An excerpt from the book: «ON THE ROAD TO EXCELLENCE WITH THE NATIONAL ENGLISH PROGRAM» (2012) by Elaine Gallagher
How does the PNIEB (Programa Nacional de Inglés en la Educación Básica) affect you?
The focus of the PNIEB, since its approval by Congress of Mexico in 2008, is based much more on the CEFR standards and on CLIL philosophy than on methods or philosophies previously emphasized in traditional language studies.
GONE is the emphasis on grammar.
GONE are translations from L1 to L2 and the reverse.
GONE is emphasis on memorization.
GONE is the focus on errors and mistakes.
GONE are the endless lists, copying, and writing patterns.
The emphasis in the PNIEB is the social interaction among the students, practicing orally the social and the cultural aspects of the language to be taught…in this instance, English.
Strong emphasis in the PNIEB is given to Vygotsky’s social /cultural impact on language acquisition. Later in this book, we will look at Vygotsky’s research so you’ll be able to see the connection between his theories and the expectations of the PNIEB.
There are three areas of concentration in the PNIEB, which are closely related to UNESCO’s Pillars of Education, which we will see in Section Three of this book:
1. Understanding what to do with the language…..
how to use it, when to use it,
2. Understanding about the language….
how it is structured, how to express well
3. Understanding about being with the language
knowing and using the cultural-social aspects
These three understandings will guide teachers to focus more on the social-cultural aspects of language teaching, resulting in oral fluency as the base of evidence of language acquisition. These three areas re closely related to the Pillars of Education as developed by UNESCO, and the base of using competencies in our schools.
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