Evaluation of a rural self-learning English program in Chile

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Evaluation of a rural self-learning English program in Chile by Andrea Lizasoain Conejeros & Claudia Becchi Mansilla

Evaluation of a rural self-learning English program in Chile

*Andrea Lizasoain Conejeros

&

Claudia Becchi Mansilla

Instituto de Lingüística y Literatura, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile

*Email: [email protected]

Article Information:

Article history :

Received 10, June, 2014

Accepted 27, June, 2014

Published 30, June, 2014

Abstract

Until recently, rural areas had been neglected by the Chilean Ministry of Education with respect to the teaching

of English as a Foreign Language. In 2010, it implemented an audiovisual tool called It’s my Turn! in rural schools,

believing that ICTs would come to solve the lack of English teachers in the country side. However, the efficiency

and effectiveness of the program had not been evaluated, which this action research study sought to address. Based

on data obtained through a survey and pre- and post-tests, we drew the conclusion that the ICT tool does promote

the learning of English, although some changes need to be urgently made regarding its implementation, as it was

also found that rural teachers were not using the teaching tool systematically.

Key Words: It’s my Turn!, ICTs, rural education, EFL, learning, evaluation

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1. Introduction

In 2004, the Chilean Government issued an

ambitious decree that sought to turn Chile into a

bilingual country by 2012 with the aim to provide

the Chilean people with more and better job

opportunities. The English Opens Door Program

was then launched by the Ministry of Education

(MINEDUC) and several opportunities started to

be offered to students and teachers to learn and

improve English proficiency levels, which were

very low. By 2007, though, only 2% of Chileans

spoke English proficiently (Dowling 2007) and in

2013, the English First English Proficiency Index

(EF EPI) still classified Chile among the countries

with a ‘very low level’ of English (English First

2013). Therefore, nothing has changed much since

2004.

Rural schools had been left aside in this

strive for becoming a bilingual country until 2010

when the audiovisual self-learning tool It’s my

Turn! was launched and implemented by the

MINEDUC in all rural schools in the country. In

fact, English had not been a compulsory subject

matter in this context until then. Given that most

rural school teachers do not speak English, the ICT

tool was thought to teach English to rural students

in an autonomous, fun and resource-efficient way.

Thus, many teachers would become students of

English at the same time, which was in fact one of

the goals of the Ministry (MINEDUC 2014).

Computer-assisted language teaching has

developed since the 70s (Warschauer, Shetzer &

Meloni 2004), attracting attention from teachers

and researchers from then on. Today, Information

and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are

considered to be crucial to meet teaching and

learning needs related to the acquisition of

languages. In this line, Chile has been

implementing several ICT-based educational

programs, such as ENLACES and EducarChile,

which allow communication among people

involved in the education field and access to many

teaching and learning ICT resources. However,

traditionally, their usefulness and effectiveness

remain unexplored in the country.

In general, however, ICTs have shown to

be powerful tools to teach and learn. Hepp (2013),

for instance, has asserted that ICTs foster learning

autonomy making students more responsible of

their own academic progress, because they allow

more transparency in the setting of goals,

achievements and self-assessment (García,

Ferrerira & Morales 2012), without the constant

presence and regulation by a teacher. At the same

time, Álvarez & Álvarez (2012) consider that

ICTs’ mixed nature of verbal and visual messages

favors information storing in the brain, thus

facilitating learning; by saving it in different ways,

‘there are more possibilities to remember

information if presented in two different formats’

(Álvarez & Álvarez 2012: 222).

In the Teaching English as a Foreign

Language (TEFL) area, García, Ferreira and

Morales’s (2012) results go in the same direction.

Their research shows that ICTs use in the

classroom fosters students’ autonomous learning,

on the one hand, and makes it more meaningful, on

the other, since these environments are familiar to

students, especially the youngest ones. Besides,

contrary to what usually happens in the Chilean

classroom, which fosters no student participation,

‘technological advancement has allowed foreign

language learning to be more interactive and

dynamic’ (García et al. 2012), turning the teacher

into another participant with the same social power

as students in the communicative situation. In this

line, Clavijo, Quintana and Quinteros (2012) have

stated that virtual learning environments allow

effective student-student and student-teacher

communication and the use of English in a context

of knowledge exchange that is natural to everyone

and, therefore, meaningful for students.

