English Language Teaching: a Political Factor in Puerto Rico?

Copyright © 2015 by Mirta Martes-Rivera.

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Rev. date: 08/29/2015

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgment

Introduction

Chapter I

Historical Overview of the Teaching of English in Puerto Rico

Chapter II

Educational Language Policies Related to the Teaching of English in Public Schools in Puerto Rico

Chapter III

Implications and Recommendations

Abbreviations Used

Notes

References

In memory of my late father, SSG-6 Mario Martes-Arturet

(1928–2009)

PREFACE

T HE TEACHING OF English as a second language has been always a controversial issue associated with political overtones in Puerto Rico, which seems to discourage the teaching and learning of English among Puerto Rican learners. Merely speaking, public school students overlook the relevance to learn the English language; some relevance they give to their vernacular—Puerto Rican Spanish. This sociolinguistic attitude is acceptable in a linguistic environment where all is spoken in Spanish. However, it is certainly a detrimental linguistic fact when the significance to learn English in our present worldwide global community is a must. Nevertheless, the political issues are not the only ones troubling the attitudes of students at public schooling. The demanding behavior of teachers and the classroom milieu contribute also as negative factors. Why? The commanding behavior of teachers could possibly affect the students’ auto stigma for the worst. If this might be the case, teachers who teach English in Puerto Rico should recall that public school students are complex, sensible human beings who undergo emotional challenges in an always changing, complex world. ¹

With this in mind, teachers of English ought to help students envision how advantageous is to learn English or any other foreign language. To learn English is beneficial not only for the individual enrichment of speakers but also for the understanding of this global village and technology web we all live in.² Moreover, language teachers should guide public school learners to appreciate that speaking and reading in more than one language is a linguistic advantage any speaker possesses. (Apropos, there is nothing wrong to be monolingual.) An example of this are the multilingual speakers of Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia. Besides, English is an international language indispensable in the present twenty-first century wherein all depends on technology. And merely speaking, technology uses English as a means of communication—as a lingua franca.³

Although I am not a historian, this work attempts to present a brief historical overview aimed at showing that the subject of English was taught in Puerto Rico since 1832. That is, it was taught on the island as a subject during the Spanish ruling and not when Puerto Rico became a territory of the United States. It also presents the educational language policies regarding English in the past 117 years.