Do teachers meet the minimum standards?

Hi Everybody!

In this entry I discuss the importance of setting standards of competence for English Teachers.

Brown suggested that in the same way that there exist standards that describe the competences of language learners; there are also standards for teachers. He stated that those standards have to do with the teacher’s linguistic and language development, culture and the interrelationship between language and culture, and the planning and managing of instruction.

Let’s consider the case of those teachers that joined the public sector before the process process known as “concurso docente”was implemented. From my experiences in high school I can say that most of my English teachers would have score very low if they would have been evaluated according to the criteria Brown proposes. 

Do you know of any ways in which those teachers who have been in the profession for more than 15 years are evaluated? I’ve heard of many cases (specially in rural areas) of teachers that have been working for a very long time and never got any degree apart from the high school diploma they obtained 20 years ago. Why do u think this happens? In which ways it affects the quality of instruction? What could the ministry of education do about it?