Chile Forum

Chile has a declared policy to make the nation bilingual within the next few years? Can one access that info on the Net?

I have been trying to persuade some friends and relatives in Argentina to have their children learn at least the basics of the English language, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. I can understand it, though, because I went through the same process. My parents hired a tutor “to teach me English” when I was a kid. He started with the alphabet but quit after the letter f, declaring me “hopeless.” Of course, I wasn’t interested. I just wanted to go outside and play. Big mistake.

Perhaps if they see that Chile has a policy of making the country bilingual, they will get off their duffs and take the English language seriously.

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You may try to ignore reality, but reality doesn't ignore you.

Toward the end of his presidency, Sr. Lagos decreed the goal of bilingualism, with English, by (if I remember correctly) 2014 (clearly unreasonable, but one might expect great efforts to reach it). I don't remember whether I read it online (probably in the website of a Chilean) or heard it from a former Chilean senator, but I think that it remains a goal of MinEduc, at least -- though I don't know what steps, if any, have been taken toward realizing the goal.

No need of ministerio or public policies, Chile is actually turning into a bilingual country with most of the kids learning by their self while spend their time into Internet, online games, forums, chats and such.

I had never teached english to my kid and he barely attend to the useless english classes at liceo, but he read, write and speak. Same thing with his liceo buddies, all they read and write english, even they speak some. Just let some 10 more years and you will see Chile as a self learned bilingual country, maybe not perfect but funcional and good enough to comunicate.

I am sure that there are exceptions to every rule, but I have to disagree with the self-bilingualized youth. My first stint in Chile was spent in Valdivia, which I will soon be returning to , where I attended UACh, participated in Un Techo Para Chile, and was a teaching assistant via Abre Puertas. Suffice to say, I had plenty of access to the Chilean youth, ranging from ages 8 to 25, and I can assure you that the majority of those I met were highly ambivalent when in came to learning/speaking English. The grasp they did have of English was mostly an extension of pop-culture phrases. There is NOTHING wrong with that, and I am so in love with Chile that I am only waiting to earn up sufficient funds before moving back, but I trust a bilingual Chile by 2014 as far as I can throw it.

As for the casinos, I know that in Valdivia there is a brand new one that is about to open/has just opened in anticipation of the summer crush. When it comes to working the tables, I couldn't tell you squat, but word of mouth is that translators there can begin with a position earning as much as 600,000 pesos/mth. PLEASE VERIFY THIS BEFORE YOU USE IT. I don't want to risk anyone's financial security with hearsay, so confirm, confirm, confirm!