NEWS
4 | FEBRUARY 12, 2021
FSU enters agreement with ChileMass to provide support for educators By Dan Fuentes Asst. News Editor FSU and ChileMass are working together to create an educational program that will support and improve the linguistic and pedagogical skills of Chilean educators during the 2021 calendar year. According to its mission statement, ChileMass is a non-profit organization dedicated to the sharing of technology and knowledge between the country of Chile and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to improve the quality of life of people in both areas. Ten kindergarten through 12 Chilean educators were selected to take part in the educational program during the spring and fall semesters of 2021. The educators began their online intensive English language instruction in January and will move to an on-campus session in the summer or fall, when travel allows it, according to Fernanda Soza, executive director of ChileMass. The on-campus session will consist of three components: a graduate education course, an intercultural experience course, and classroom observations in local area schools, according to an FSU press release. Soza said, “This program started two years ago. We started with a delegation from Chile - a lot of people from the Ministry of Education, some NGOs, some public and private universities - to visit Boston because we were thinking of creating a program to benefit teachers.” She added, “We really liked the welcoming experience from the University, so that’s why we started the
conversation with Framingham, and started developing the project.” A pilot program ran at the beginning of 2020 for two months that allowed two Chilean educators to stay in the dorms at FSU, spend time with the community, and participate in those program’s educational initiatives to improve their linguistic and pedagogical skills, according to Soza. According to the Director of Community Education and English Language Programs, Rebecca Hawk, the Chilean educators “were raving about the language instruction they received here at FSU.” Soza said, “They had a really good experience, and they loved the University, the food, the professors, the whole community.” The two educators in the pilot program took English language courses and shadowed classes at Framingham Public Schools, according to Soza. The Chilean educators were placed in programs by Glenda Espinoza, department head of the secondary twoway bilingual program at Framingham Public Schools. Espinoza said, “They either observe classes or they teach something from Chile - it’s a cultural exchange. “The program is bilingual, and the students are learning Spanish,” she added. “It’s a great experience to have native speakers in the classroom.” Soza said their experience at Framingham Public Schools was really good for them because they realized that here, teachers are doing things completely differently. “They learned a new way of creating or developing their classes.” Espinoza said learning in Chile is more “rigid,” more European, but the American way is more focused on the
student. The pilot program ended and the educators returned to Chile on March 13, two days before Gov. Charlie Baker announced the temporary closing of schools in Massachusetts. As a result of COVID-19, ChileMass and FSU made changes to the program, and decided to begin with the linguistic component and host it completely online, according to Hawk. Also, the English language component of the program was adjusted down to only five weeks for the cohort of Chileans who participated during this past January, according to Soza. She said the educators took intensive, synchronous English language courses for three hours a day with homework, and “it was very, very demanding.” English department head of her school in Chile, Camila Ruz, was one of the 10 educators who participated in the program for the last five weeks. Ruz said she took two courses during her time remote learning - one to develop written English academic skills and a public speaking course. Hawk said, “They are taking what they learned to really encourage their country to make changes that are fostering better communication, better problem-solving skills, better education for their kids.” Ruz said she’s been working on her digital literacy, and will be “bringing this digital literacy test for school teachers” back to her school in Chile with the goal of assessing “their digital competency” and identifying “gaps to make further decisions.” The English language component of the program ended on Feb. 8, according to Soza.
According to both Soza and Ruz, these Chileans have given up five weeks of their summer holiday to improve their English language skills and bring back new knowledge to their school communities. Ruz said it’s been a “pretty enriching” and “fruitful” five weeks. “I’ve had the chance to meet the American education system, which is awesome,” she added. “Framingham State University has given us the attention and solutions for every problem we have faced. Awesome teachers. Wonderful lessons. So, I would say just keep on doing things in the way you are doing it right now.” According to Soza, the in-person portion of the program has not been scheduled yet. They’re hoping for May, but depending on COVID-19, it may have to wait until September. Espinoza said, “I only just came back to school. We don’t even have students in the classroom. September will be more realistic.” Hawk believes the program has a global impact. “We need to be able to engage internationally in a really positive, constructive way. I feel like this is an important step toward that.” Soza said, “A goal of the program is to create a collaborative project to improve the second language skills of teachers and students from both countries.” She added the program is starting with Chilean teachers, but hopes “in the future we can also bring teachers from Massachusetts to learn Spanish in Chile.”
help them kind of work through a process that we’ve developed. That really is an audit of their process, and they’ll determine the best ways to to beef up their transfer pathway.” Richard Williams, associate dean for student success at MassBay Community College, said, “Once we get together with our coach - once we get our working groups together, we sit down with FSU folks and our team.” He added, “Once we actually get down to the work that we’re going to be doing, I think a lot of the stuff is really fluid in terms of what we might be trying to achieve. “Within the next month, though, we’ll probably have a much better idea of what our goals are going to be, and what our activities are going to be, and how we’re going to reach our goals,” said Williams. Parham stated these coaches are experts in community college transfer, and will deliver one-on-one attention to those partnerships. “Equity looks and is different in different places,” she added. “We’re
really trying to provide tools so that people can identify where those gaps are, what they are, why they are, and then work toward eradicating them that’s the ultimate goal.” Williams said, “We’ve always been concerned around equity, but it has become a real focus for us in the last few years.” Cabello said, “I think that this was also part of a larger conversation we’re having at the University around being committed to anti-racism. Part of that is just being able to get rid of the structural and systemic racism and inequities that exist and how we are creating a more equitable community.” FSU started a campus-wide anti-racism initiative in 2020. According to the grant proposal, that initiative is currently having a positive impact on the transfer process.
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Transfer initative continued from page 1 The ETI program focuses on computer science, nursing, STEM, education, criminology/sociology, and management pathways, according to the program’s grant proposal. The program grant proposal lists individual careers in high demand to help give MassBay and FSU the opportunity to direct students to pathways that will result in jobs with family-sustaining wages. At MassBay, Black/African American students make up 12.2% of the population, the Hispanic population is 17.6%, and first-generation students are 19.1%, according to the proposal. However, over the last four academic years, the percentage of African American, Hispanic, and first-generation students transferring from MassBay to a four-year college was only 1% to 2%, according to the proposal. Constanza Cabello, vice president of diversity, inclusion, and communi-
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ty engagement, said now is the time to “ramp up” those efforts to support these students. To promote recruitment and transfer of these underrepresented populations, MassBay will make announcements in academic classes regarding the new transfer initiative and staff will highlight the benefits of transferring to a four-year college at career fairs, according to the proposal. FSU will send students and Admissions’ staff to MassBay for informational sessions with MassBay students about transfer policies and course equivalencies, according to the proposal. The goal of the project is to recruit and enroll at least 100 students into the aligned transfer pathways by the end of Summer 2021 and at least 300 by the program’s second year, according to the proposal. According to Parham, each of the institutions and partnerships selected for the ETI will be receiving a transfer coach. “Those coaches will
CONNECT WITH DANIEL FUENTES dfuentes@student.framingham.edu
