Mexico City.- Although Mexico is a neighbor of the United States and is strongly influenced by it, it has a low level of English language proficiency. A study conducted by the publishing company Pearson, published in May 2023 under the Inter-American Dialogue intelligence center, concludes that learning in upper secondary and higher education at the national level is not encouraging.
It indicates that the country is not making progress in the percentage of citizens who improve their English over the years and that students graduate from each level without developing communication skills due to the lack of a transition to the next level and a progression that allows progress.
The report adds that the education system also fails to incorporate monitoring and evaluation to account for the learning outcomes in English and the communication skills they develop.
On the other hand, the English Proficiency Index 2023, developed by the language school Education First (EF), shows that Mexico is failing.
EF’s results place Mexico 19th out of 20 in terms of language proficiency in Latin America; Haiti is in last place. Of 113 nations analyzed, Mexico ranks 89th (low level), behind Afghanistan, Japan, Malawi and Kuwait.
“Mexico has experienced a significant decline and, together with Argentina, leads the global decline among young people between 18 and 20 years old since 2015,” the document states.
EF’s data is based on calculations obtained from tests taken using its standard English language test (EF SET), which assesses reading and listening skills. The test yields a score from 1 to 800, and depending on the score, the school places the person in one of six levels established by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).
The six levels of the CEFR are used in language schools to determine the level of English; levels A1 and A2 are considered to have very low knowledge of the language, level B1 is considered to be low to moderate, level B2 is considered to be moderate to high, while levels C1 and C2 are valued as very high.
How can we make English more accessible? Given the lack of a cross-cutting educational policy, as Pearson claims, technology can be an option. Duolingo recently announced that its services will be free for AT&T users in Mexico, while Lingokids, a fast-growing app, promotes teaching from an early age.
PLAYING AT BEING BILINGUAL
Lingokids is an English learning app for children aged 2 to 8, created in 2016 by the Spaniard Cristóbal Viedma. In an interview, he explained that they focus on these ages because it has been proven that this group acquires knowledge of the language better and faster. In addition, he is confident that children will lead the change in the world in the coming years.
The CEO and founder of Lingokids clarified that the app was created with the mission of helping children learn, not to replace the work of education professionals. It is a tool that reinforces and helps children in their academic and socio-emotional learning.
“In Mexico, we collaborated with the University of Mexico City to conduct a study with Luis Medina Gual, a professor at this university. This research assessed the effectiveness of our content for children and we demonstrated the positive impact of Lingokids on learning English and motivating children aged 4 to 6, compared to other more traditional methods,” explained Viedma.
They have also tested their methodology with the University of Central Lancashire in England, working with children between 3 and 5 years old in classrooms in the United Kingdom. The result was improvements in the areas of literacy and vocabulary in just six weeks, according to Viedma.
Engineers, educators, game designers, scriptwriters and musicians make up the team of professionals who develop content so that children can learn academic skills in English such as mathematics or reading and writing, as well as socio-emotional skills such as empathy and collaboration.
“Duolingo and similar apps work with extrinsic motivators like leaderboards, points or prizes. Whereas Lingokids focuses mostly on intrinsic motivators, meaning that children notice that it is a fun game and understand the game mechanics,” the spokesperson said.
WITHIN YOUR POCKET’S REACH
A couple of years ago, during a conference about a Duolingo product designed for teachers in the state of Jalisco, a teacher approached Kim De Anda, Duolingo’s regional marketing manager for Mexico and Latin America, and asked her how much mobile data the app consumes for lessons. Behind the teacher’s question, there is an unavoidable complexity in Mexico: the connectivity gap.
“She told me that she teaches in a very small town in Jalisco, and she told me that parents asked her how much credit they had to put on their cell phones so that their children could use the application. There was a barrier that generated a cost for them; at that moment I knew that we had to do something to solve it,” said the executive in an interview.
With this problem, they approached AT&T and, according to Daniel Ríos, assistant vice president of external affairs and sustainability at AT&T Mexico, there was no way to say no, indicating that technology serves to close gender, income or educational gaps. In the case of Duolingo, it is the first time that they have opened their infrastructure for a project of this type.
“This is the first time we have been involved in an educational project of this size and under these conditions. I am very pleased that it is with Duolingo. We have had other exercises in the area of free browsing, we did it with the Bank of Mexico, with CODI,” said the spokesperson.
The operator’s more than 22.5 million users will be able to use the application without consuming their mobile data. For prepaid users, it is enough to have a minimum credit of 50 cents to access it.
For iPhone owners, there will be extra services such as music and maths, but De Anda confirmed that these features will also be available for Android by the end of the year.
The executive explained that the duration of the project is set for one year, until June 17, 2025, with the idea of understanding how it works and that people use the application with the genuine objective of bringing an educational experience to the majority of Mexicans, while Ríos believes that it gives value to the connectivity deployed at a national level.
For now, all you need to do is download the app, log in and start browsing. It should be noted that it only offers unlimited browsing, so it does not include a subscription to the premium version of the app.
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