Senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Chilean Agency for International Cooperation (AGCICHILE) and the Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences (UMCE) welcomed today 25 Caribbean teachers who will study Spanish in our country.
This is the seventh version of the Diploma Course in Teaching Methodologies of Spanish as a second language for teachers of CARICOM (Caribbean Community), which is jointly coordinated by AGCICHILE in a partnership with the academia, represented by UMCE, and that will run for five weeks.
The Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Silva, stressed that the role played by teachers present today in the beginning of this Diploma course "speaks of their enormous commitment to improve the teaching of Spanish as a second language in their countries, helping to strengthen ties and integration with the rest of the region."
The students of the 2013 diploma course come from St. Lucia, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Barbados, Suriname and Guyana. In the area of education, this diploma course has trained 149 professionals of CARICOM since 2006.
The Executive Director of the Chilean Agency for International Cooperation (AGCICHILE), Jorge Daccarett said: "Language can no longer be a barrier to social integration. These initiatives to strengthen human capital build bridges of knowledge, friendship and bilateral relations with the countries of the Anglophone Caribbean and add to our cooperation actions in the region such as the Cooperation Working Plan Chile-CARICOM 2012-2014, with projects in the areas of agriculture, natural disaster prevention and international relations."
For his part, Jaime Espinoza, Chancellor of UMCE, added that the relationship between AGCI and UMCE "persists in the strategy of international cooperation. Upon your return, you –as teachers– will take with you the challenge of sharing what you have learned, being this an opportunity to integrate the Caribbean and the Americas as keys to open the world."
Meanwhile, Rennie Miller, teacher and student of the Diploma course said: "I have high expectations to learn about Chilean culture, as well as the diploma program to learn to teach Spanish in the best way as a communication tool for my students in Jamaica."
"I expect to collaborate in the creation of an alliance between UMCE and my university for the future exchange of teachers and students, while with this diploma I seek to retrain myself, learn new methodologies to improve my teaching. The role of AGCI is very valuable by creating instances of retraining with this kind of courses, as well as the master's scholarships in which CARICOM participates," added Marta Esmeralda Nuñez, Professor of Spanish at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.