However, there are some studies that point

to the need to train both students and teachers in the

use of educational ICTs in order to be efficient and

effective (García et al. 2012; Fernández 2011;

Schirmer 2010; Warschaurer et al. 2000);

otherwise, results are worse in comparison to the

traditional classrooms (Schirmer 2010) or are

simply not accomplished. Spitzer (2013) shows a

similar concern and warns that learning cannot be

left to technology alone, since learning demands ‘to

explore with a critical spirit, to ponder, to browse




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the original sources, to put a puzzle together in

order to get the whole picture’ (p. 17). The latter

requires the learner’s personal effort and the

expert’s orientation. Therefore, the use of ICTs by

no means should leave teachers out of the

classroom, which was kept in mind when It’s my

Turn! was created.

The program was designed by a group of

university teachers of English as a Foreign

Language to promote the acquisition of English in

5th and 6th graders (MINEDUC 2014) in rural areas.

The two kits are composed by a set of audiovisual

lessons, a guideline to use the program, a workbook

for students, a teacher’s book (with the planning

and keys), a CD-ROM with songs and rhymes, and

a bilingual dictionary. The MINEDUC also

provides schools with a computer and a beamer to

project the audiovisual material in the classrooms.

The rationale is that by watching videos in English

with content that has been contextualized in rural

areas, students will learn the foreign language in a

meaningful and appealing way, since they are

familiar with the countryside and technology.

Because the Ministry of Education does

not count with any documentation on the

theoretical or methodological bases of the program,

it has been assumed that the underlying teaching

approaches are based on theories of language

acquisition that promote implicit and staged

learning of vocabulary and grammar (Lightbown &

Spada 2006; Richards & Rodgers 2001; Halliday

1975; Krashen 1981 & 1982). Lessons are

contextualized in a typical rural classroom where

Mr. Campos (whose name means ‘farms’) plays the

role of a teacher of English who teaches EFL to

both children and unreal characters (a little monster

and a robot) in a context similar to their daily life

experience (MINEDUC 2014). The digital tool has

been used during four years already, but there is

little evidence –if any– of its effectiveness. Thus,

there is a need to evaluate the impact that it has had

on rural students in Chile in order to check if it

actually works and if changes are needed.

In consequence, in 2012, a case study was

designed to be carried out in ten rural schools in the

South of Chile, seeking to measure the

effectiveness of the program. However, it was

found that, although implementation had been

made compulsory nationwide, most schools were

not using the program, so the case study changed

into action research. In consequence, three rural

schools were chosen and one of the researchers

implemented the program in the classrooms in

order to see if students learnt English by watching

the videos and working with the other material

provided.

This paper first describes the State of the

Art of English as a Foreign Language in Chile,

followed by a contextualization of the teaching of

English in rural areas. Then, an explanation of the

key constructs that are believed to support It’s my

Turn! and that will sustain the discussion of results

is presented. The document then moves to the

Methodology section, Results presentation, and

Discussion of results, finishing with the

Conclusions section.

1.1 State of the art

1.1.1 English linguistic competence in Chile

Since 2004, the Ministry of Education has applied

standardized tests to assess comprehension skills in

English in high school students along the country.

Results systematically point to the fact that both

urban and rural public and subsidized schools do

not reach the English proficiency levels that the

Ministry of Education demands by the end of the

school years –A2 y B1 according to the CEFR, –

which correlate the EF EPI figures. This means that

Chilean students are not able to communicate in

basic job or travel contexts.

1.1.2 English as a foreign language in the

classroom

In relation to teachers, the standardized test applied

in 2004 (in charge of Cambridge ESOL

Examinations), which also included a

questionnaire to them, pointed out that their role in

the classroom was crucial: Those students who had

actively participated in class by speaking and

writing and who had been assessed through

different methods (both traditional and alternative)

had gotten better results in the test (Red Maestros

de Maestros 2004). This coincides with Manzi,

González and Sun (2011), who found out that most

classroom interaction in Chile does not foster

critical thinking nor any kind of learning.




