Autonomous Learning

THE STANDARDIZATION OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE COUNTRY

The Colombian Ministry of Education in 2004, offers all students in the county the possibility of becoming bilingual in English and Spanish as part of a vision of increased productivity in a globalized world. However, the language and education policies promoted within this framework tend to foreground the development ofEnglish at the expense of bilingual competence in Spanish and English. This bilingual policy has been strongly criticized by several Colombian academics with regard to what they consider as the imposition in the Colombian context of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the disregard of local knowledge and expertise in informing local perspectives, as well as the exclusion of othertypes of bilingualism (in other foreign languages and in the indigenous and Creole languages spoken in the country). This article will present key aspects of the ongoing debate in Colombia. It will argue that the exclusive emphasis on one type of bilingualism does not do justice to the many different forms of bilingualism and multilingualism present in the country. However, in addition to beingan imposition, we will maintain that the National Bilingual Programmed could be harnessed as an opportunity to promote a more inclusive vision of bilingualism, alongside the focus on increased national prosperity.

Introduction
Latin American countries have been positioned at two opposite poles of the social scale (Hamel 2008): so-called ´elite´ bilingualism, and the bilingualism of theindigenous communities and the speakers of Creole languages. Furthermore, it may be noted that while bilingualism in internationally prestigious languages, such as Spanish-English, Spanish-French, and Spanish-German, provides access to a highly ‘visible’, socially-accepted form of bilingualism, leading to the possibility of employment in the global marketplace, bilingualism in minority Amerindian orCreole languages leads, in most cases to an ‘invisible’ form of Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies Vol. 5, 3, 2011, 678.
In spite of a long tradition of bilingualism and multilingualism in the country, since before the arrival of the Spanish in the fifteenth century, it was only in 1991 that the multilingual and floricultural nature of the country was officially recognized for the first timewithin the framework of the Political Constitution of 1991 and indigenous languages were awarded co-official status with Spanish, in the territories where they are spoken. Today there are around 69 separate indigenous languages in existence. These include: Amerindian languages, two native Creoles, Colombian Sign Language and Romani. Spanish continues to be the official language of Colombia and isused in government and education. It is spoken by the majority of the population as a first language. Many speakers of Amerindian languages are bilingual in Spanish and their native language, though the degree of bilingualism varies widely in different parts of the country (Baker & Pry’s Jones 1998). The official policy of Ethno education communities, ratified by the Education Law of 1994,recognized the importance of designing curricula which take into account
The type of educational provision which reflects the visions of the indigenous communities themselves, as well as respect for their cultural and linguistic heritage. However, in spite of these efforts, bilingualism in minority Amerindian or Creole languages is often not recognized as such and is undervalued (de Mejia 2005).Ina later development, in 2004, the Colombian Ministry of Education (MEN) created The National Bilingual Programmed, aimed at offering all school pupils the possibility of reaching a B1 level of proficiency in English at the end of their school studies.

The objective was:
To have citizens who are capable of communicating in English, in order to be able to insert the country within processes...