teachers will raise International Standards FCE	The EODP wants that Chilean citizens can be able to communicate in English, but if students do not performance, what do they learn?
In the year 2013 students will have KET and PET levels	All the schools do not have teachers of english.
The additional support, radios, texts, didactics resources, computers, new software.	Some teachers do not do classes in english, it means, they do not practice the speaking area
The offer of English courses	In the curricular plan, english subject have 2 hours only to teach this language and it is not enough to do a good job.

There is no doubt that education is a priority and English is now part of it, and the efforts have been centered in achieve a big coverage and continuous improvement, it is not an easy task if we think that the standards are every time more demanding.

We agreed that the English Open Doors Program is a very interesting program with very good ideas and objectives but unfortunately, we can not get wonderful results in an short period of time, because education is a long road that we have to know and improve slowly. Besides, if we want to get bilingual persons, we have to start in pre-school years, where children are open to receive all the information and specially because children apparently have an inherent ability to form words and sentences independent of the capacity they have to imitate the language they hear.

A Personal Learning Experience

My experience of learning English at school start when I was 9 years old I think it was good. I didn't understand the English very much because, honestly I just memorized everything, in my secondary years, this situation didn’t change, I had the same teacher through all my school, always like English, the funny think was how I came to study English Pedagogy, I want to travel to EE.UU to work as a babysitter, but my mother didn’t want and she gave me the opportunity to study anything that I want, and I decided to study English.

When I start to study in the University I really understand the meaning of English and the different way to teach or the new way, now in this time I could understand English, and I comprehend that my old teacher never done his job properly. Now learn English is not just vocabulary, or learn grammar, it is more than that, now we integrated the Transversal Contents (values, etc) and not just in learning English in other subjects too.

According to the Chilean Curriculum, wants to create good teachers, students with good values supporting the work of their families, to this way we going to have good professionals on the future.

The Philosophical Area of the Chilean Curriculum Framework NM

Ingrid López
Hellen Quintana
Cristian Sandoval
María Jesús Villa


As we have mentioned in the report "The Philosophical Area of the Chilean Curriculum Framework" , we agreed with those that say the Sources of Curriculum are just 4, (Sociological, Psychological, Pedagogical and Epistemological) and that inside the Sociological Source, there is an area that is focused on all the things related with values, with the moral and with ethical aspects.
Probably, for some experts, we are talking about the Sociological Source, and they are right, with one exception, the Sociological Source, in its Social Area, is related with the relation between students and society, the ways the students have to behave with other people, because he is immerse into a society and he has to respect different opinions. This Social Area, wants to create kids aware of different cultures from their own and kids that value and respect them. The aim of this is to create people socially compromised with their culture and their country in a responsible way.
Here is where the break is produced, the Philosophical area, as we called it, (that is inside the Sociological Source) is related just with values, ideal of persons, moral responsibility, etc, not in behalf of the society as the other source does.
In the following chart we explain graphically, and in a very easy way, the divisions of the Curriculum Sources, according to our point of view, especially the Sociological Source and its two areas.

Concept Map Philosophical Area

According to the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Secondary Education) we can affirm that it is particularly orientated to develop the knowledge. You do not need to read the whole thing to realize it. Even though it is true that the Chilean Curriculum Framework has its Transversal Contentses, it is, without any doubt, focused on Educational and Professional development, more than in the development of people's attitude, (Philosophical Area) like it happens in the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Primary Education).
This can probably sound a little bit weird, or shocking, but if you really think about it, it has a lot of sense.
Just answer this question, When do kids become moral people?. The answer to this questions is When kids are in primary education. The right moment to teach values and form ideals of persons is when we are children, between 6 to 13 years old, because we haven't been touched by the society's dirty hands, then we are like a white piece of cloth which is ready to be painted for first time.
Every interaction with children provides an opportunity to teach values. They learn about our values through daily interactions with us and they learn through our example. They are very open to receive all kind of information and that's why this is the right moment to teach values and virtues, and all the possible things to form kids of good, in a personal or social way.
But this is not the case with teenagers, as teachers, we do not teach what is good or what is wrong, because that is something they learn when they are children. The idea of the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Secondary Education) with its Transversal Contents, is to teach them how to take good decision in a process of trial and error, in other words, we have to teach decision skills to teenagers. But teachers do not try to tell them which job to take, which school to attend, whom to marry, and how to lead one's life, but give them the tools to take their own right decisions, in order to become good professionals and responsible persons inside a society.
This is the reason why we couldn't find a lot of Philosophical areas inside the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Secondary Education), as we did with the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Primary Education).
We will include some excerpts from the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Secondary Education), and then we will comment them.