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Furthermore, the majority of teachers base their

teaching only on textbooks, ascribing little time to

creative experiences (Lizasoain & Ortiz de Zárate

2009), authentic materials (Lizasoain, Ortiz de

Zárate, Yilorm & Walper 2011) and ICTs (Flores

2012; Arancibia 2002, Pérez 2000), giving way to

passive participation by students, which does not

lead to new knowledge.

This is accompanied by the fact that

several teachers of English in Chile do not actually

speak the language. In this regard, the English

Opens Door Program allow all teachers to take a

proficiency test to certify their English levels.

However, results are personal (Programa Inglés

Abre Puertas 2014), so nationwide English

teachers’ proficiency levels are unknown. It is

known, however, that there is a deficit of English

teachers in the country, who are replaced by people

who speak the language without being teachers, or

by teachers of other subjects. In the first decade of

the 21st century 9,552 schools taught English with

9,056 subjects in charge of the English subject.

Nonetheless, only 4,671 were actually English

teachers (Páez 2012).

1.1.3 Rural education in Latin America and Chile

A rural school is an educational setting located in a

rural area, usually isolated from basic services such

as running water and light, although this can vary

depending on the geographical area. Facilities are

usually basic, having few rooms to teach in and few

teachers, who are not specialized in one matter but

in many. Another characteristic of rural schools is

the lack of resources to teach, such as books,

textbooks, computers, and the Internet.

For centuries, rural areas have had to deal

with many difficulties that have impeded access to

appropriate health, economy and education

conditions. However, international organizations

have recently started to seriously address this

reality. The World Food Summit of 1996, for

instance, highlighted the need to improve education

in rural areas in order to eradicate poverty and

make sustainable development possible (De Muro

& Burchi 2007). By the same token, the

Millennium Summit in 2000 paid special attention

to the development of better educational conditions

for rural areas, since education helps people to

eliminate poverty and hunger (FAO 2004).

Following this line, the Education for Rural People

(ERP) partnership had been set up in 2002.

The ERP is directed by FAO and, with the

collaboration of UNESCO, works all over the

world to carry out research studies to depict the

reality of rural education in the countries of Latin

America, among other initiatives. In 2004, a case

study conducted in seven countries in the region

provided an overview of education in non-urban

settings. It was found that rural students present

lower results in standardized tests in comparison

with urban school students, because of a lack of

access to quality education (FAO 2004). In 2014,

this reality has not changed much in Chile.

According to FAO (2004), 14% of the

population in Chile lives in rural areas. The number

of rural schools in Chile is about 4,500 out of a total

of 9,000 (MINEDUC 2014), and most of these

schools (3,589 out of 4,345) are multilevel

classrooms (Moreno 2007), which means that the

same contents are given to students from 6 to 12

years old, which may prevent progress. Students’

academic performance is also related to their rural

teachers’ expertise (Eyzaguirre & Fontaine 2008),

who in most of the cases are poorly prepared to face

the harsh reality of rural settings, let alone teach

English. Therefore, if academic success is poorer in

rural schools in comparison to urban schools, is the

teaching and learning of English possible through a

self-learning virtual program with no expert’s

orientation?

2. Theoretical framework

2.1 ICTs

The use of ICTs in the classroom is based on the

premise that they allow any child, being rural or

urban, to access more information than any

scientist could have accessed in the past century

(Warschauer et al. 2004). In this sense, we are ‘in

the midst of another revolution in human

communication, based on the development and

spread of computers and the Internet’ (p. 1).

Besides, the use of technology to access

entertainment and education is basic today, since

student nowadays are considered to be “digital

natives” (Prensky 2001), “screenagers” (Jukes &

Dosaj 2006) or “digital residents” (White & Le




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Cornu 2010). This means current students explore,

know and learn through technology with

naturalness (Fernández 2011). Therefore, the use of

ICTs such as computers, smart phones, the TV, e-

mail accounts, and social networks, to mention

some, is unavoidable if meaningful and long-

lasting learning is the goal (Shelly, Gunter &

Gunter 2010).

