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Some Remarks on Post-1990 English LanguageTeaching Policy in Cuba

IAN MARTINYork UniversityToronto, Ontario, Canada

� I am the coordinator of a training programme for English languageteachers in a Canadian university which has signed two academic ex-change agreements focussed on English language teaching (ELT) withCuban universities, one with the E. A. Varona Higher Pedagogical Insti-tute in Havana (ISP Varona) and another with the University of Havana.As a result, I travel to Cuba relatively often. During my 17 years’ involve-ment in Cuban ELT, I have witnessed the expansion of language-learning, especially of English, and the boom in English learning whichCuba is experiencing today.

My first encounter with Cuban ELT was part of a Canadian responseto one of the new policies Cuba developed as a means of adjusting to thedifficult economic circumstances brought about by the 1990 collapse oftheir main trading partner, the Soviet Union. Breaking with tradition,the government chose mass tourism as one of the solutions to generateincome. This goal required that a nationwide foreign language acquisi-tion plan be established to train the small army of tourism workersneeded.

True, Cuba had numerous speakers of English before 1990. Indeed,ELT had grown steadily throughout the twentieth century. Even beforethe collapse of the Soviet Union, English and English-language films andmusic were more popular than Russian language, films, or popular cul-ture (Corona, 1993; Corona & Garcia, 1996).

In the decade after the Cuban revolution in 1959, foreign languageschools for adults were set up nationwide; foreign languages were madecompulsory in all university majors; the first school for translators andinterpreters was established; language courses were developed for tele-

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vision; and foreign-language teacher training courses appeared, espe-cially in the pedagogical universities. In all of these initiatives, and de-spite the exodus of many Cubans fluent in English after the revolution,English was always the most popular language of study, and languageinstruction began drawing on advances in foreign language pedagogyfrom the Soviet Union, Britain, Canada, France, and elsewhere.

Despite this considerable investment in foreign-language education,university graduates’ knowledge of English was generally more formalthan communicative, and the challenge of developing a mass tourismpolicy needed a response focussed on communicative language teaching(CLT) and English for special purposes (ESP). As so often happens inCuba, the Cubans invent something and manage to turn a seeminglyinsuperable problem into a challenge to be overcome. In this case, theMinistry of Tourism created the Instituto Nacional de Turismo (INTUR)project, and within a very short time, a national tourism ESP programinvolving 300 English teachers throughout the country was instituted(Instituto Nacional del Turismo, 1990). The program was coordinatedby two of the country’s most active and creative ELT specialists, TonyIrizar (1999) and Adita Chiappy.

The teachers of tourism English received regular training throughvisits, observation, and evaluations, and they took a 2-week intensivesummer course every year with such Canadian ELT specialists as NeilNaiman, who had spent a sabbatical year in Cuba in 1987 and, with hisCuban colleagues, had laid the groundwork for a communicative ap-proach to tourism ESP. Mary Ann Belfiore, May Ann Kainola, MaureenHynes, David Cooke, Judy Hunter, and I became part of the Canadiansupport team for the INTUR project. During the 1990s, national profi-ciency benchmarks were established, and a curriculum was developedwith the help of Andrea Vechter and Betty Lagogianes. Eventually, theINTUR project wound down, having successfully implanted CLTthroughout the tourism infrastructure. Today English is regularly taughtin Cuba’s twenty schools of tourism.

The country’s professional association, Grupo de Especialistas de Len-gua Inglesa de la Asociación de Lingüistas de Cuba (ALC-GELI; EnglishLanguage Specialists of the Association of Linguists of Cuba), plays a keynational role in Cuban ELT policy. The creation of the Grupo de Espe-cialistas de Lengua Inglesa (GELI; see GELI, 2007) in 1989 consolidatedthe ELT profession just at the time when the country most needed theservice of its specialists. For the first time in its history, Cuba was withoutstrong links to a single foreign power. As the country was facing thechallenges posed by a highly complex and insecure, even hostile, inter-national environment, GELI began immediately to strengthen its inter-national professional relationships.

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At one time, GELI was invited to become a TESOL affiliate, but shortlythereafter, the invitation was revoked due to internal U.S. policies hostileto Cuba. Later, GELI was reinstated, perhaps due to protests from somedistinguished TESOL members, and Cuban ELT specialists presentedarticles at two TESOL conferences in 1999 and 2000. However, after2001, GELI’s representatives were denied visas by the U.S. Interest Sec-tion in Havana. As a result, GELI decided that it did not make sense topay the annual fees if their representatives were not permitted to attendTESOL conferences, and this is the status today.

At present, GELI is unproblematically affiliated to the UK-basedIATEFL organization and GELI representatives are supported to attendannual IATEFL conferences. At this year’s Havana Book Fair, the onlymajor ELT publishers displaying their wares were British. The BritishCouncil (2007) established an office in Havana in 1999, and has sup-ported GELI with visitors, conference speakers, scholarships, and gener-ous sponsorship of Approach, GELI’s excellent professional journal, ed-ited by Tony Irizar, which has been in print for 6 years and which hasenabled Cuban teachers of English to publish their work and get accessto the work of specialists from other countries.

