Innovation for English language teaching in higher education

Abstract

This research aims to learn about the perception about didactics of professors who teach English in the study programs of Bachelor of Education and English Pedagogy, and Bachelor of English and English-Spanish Translation at the University of Atacama, Copiapo, Chile. For this, a qualitative pilot research was conducted, using the case study approach and the associative letters method for data collection, using as an inductive concept ‘didactics of the English language’. This, in order to gather information about didactics in English teaching, given through the four production and comprehension language skills: writing, reading, speaking and listening. The first findings show a lack of innovation in the field of teaching and unawareness of it. Within the data of the pilot sample, the concepts ‘skills’ and ‘methodology’ stand out as central elements in the English Language Teaching didactics. From this small pilot research, the idea of the importance of communication and methodology as key concepts to be included in the next investigation is reinforced, so that the data collection is meaningful, and a close intervention could be achieved, where the teachers reflect on the didactics used in a more comprehensive and less recursive way.

Keywords: Didactics, higher education, innovation, language teaching, second foreign language.