Research points to the fact that ICTs foster

collaborative work, communicative competence,

autonomous learning and foreign language

acquisition (Hepp 2013, García et al. 2012; Clavijo

et al. 2012; Warschauer et al. 2004; among many

others), besides other skills and abilities.

Nonetheless, they can also lead to cognitive

maladjustments in concentration, language

development and intelligence (Spitzer 2013) if not

used with caution and expertise.

2.2 Learning styles

Apart from including both verbal and

visual features that support meaningful learning

(Álvarez & Álvarez 2012), ICTs are powerful

because they point at students’ different learning

styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), defined as the

natural way to access new information and develop

skills (Nunan 2003), also known as multiple

intelligences (Armostrong 2009, Gardner 1993).

Thus, a visual learner will best learn through

written texts or images; an auditory learner will

best acquire new knowledge by listening to

information; and a kinesthetic learner will be more

comfortable experimenting new knowledge by him

or herself through their body (Gardner 1993).

The digital revolution (Warschauer et al.

2004) has changed the way human beings behave,

think and perceive the world (Fernández 2011) and

it is even possible that the brain has structurally

changed (Spitzer 2013, Prensky 2001). In fact, it is

usually asserted that students today tend to be more

visual than some decades ago, when teaching was

based on auditory input offered by the teacher.

This new generation of digital learners has

been defined as ‘(1) hyper communicators who use

multiple tools to communicate, (2) multitaskers

who do several things at once with ease, and (3)

goal oriented as they pursue multiple goals’ (Shelly

et al. 2010: 15). Therefore, if teachers want to catch

students’ attention, they must use ICTs to ‘enhance

students’ achievement and assist them in meeting

learning objectives’ (Shelly et al. 2010: 11), which

obliges educational forces to include them in the

curricula so citizens are all literate in digital terms.

2.3 Digital literacy

Literacy is understood as a set of linguistic and

cognitive mechanisms that are necessary to

actively participate in different discourse practices

(Errázuriz & Fuentes 2012) that relate to specific

sociocultural contexts, such as the school and the

workplace. Among these mechanisms, using a

computer, writing e-mails and interacting through

digital interfaces are crucial. The classroom, then,

must be a place where digital literacy is developed

so students are prepared to interact with efficiency

in their communities of practice. What is more, it is

important that citizens are not only literate in

digital terms but they should also master the lingua

franca at least at a basic level in order to have

access to information which is only available in

English.

2.4 The Natural Approach

Although foreign languages are usually learnt in

artificial or formal environments like the

classroom, the process of acquisition of the mother

tongue can actually be emulated if certain criteria

are met. The Natural Approach (Krashen & Terrel

1977) fosters the natural acquisition of second or

foreign languages by exposing students to

authentic samples of the target language, teaching

vocabulary and syntax in an implicit way and

highlighting fluency over accuracy. This way,

learners can incorporate new knowledge

unconsciously, same as children do when learning

their mother tongue. Thus, instead of learning

about the language, the will learn it.

The Natural Approach also seeks to

provide a stress-free learning environment, so

students’ affective filter (anxiety, fear,

embarrassment, etc.) is low (Krashen 1985). In this

view, language output should not be forced but

allowed to emerge spontaneously after students

have been exposed to large amounts of

comprehensible language input.

2.5 Content-based Instruction




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It has already been said that students learn

best and can communicate more effectively when

authentic communication contexts are provided.

Content-based Instruction promotes the acquisition

of second or foreign languages based on topics that

are related to other subject matters (Ramos &

Espinoza 2006; Arancibia 2002; Stryker & Leaver

1997), with the aim of contextualizing language

and creating communication situations that are

natural an appropriate to students’ needs and

previous knowledge. At the same time,

collaboration among teachers is promoted and

strengthened since they must work together to

achieve educational goals. For example, teachers of

English can work with teachers of mathematics to

teach the numbers to preschoolers.

