English language teaching and learning in a multilingual environment. Language discrimination, disuse and inequality in a public school in Chihuahua, Mexico

Abstract

This research-in-progress explores how Mexico’s National English Program justifies the teaching of English language based on the premise that basic education students should be prepared to face an increasingly globalized world. Even when the program reaches schools that, due to their characteristics, could be considered multilingual, it has not fully considered the interests, knowledge, and perceptions of the key educational agents; on the contrary, in specific contexts, certain groups tend to be discriminated against, rendered invisible, or prioritized over others. Using an ethnographic approach, fieldwork was conducted over a six-month period at a school in the city of Chihuahua, the capital of the Mexican State of the same name. Data collection was primarily carried out through participant observation and interviews. The main findings indicate that Spanish dominates over all other languages in the classroom; indigenous languages are largely absent from the school environment; teachers working under the program face precarious labor conditions, and the teaching-learning process of English as a foreign language has limited impact on students’ everyday lives.