Excerpts from:
“Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.
Philosophical Area.

“…los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y que la perfectibilidad inherente a la naturaleza humana se despliega en procesos de autoafirmación personal y de búsqueda permanente de trascendencia, los que otorgan sentido a la existencia personal y colectiva. A la libertad que hace de cada individuo persona y sujeto de derechos y deberes, le es intrínseca la capacidad de razonar, discernir y valorar, fundamentos a su vez de la conducta moral y responsable…” (Page 2- 3 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005. )


“…el marco de objetivos y contenidos curriculares plantea actitudes a inculcar en alumnas y alumnos respecto a: desarrollo personal, aprendizaje y relación con el conocimiento…” (Page 8 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“...Desde la óptica del desarrollo personal, el ámbito de la Formación Diferenciada se basa en la necesidad de atender las aptitudes e intereses personales, y las disposiciones vocacionales de alumnos y alumnas, armonizando sus decisiones individuales…” (Page 11 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…la formación del carácter en términos de actitudes y valores fundamentales…” (Page 19 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…contribuir significativamente al proceso de crecimiento y auto-afirmación personal…” (Page 20 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…fortalecer y afianzar la formación ético-valorativa; y al desarrollo del pensamiento creativo y crítico…” (Page 20 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…conocimiento de sí mismo, de las potencialidades y limitaciones de cada uno…” (Page 20 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…autoestima, confianza en sí mismo y sentido positivo ante la vida…” (Page 20 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)
“…respetar y valorar las ideas y creencias distintas a las propias…” (Page 22 “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media”. Actualización 2005.)

General Comment about the excerpts taken from Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media, Actualización 2005

Even though it is true the amount of values and so on is not the same that what was taught in primary education, all the values we saw in the Excerpts from “Objetivos Fundamentales y Contenidos Mínimos Obligatorios de la Educación Media, Actualización 2005”, are touched in all the subjects but in depth in 3º and 4º grade with the sectors of Philosophy and Psychology.

Philosophy and Psychology give to the students the capacity to develop skills related with reflexion, analysis, comprehension and sharing different opinions presented by the teacher in contents related with values and controversial topics. These sectors want to create critical views of themselves and the world.

The teacher does not teach what is good or bad, as we said before, the teacher guides his students to put into practice all the things that were delivered to them when they were children, in order that in the future, they can be able to take decisions in a critical and responsible way.

With these sectors, the student can understand deeply his personal existence, his weaknesses and fortresses. The student can learn about his rights and duties, learn to contribute to his personal auto-affirmation and character formation. He can develop his capability of reasoning, distinguishing and appraising as well as his personal development.

We like the organization of the Chilean Curriculum Framework (Secondary Education) and we also think that is important that this kind of formation should not be exclusive for some kind of students. It is an area very big and very rich, and all schools should take it seriously, because it allows students to have an integrating view which gives sense to the educative activity. It also gives a humanistic view, where topics and contents have questions that all human beings have had in some moment of their lives.

...Who am I? ... Where do I come from? ... Why am I here? ...
If you have an answer to these questions, probably you had a good philosophical training at school.



“Docendo discimus”
(Teach in order to learn)

The Philosophical Area of the Chilean Curriculum Framework

Ingrid López
Hellen Quintana
Cristian Sandoval
María Jesús Villa

The word of Greek origin, Philosophy, is a compound of phílos: friend, or lover and sophía wisdom, then Philosophy is, wisdom friend. But what does it have to do with Curriculum? As we have seen, curriculum has four sources, Sociological, Psychological, Pedagogical and Epistemological source, however, there are some people that say that there is one extra source, the Philosophical source. We do not agree with this statement, and we decided to refer to this supposed source, like to an area of the Sociological Source.