3. Methodology

3.1 Research method

An evaluative case study (Cohen, Manion &

Morrison 2007, Stenhouse 1983) was designed to

be carried out in ten schools in the Region of the

Rivers (Región de los Ríos) in Chile to check the

efficiency and effectiveness of the governmental

software It’s my Turn! in the learning of English as

a Foreign Language. Since implementation was

compulsory, it was assumed that all of the schools

were using it as they had actually claimed to be

doing. However, it was found out that schools had

not yet implemented the program, so the study

turned into action research. In consequence, three

multilevel classroom schools were chosen to apply

the program during four weeks in November, 2012,

when students were taught English through three

lessons of the program.

3.2 Subjects

The study involved 35 rural students in 5th and 6th

grades, who attended school with children in lower

grades. All of the students spoke Chilean Spanish

as their first and only language. They were all

taught English through the 5th grade kit of It’s my

Turn!, since the Government had not yet provided

all schools with the 6th grade kit and students were

not familiarized with the program nor with the

English language. At this point, it must be

explained that a multilevel classroom holds

students in all levels but activities are usually

customized to each level. However, in the case of

the English subject, all students are exposed to the

same material, although only students in 5th and 6th

grade have workbooks, since English is

compulsory from 5th grade onwards only.

Therefore, students in lower levels are only able to

watch and be quiet.

3.3 Research tools

A survey. An eight-question survey was used to

determine students’ exposition to ICTs and decide

whether they could be regarded as digital learners.

Their motivation towards the learning of English

was also explored.

It’s my Turn! Since the program had not

been implemented, one of the researchers attended

the three participant schools twice a week for a

month and used the program in the English

classrooms. Three lessons of the 5th grade kit were

used in the same way as the teacher of English of

the school should have done it. That is, the teacher

spoke in Spanish to have students open their

workbooks at a certain page and watch the videos

in English. Students had to work on their exercises

on their own while the videos were playing and/or

after they had been stopped. The picture 1

illustrates how the program should work.




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Picture1, The classroom program

Pre- and post-tests. To measure how

much students had learnt after working with It’s my

Turn!, pre- and post-tests were applied on three

different occasions. Tests were similar in terms of

content, but different in format to prevent learners

from remembering the items from the first test, thus

providing it with validity and reliability (Gass &

Mackey 2007). They included open questions,

matching, and multiple choice items, among other

elicitation techniques, following the rationale of the

program’s workbook. Maximum score also varied,

so results were expressed in marks from 1 to 7,

according to the Chilean grading system.

3.4 Data Analysis

Data was statistically analyzed in the software

STATGRAPHICS Centurion. In relation to the

surveys, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers were counted and

then turned into percentages. Regarding pre- and

post-tests, students’ grades obtained before and

after the lessons were organized decreasingly and

averages per school were calculated to contrast

them. A t-test was applied to all of the results in

pre- and post-tests to put the significance

of variances to trial.

In the discussion section, information

obtained through informal conversations with the

teachers in charge of the English subject at the

schools involved in this study was also included in

order to shed light on some numeric results.

4. Results

4.1 Surveys

Surveys yielded that students are highly exposed to

ICTs. One question pointed at the amount of hours

that students watched television a day and it was

found that 77% did for more than 5 hours. At the

same time, all of them watched television on a

regular basis even if for less than 2 hours.

Students were also asked about the

frequency with which they used computers a week

at home. It was assumed that if asked about hours

a day, results were not going to be relevant. Results

yielded that 43% of the students used computers for

less than 2 hours a week, 23% did between 2 and 5

hours, and 14% did for more than 5 hours. There

were some students who said they did not use

computers (20%). Therefore, computers were not




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considered to be used in such a regular basis as in

the city. At the same time, in an informal

conversation, one of the teachers explained that

students had access to a computer at school during

classes and/or during break time but that it was only

used to play.

Another question had to do with the

amount of hours that children spent manipulating

cell phones. The survey showed that 23% of the

students used them for less than 2 hours a day, 17%

did between 2 and 5 hours, 49% did for more than

5 hours, and 11% said they did not have a cell

phone. This showed that students were normally

exposed to this device. In consequence, the

subjects in this study showed to be highly exposed

to ICTs, especially cell phones. However, it was

not determined whether its use had learning goals.

We also wanted to know whether students

liked English or not to see if they were motivated

to learn the language. It was found that most

students liked English (66%), while a significant

amount (34%) did not. The latter answered that

they found it unpleasant (67%) or difficult (33%).

