Claudia Cardona Naranjo

BILINGUALISM IN COLOMBIA
Colombia becomes bilingual in order to participate into the globalization. Indeed,
majority language speakers of Spanish as a first language are usually interested in
becoming bilingual in an international language, such as English, French, German, Italian
and Hebrew (Meja, 2004). As a result, the government inserted a bilingual program
(Programa Nacional del Bilingsmo, Colombia 2004-2019), and over the last years some
initiatives have been part of the teaching and learning process of a foreign language by the
Ministry of Nacional Education (MEN) such as: The English Syllabus (1982), The General La
of Education (1994, article 22), and The Curricular Guidelines for Foreign Language (1999);
and by Frodden & Correa The COFE Project (2000). All of this programs have had not only
good results, but also lots of difficulties that made Colombia Failed to successfully apply a
bilingual program in the country because of the minority inclusion, the resources limitation,
and the teachers knowledge.
One of the most important issues is the minority language groups in Colombia due
to the fact that they speak Spanish as a second language. This communities, also called
ethnic minorities, have suffered through colonization of Roman Catholic doctrine who
spreading the use of Spanish as the language of education (Meja, 2004) thus, they have
been endangered their mother tongue, and after the independence the minority languages
were related with ignorance and underdevelopment (Usma, 2009). In addition, a policy of
Ethnoeducation for the minority communities in Colombia was determined by MEN in the
education law of 1994, but they still have difficulties with the development of appropriate
competences and the material required since they are 66 different indigenous language

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groups with different linguistic characteristics, or different social problems. For example,
the Cams language is not respected phonologically when they are taught the alphabet of
both languages the Spanish and the indigenous. In fact, Meja (1998) mentioned that
bilingualism in minority Amerindian or creole languages leads to an invisible form of
bilingualism

in

which

native

language

is

undervalued

and

associated

with

underdevelopment, poverty and backwardness.

Although in Colombia the MEN offers programs for teaching and learning a foreign
language, the limited resources do not allow Colombian lower classes to have a real
bilingual education. The government has done modifications to the 115 law of 1994 in order
to include the bilingualism law taking into account some aspects such as the economy:
doing emphasis on the departments with low levels of education coverage, and the
academy: developing basic intercommunication skills and the four main skills as listening,
speaking, reading and writing. However, the families who send their children to bilingual
schools come from the Colombian middle and upper-middle classes because in Colombia
bilingualism in international prestigious languages is considered worthy of investment of
considerable sums of money and is good for these social status, but is difficult for lower
status to becomes part of bilingualism since it is expensive. For instance, CLERMONT
Bilingual College has a registration average from $926.000 pesos to $1.500.000 pesos (the
price vary according to the grade) and a pension from $650.000 pesos to $1.400.000 pesos.
It is not possible for people with lower incoming to pay for these institutes which have high
prices for joining. On the other hand, the limited material for working in class do not let the
teachers the possibility to encourage the learning process and achieving the leveling of the

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students. As an example, Meja (2004) claimed that the heterogeneous levels of linguistic
proficiency of children in the same classroom is another common source of difficulty for
both practitioners and learners. We have an easy access to the technology that offer many
resources; nonetheless, it is difficult to apply them to groups of 30 or 40 children, and to
reach the objectives.
Moreover, it is essential the teachers knowledge level for learning a foreign
language. In effect, one of the significant problems applying the English Syllabus (MEN,
1982) was the ineffectiveness of the teachers to develop the new approach of this initiative.
Hence, the teachers kept on using the old methodology which they used before doing their
job more comfortable for them, but being prejudicial for the students. In Colombia the
teachers of some public schools mainly primary schools do not have the proficiency level
for teaching a foreign language. In fact, the primary school teachers have degree in child
education and some of them do not have the B2 level required for the quality standards.
Furthermore, according to general law of education (1994), all Colombian staff need to have
a recognized qualification in education (Meja, 2004). Despite the teaching experience of
the foreign staff, they do not have the sufficient educational and professional development
as teachers. Another issue to address is the way that teachers of minority language such as
Creole have to teach the language. Meja (2004), the English-based Creole used by the
majority of the native Islander population has not been considered a language appropriate
to be used in Education and has been relegated to informal, family domains. This situation
has led to the Summer Institute of Linguistics to design a project in order to revitalize the

Claudia Cardona Naranjo

Creole language. As a result, Meja (2004), teachers and students feel more motivated
working in Creole.
In brief, in order to advance in aspects such as economy and education to belong to
the globalization, Colombia has included bilingual programs through the Ministry of
National Education which have had strength and weakness in its improvement.
Consequently, Colombia failed implementing a program for bilingual education due to the
fact that the ethnic minorities are in endangered language, the limited of resources for
population with lower status, and the proficiency level required for teaching a foreign
language. Bilingual education in Colombia is associated principally with private bilingual
schools set up to cater for the middle and upper-middle-classes (Meja, 2002); In other
words, Bilingual education is a privilege for people privileged.