To be or not to be an English teacher in Puerto Rico: A comparison between two 21st Century Puerto Rican Schools
Originally written on Thursday, January 20, 2011. Written for a Teaching of English course. ~*~*~ Visiting classrooms and getting a firsthand look at what goes on in Puerto Rican schools provides us, education students, with the realties we will all face as teachers. I'd like to present here two somewhat extreme cases with which the English teacher can find themselves in when teaching in Puerto Rico. The schools that I will compare will be the University High School (UHS) and the public middle school, Dr. José Celso Barbosa. The classes that are described are both 9th grade, although I also mention experiences I had when visiting 10th and 11th grade classes. I will describe the reading strategies used, reading materials, integration of technology and other disciplines into the English classroom as well student interaction, participation and dynamics. All these will be described in order to show how they all help promote (or not help promote?) students’ English language gr...