Therefore, most students did like the subject, but

there was a significant number who did not.

In this regard, in an informal conversation,

one of the teachers said that students did not like

It’s my Turn!, because ‘they didn’t understand

anything’ (personal communication, November

2012), so she did not use it in class. Instead, she

tried to teach them English based on what she had

learnt in a training course offered by the

MINEDUC she had attended for a semester.

Another teacher said that students received formal

English instruction from a teacher of English who

came sometimes. In consequence, students did not

cover the contents that the curriculum required. At

another school, the teacher in charge of the subject

said that the school never received the rural English

program, even though they had written and phoned

several times to different people to ask for the

resource. They borrowed the program from another

school, but there were not enough copies of the

textbooks for all the students. In consequence,

students felt this language was unfamiliar to them.

4.2 Tests

Three pre-tests and post-tests were applied before

and after the lessons in every school. In general,

pre-test results were low, with an average mark of

3.5 (lower than the passing mark in Chile, which is

4.0 out of 7.0). However, post-tests, whose results

were also low (average 4.2), were better. Figure 1

shows the differences per school.

Figure 1. Average mark in pre- and post-tests per school

The figure shows that schools increased their test

results after working with the program. Schools 1

and 2 improved 1 point; School 3, however, only

improved 0.2 points. In order to test the

Average pre School 1؛ 3/6؛ Average pre School 2؛ 2/9؛ Average pre؛ School 34/0؛

Average post School 1؛ 4/6؛ Average post School 2؛ 3/9؛ Average post School 3؛ 4/2؛

Average pre Average post




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significance of the results between pre- and post-

tests, they were processed in the statistical software

STATGRAPHICS Centurion. A t-test yielded that

the difference between the pre- and post-test means

was significant (t (105) = 0,4248; p <0.05). This

significance is illustrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2. Statistical significance between pre- and post-tests differences

The boxes in Figure 2 represent the range of the

marks that the 35 participants obtained in the pre-

and post-tests. The left whisker of each box shows

the lowest marks achieved by students (25% of

scores); thus, the lowest grade of the pre-tests is a

1.4, and a 2.2 in the post- evaluations. The width of

the boxes differs depending on the variability of the

grades. Thus, the post-tests box is larger than the

pre-tests box, because variation among marks

increased. The blue vertical line in the boxes shows

the median of the data; and the red ‘plus’ signs

represent the average grade of the results: In the

pre-tests it is 3.6 and in the post-test it is 4.3. In the

case of the post-tests, the median and the average

grade were different owing to the fact that the

dispersion of the results was higher than in the pre-

tests, where the results had concentrated in a lower

range of grades. The second whisker at the right

shows the highest grades obtained by the

participants (25% of scores). This is a 6.1 in the

pre-tests and 6.5 in the post-tests (out of a

maximum score of 7). Results, then, evinced that

after having worked with the rural English

program, the range of the grades varied not only in

terms of means, but also when comparing lowest

and highest grades.

In general, results yielded that when

students worked with the rural English program,

they improved their results in the post-tests. In




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other words, it can be said that this self-learning

tool implemented by the MINEDUC is an effective

tool for teaching EFL in the rural areas of Chile,

since students actually learned vocabulary and

basic structures of English.

5. Discussion

The study showed that participants did have regular

contact with ICTs; therefore, they can be

considered digital natives (Prensky, 2001) able to

manipulate and interact with digital resources. At

the same time, being exposed to ICTs on a regular

basis, especially cell phones, it is assumed that they

can also learn through them (Fernández 2011,

Jukes & Dosaj 2006) since their brains have been

probably adapted to them (Spitzer 2013, Prensky

2001). In fact, it was shown that students did learn

through It’s my Turn!. Although this increase was

not high, it must be remembered that it was the first

time that these students were exposed to the

English language in a formal setting and that the

program had not been implemented before, so they

were learning two new things at the same time:

They were learning English and learning to learn

through a digital resource.