The pages that appear from now on will propose like an analysis, in general terms, of the Philosophical aspects in the Chilean Curriculum Framework. Before start with the definitions, we would like to share with you some educational and academic values upon which schools as learning institutions are based on, and we found them very interesting for you to know. (SCHOOL MANUAL: EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMEN)T

Values Relating to Education
* accepting the importance of learning and knowledge,
* encouraging curiosity and the questioning mind,
* encouraging and rewarding effort and achievement,
* promoting logical and critical thinking based on evidence,
* demonstrating a commitment to truth,
* recognizing the partnership between school, home and community in education,
* seeing education as a life-long process.

Hoping you enjoy it, we will now start given a brief definition of the Sociological Source, and the reasons why we think the Philosophical Source is NOT a source but an area the Sociological one.
Sociological Source provides information referred to the relations between the school and the society, its students' integration to the social surroundings in a criticize and free way, creating people socially compromised with their culture and their country. The school gives especial values to form responsible students in their social environment. Now, within this great topic, we can infer that exist an area destined to the creation of ideals, to form people of values, respectful people not only to deal with the society, but like an individual and autonomous being. We will call to this area, the Philosophical area, that has to do then, with all the things related to values, ethics, ideal of persons, moral responsability, System of beliefs, Concepts of reality, beauty and justice.

Inside the Chilean Curriculum Framework, we could distinguish lots of philosophical ideas that we will mention and comment next.


• The freedom that makes of each individual person and fellow of rights and duties.
• Capability of reasoning, distinguishing and appraising.
• To make possible the moral and responsible conduct.
• Principled set of ethical character
• The moral character governed by love
• Human ideals-Conception of person. (page 7)
• Conception of Human Development. (page 8)
• The OT must contribute to strengthen the person's ethical formation
• Personal auto-formation
• That the student develop capability to self-regulate his conduct.
• Respect for justice and the truth.
• To respect and appreciate the different ideas and beliefs from our own.
• To develop the reflexive and methodical thought and the sense of criticism and self-criticism
• Promoting an adequate self-esteem, self-confidence and a positive sense in front of life
• To understand and appreciate the affective and spiritual dimensions and principles and ethical standards
• The family role is highly relevant in children's moral formation
• Acquisition of life habits and strengthening of attitudes and personal ideals

We can infer with this that the Philosophical area of the Chilean Curriculum Framework wants responsible students, in all the matters and for all the purposes. It talks about the freedom of a person and his rights and duties, not in a society, but like single beings.
What it expects of the students, is that they have the capability of reasoning, distinguishing and appraising everything, starting from themselves, not particularly in benefit of the society that surrounds them. The Ethical character is part of the Philosophical area of the Chilean Curriculum as well the Ideals of person. Human Ideals and Development, are exactly what this area is about. The ethical formation in the students is highly relevant, teachers are forming persons, not just future professionals.
The idea is to give them the tools in order they can stablish their own Personal auto-formation, and they can grow like culturally and morally competent people.
To help the student to self-regulate his conduct with the aim of having a person emotionally controled. To create persons that valorate and respect justice and truth, in order to be an ideal of person.
During the scholarship period, the student must develop the reasonable area or reasonable thinking to make the difference between good or bad things. Also the student will understand that every action that he could do can damage him or his partners.

In simple words we can say that all of those statements are related with the philosophical area of the Chilean Curriculum Framework, in the way that they talk about values, ethics, ideal of persons, moral responsibility, etc. If you analyze them, you can find that are focused especially in the single person and not in the person immerse into the society. One thing is what we want to teach to create good people and other thing is what we want to teach to create active persons in a society. We consider those aspectes highly relevant in the integral development of the students.

To have a good direction, nowadays the modernity has been renovated all the time and schools are not the exception in this process of renovation, this does not mean that a renovation is based only in infrastructure, also it has to do with the spirit of education, what we mean is that teachers have to have a future view for new generations that are coming and realize that everything is in a process of changing.