Proceedings of the - British Association for Applied Linguistics

11
Introduction
The position of ELT practitioners in public universities
Frank Farmer, María Elena Llaven Nucamendi, and Ismael Chuc Piña
The position of ELT practitioners in public
universities
Frank Farmer, María Elena Llaven Nucamendi, and
Ismael Chuc Piña
Universidad de Quintana Roo, Mexico
frank@uqroo.mx
This paper reports a survey of the academic qualifications and duties of 185
ELT staff in seven Mexican public universities and relates these to the
Mexican government’s desirable standards for university lecturers in
general (PROMEP profile), and then goes on to discuss the implications of
the study for professional teacher education.
The study
Data was obtained and analysed for each of the criteria required for a
desirable PROMEP profile. It was found that 9% of ELT staff sampled
were officially accredited with a desirable PROMEP profile, and that other
staff varied from the PROMEP profile in different ways and to different
degrees. Nevertheless, many more ELT practitioners (11% of the sample)
were found to have the academic qualifications and research background
needed for a PROMEP profile, but are not in fact recognized. To place
these figures in context, in our university 50% of the whole academic staff
have a PROMEP profile. In addition to their teaching duties, 28% of the
sample had the desirable postgraduate qualifications, 48% had published,
25% did research, 19% had directed degree theses and 32% had held
positions of responsibility in their institutions. Having a PROMEP profile
brings benefits to both staff and institutions so the low level of recognition
of ELT practitioners within their universities and at national level must be
due to other factors. Although the present study was carried out in a
particular country, Mexico, the issues raised are of international concern.
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