In relation to the above said, English is the

lingua franca to communicate worldwide, but rural

areas in Chile are usually isolated from situations

where the English language is required. For

example, cable TV is not common in these areas,

and the domestic TV networks broadcast in

Spanish. At the same time, English is only

compulsory from 5th grade onwards so the subject

and the language itself were probably completely

new to these children who live in the South of

Chile, which is rainy and keeps people in their

homes, isolated from experiences that demand the

use and understanding of a foreign language. At the

same time, contrary to what was expected, rural

students had been in regular contact with digital

resources such as TVs, computers and cell phones.

Nonetheless, their use had had entertainment

purposes only. Therefore, it was enlightening to see

that ICTs can actually have educational ends in

rural areas same as in urban areas.

However, marks obtained by students

were low, bordering the minimum mark to pass a

course in Chile (4.0 out of 7.0). This is consistent

with the literature, which has found that rural

students tend to get low results in standardized tests

(Eyzaguirre & Fantuzzi 2008; FAO 2004) due to

rural teachers’ lack of expertise, shortage of

resources, students’ poverty and all of its

implications, etc.

Although poor, nonetheless, results from

tests showed that schools with higher rates of

vulnerability improved more than schools with

lower rates. For example, in School 1 (with a

vulnerability rate of 100%), students got an average

of 2.9 in the pre-test, which increased to 3.9 (1

point) after having worked with the program. In

contrast, School 3 (with a vulnerability rate of

87%) only improved 0.2 points (see Figure 1).

Therefore, it can be seen that the school with a

higher vulnerability rate improved more than the

one with a lower rate. This is consistent with the

finding of the Chilean Fondef D08i-1074 (2012)

project, which yielded that schools with higher

levels of vulnerability rate learnt more when they

were exposed to improvements in the pedagogical

praxis, because the impact is stronger.

In relation to the teachers’ lack of

expertise previously mentioned, most teachers in

rural areas do not speak English and that is why the

program was designed to facilitate their job, on the

one hand, and teach them the foreign language, on

the other (MINEDUC 2014). Given that rural

teachers many times perform more than teaching-

related tasks in rural schools, having this ready-

made tool at hand can help them in their daily jobs.

However, it was found that teachers did

not actually use the program and that is why the

case study first designed to evaluate It’s my Turn!

had to be changed into an action research study.

Among the reasons teachers mentioned for not

using the program, teachers and students lack of

understanding of the language –accompanied by

lack of motivation to learn it,– teachers’

inexperience with ICTs and shortage of resources

in the classroom were highlighted. Although the

program was designed to teach English to teachers

and students together, the former felt awkward

when students asked questions and they did not

know what to answer. At the same time, students

felt lost without expert orientation. Besides, it was




14


observed that not all of the students had their own

material, thus preventing them from getting the

most from autonomous learning (García et al.

2012). Notwithstanding, the questionnaire yielded

that most students liked English (66%), probably

appealed by the characteristics of the program. In

this regard, it was also seen that students rapidly

grew accustomed to sitting in front of the screen to

watch the lessons, while they had their notebooks

and workbooks open on their desks; it was

observed then that they were natural multitaskers

(Shelly et al. 2010). As a consequence, teachers

should not lose their traditional role in the

classroom as the environment gets unnatural, thus

preventing effective student-student and student-

teacher communication (Clavijo et al. 2012) from

happening. At the same time, enough resources

must be available for students to work and learn on

their own.

Resources are highly significant when

learning something on one’s own as they are the

only source of input. Since rural teachers do not

speak the language that students are supposed to be

learning, the only comprehensible input (Krashen

1982) comes from the educational material that

students count with. One of the rationales of It’s my

Turn! is that students are going to learn English by

watching appealing videos where characters

similar to the people they usually interact with

communicate in English (except from the little

monsters, of course), and by systematizing this

knowledge through their work with the exercise

book; in other words, for learning to occur,

students’ must also make an effort (Spitzer 2013).

Furthermore, learning is reinforced when

coming from different sources or in different

formats (Álvarez & Álvarez 2012) as students can

best remember new knowledge when information

has been stored in different formats which, in this

case, are auditory and visual. Auditory input is

unavoidable since all of the students are exposed to

the videos and can listen to them (unless, of course,

they are deaf). However, if students do not count

with their own workbooks, one important format is

left out, which is written input.

