NewsWhore
11-26-2010, 04:20 PM
The new integrated book series that covers the first to the fourth year of primary education in Dominican public schools has sparked a debate. Academics and researchers in the field are questioning the apparent limits on the teaching of the Spanish language. Based on an examination of the new school texts, linguists Bruno Rosario Candelier, the director of the Dominican Academy of Language, and Manuel Nunez, a writer, are claiming that the books do not place the Spanish language at the center of the coursework, which constitutes a step backwards in the teaching process and the comprehension of reading and writing. According to Diario Libre, this view has been rejected by the Minister of Education, Melanio Paredes, who described the academics' studies and arguments as "superficial". Paredes told reporters that each of the texts reinforces reading and writing in an integrated way. When teachers who teach these grades were consulted, they said that the texts included the Spanish language, but in a very limited way, and because of this they have to include other texts, which Paredes said is valid and allowed in order to enrich the learning process. A teacher's guide to accompany the materials, which is intended to give greater quality to the texts, is expected to arrive in January with the other technological resources.
The new books were adopted from a Mexican teaching model supported by the Latin American Institute for Educational Communications (ILCE), which covers the basic courses in order for the children to develop across the board. Another inconvenience that Nunez sees is that the methodology impedes literacy, and therefore this will be an enormous step backwards for education, because the child cannot learn writing, spelling, oral comprehension or vocabulary. He said that all this was erased and replaced just with some episodic activities of written comprehension that they cannot do anyway because they do not have the tools to do it. "These books are a copy of the highly questioned Latin American Institute of Educational Communication, from Mexico, which committed a million-dollar fraud because of an encyclopedia they published but it did not work", he said.
Moreover, they criticize the fact that the books are accompanied by a set of technological media that include the use of the Internet, videos and computers, which are not available at most public schools. This is compounded by the lack of electricity in many areas of the Dominican Republic. Other educational experts criticized the inadequate training provided for teachers, who barely get two weeks instruction on using these new materials. The director of the Dominican Academy of Language said that the study of the Spanish language has been sidelined.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)
The new books were adopted from a Mexican teaching model supported by the Latin American Institute for Educational Communications (ILCE), which covers the basic courses in order for the children to develop across the board. Another inconvenience that Nunez sees is that the methodology impedes literacy, and therefore this will be an enormous step backwards for education, because the child cannot learn writing, spelling, oral comprehension or vocabulary. He said that all this was erased and replaced just with some episodic activities of written comprehension that they cannot do anyway because they do not have the tools to do it. "These books are a copy of the highly questioned Latin American Institute of Educational Communication, from Mexico, which committed a million-dollar fraud because of an encyclopedia they published but it did not work", he said.
Moreover, they criticize the fact that the books are accompanied by a set of technological media that include the use of the Internet, videos and computers, which are not available at most public schools. This is compounded by the lack of electricity in many areas of the Dominican Republic. Other educational experts criticized the inadequate training provided for teachers, who barely get two weeks instruction on using these new materials. The director of the Dominican Academy of Language said that the study of the Spanish language has been sidelined.
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#6)