The latter is directly related to students’

learning styles. It’s my Turn! does appeal to visual

and auditory learning but leaves kinesthetic

learners aside. That is, students who best learn by

listening to or watching new information (both

verbal and nonverbal) will probably get better

results than those who need to experiment new

knowledge themselves, which is usually made by

moving. In other words, the program repeats the

traditional pattern of a Chilean classroom with

students sitting in rows in front of a source of

knowledge, which leads, again, to lack of effective

communication among the participants of the

communicative situation (van Dijk 2008).

Notwithstanding, from the perspective of

using ICTs to foster the learning of English, it was

found that the program has the potential to be

successful nationwide and that it can actually help

bridge the gap between urban and non-urban

schools in Chile. It’s my Turn! is actually a source

of comprehensible input, because it presents

communicative situations familiar to 5th grade rural

students; contents that have been contextualized

according to their natural environment, which can

also be related to other school subjects (Ramos &

Espinoza 2006; Arancibia 2002; Stryker & Leaver

1997) and staged according to students’

proficiency in the language (Halliday 1975). This

allows for implicit learning of linguistic content

and leads to natural acquisition of the language

(Krashen & Terrell 1977). In fact, students not only

recognized and identified the new concepts

included in the lessons –they remembered,– but

also used them in some basic oral and written tasks,

without having received formal instruction, i.e. the

explicit teaching of grammar –they learnt.

6. Conclusions

In its endeavor to turn Chile into a bilingual nation,

the Chilean State has implemented many programs

to take English everywhere in the country; It’s my

Turn! is one of them.

This study attempted to evaluate the

impact the self-learning program has on rural

students through a case study. However, it was

found that schools were not using the resource for

several reasons such as apprehension to ICTs, lack

of proficiency in English and shortage of material.

Therefore, the study turned into an action research

study through which one of the researchers




15


implemented It’s my Turn! to check its

effectiveness.

It was found that the resource has a

positive impact on students, whose results in pre-

and post-tests improved, showing that they had

learnt English by using the program. In other

words, they remember linguistic content (words

and structures) and could also use it. The study also

showed that rural students are exposed to ICTs on

a regular basis and that they can use them not only

to play but also to learn.

However, students’ results were low,

being on the edge of the passing mark in Chile. This

can be ascribed to many factors. In the first place,

students had not used the program before and they

were not familiar with using an ICT with learning

purposes. Secondly, English is taught for the first

time in 5th grade in Chile, so students had not had

previous contact with the language. Thirdly, not all

of the students were in possession of the workbook,

thus preventing them from reinforcing what they

had learnt from the videos by means of a different

format, which could have strengthened learning,

according to the literature. Finally, some of the

students did not like English (34%) so they were

probably unwilling to process the new information.

Therefore, many steps need to be taken in

order to take advantage of It’s my Turn! For

instance, it would be ideal to have rural teachers

who can actually speak English so they present

themselves as experts in front of their students, thus

orienting them in the learning process and, at the

same time, feeling at ease with the resource.

Besides, more training to implement the program is

needed from the side of the State, since the

irresponsible use of ICTs for educational purposes

has a negative impact. Apart from that, the Ministry

of Education has to monitor their teaching and

learning programs in order to check if changes need

to be made, which is usually not done. In this case,

apart from the already mentioned possible

improvements, the MINEDUC needs to make sure

that all of the schools have the necessary material

to implement the program and that all of them are

actually implementing it.

Many elements were left unexplored in

this study. For example, it would be interesting to

further explore the rural teachers’ perception of this

program and how they feel about learning English

together with their students. Through informal

conversations it was hinted that they felt awkward

not only because they did not speak English and

were in charge of the subject, but also because they

were unfamiliar with ICTs for educational

purposes. It would also be sensible to reproduce the

study at a larger scale to know what is going on in

other regions of the country, thus feeding the

MINEDUC with information to improve the

quality of education in Chile, which has lately been

under a magnifying glass, based on empirical

research rather on the idea that improvisation of

methodologies equals innovation in the curriculum.




16


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Evaluation of a rural self-learning English program in Chile

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