Relations between Canada and Cuba have always been strong, in num-bers of post-1989 tourists, in major foreign investment, and at times, atthe highest governmental levels (see Canadian Embassy in Havana, 2003;Wright, 2006). The Canadian ELT presence in Cuba dates from the1970s, with a CUSO project,1 among whose main contributors were Adri-enne Hunter, a Canadian with ties to the University of Edinburgh Schoolof Applied Linguistics, and the late Marjorie Moore, a U.S. citizen. Adri-enne and Marjorie were responsible for the introduction of CLT intoCuba, and more specifically, they developed a communicative-approachESP project in medical education with support from both Canada andScotland (Hunter, 1988; Maclean, Santos, & Hunter, 2000; Valdez &Chiappy Jhones, 1989). English was, and is, important for Cuban medicalpersonnel not only to gain access to English-language publications intheir field, but also because of the many internationalist missions whichCuban doctors carry out throughout the developing world in countrieswhere English serves as a lingua franca.

Canadian support for ESP has branched out into other specializedareas, such as business and aviation. Nick Elson, Andrea Vechter, andChristopher Brierley have recently worked with Cuban institutions onprojects for purpose-specific professional development, language assess-ment, and practical classroom research. Practical classroom research isalso the main focus of a project led by Devon Woods of Carleton Uni-

1 CUSO is Canada’s largest and oldest volunteer-aid NGO in the field of internationalcooperation (see CUSO, 2006).

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versity. This project, which is supported by the Canadian InternationalDevelopment Agency, affects a number of Cuban tertiary institutions.

Again, GELI’s significant role cannot be overstated: It has created avery effective nationwide communication network; it liaises with externaland internal funding agencies, shapes the national professional and aca-demic agenda, and organizes frequent open houses and the annualconvention. One of the most valuable aspects of the work of GELI is theprinciple of sharing. All information which comes to the association, bywhatever means, is shared with the rest of the members. Members whogo abroad to conferences may teach a course or run a workshop, presentan article at the annual convention, or write an article for Approach, allways to cascade the information (Tony Irizar’s apt term; Irizar, 2001) to therest of the membership. This has been very useful for the professionaldevelopment of the members and has enriched the feeling of collectiv-ism which the association likes to develop.

Cuba’s ESL policy has not ignored general-purpose English. Accord-ing to its 2006 census, Cuba’s population is 11,177,743. There are2,800,000 students enrolled in primary, secondary, and tertiary levels ofeducation, and roughly 2,000,000 of these students are studying English,starting in Grade 4. The best estimate of the number of Cuban Englishteachers is between 7,000 and 8,000. The average student–teacher ratiois approximately 20:1, and a typical teacher would be responsible forbetween 150 and 200 students (see Ministry of Foreign Investment andEconomic Collaboration, 2006).

In addition, there are some small private cuentapropista (self-employedprofessional) classes and tutors, and the above estimate doesn’t includestudents learning from televised classes. This substantial figure is a re-flection, first, of the productivity of the 16 pedagogical universities (6 ofwhich are bilingual, in that they train teacher candidates to teach twoforeign languages) and, second, of two recent policies significantlybroadening the scope of Cuban education: the universalization of adulteducation and the municipalization of higher education.

The universalization policy is seen in the government’s massive invest-ment in adult education, with a view to making it accessible to persons ofall ages and conditions across the whole country, even in remote ruraland mountainous areas, through an enhanced open university (Univer-sidad para todos or University for All) that delivers courses via television.The English course in the TV university offers several proficiency levelsand combines TV viewing, inexpensive print material available at news-stands, and provision of local face-to-face instruction and support bytrained teachers. The project is coordinated by Dr. Isora EnriquezO’Farrill of ISP Varona.

The municipalization policy seeks to establish accessible universitycampuses in every urban municipality, with programmes designed to

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respond to the needs, including foreign-language needs, of each localcommunity. For instance, a new university (San Cristobal de La Habana)is being set up in the heart of colonial Havana (La Habana Vieja). Thelanguage offerings of the new university include three Euro-origin lan-guages of the Americas (English, French, and Portuguese); two classicallanguages (Latin and Greek); and, uniquely, two of the main aboriginallanguages of the Americas (Nahuatl and Quechua).

English is the uncontested principal foreign language of Cuba. It isbeing introduced as a compulsory subject at ever-earlier grades in pri-mary school. Remarkably, class sizes in Cuba would be the envy of mostcountries: ceilings are set at 20 students in primary school and 15 insecondary school. Cuban TV broadcasts no fewer than six Spanish-subtitled English-language films per week and these are very popular,although it must be admitted that no English-language soap opera willdislodge the beloved Mexican and Brazilian tele-novelas. There is En-glish-language programming on Radio Taino in Havana, and Granma,the organ of the Communist Party of Cuba, publishes a weekly interna-tional English-medium article, and its Web site is multilingual (Commu-nist Party of Cuba, 2007a, 2007b).

Many readers of this article may wonder whether Cuba offers teachingopportunities for foreigners. The fact is that Cuban institutions—exceptfor the International School of Havana, which caters to children of dip-lomats and in that sense not a real Cuban institution—do not pay a salaryin convertible currency, and therefore all English teachers in Cuba areCuban nationals. Any foreign English teachers in Cuba would be, almostwithout exception, on an exchange programme subsidized by theirhome university or nongovernmental institution. Of course, U.S. citi-zens, with few exceptions, are still prevented by their own government’spolicy from travelling to Cuba.

One side-effect of the U.S. government ban on its citizens trading withor travelling to Cuba is that English in Cuba is taught more as an inter-national language (EIL) than a foreign language (EFL). Cuba in the last17 years has had to forge links, not with its closest English-speakingneighbour a mere 90 miles distant, but instead with Canada, Britain, theEnglish-speaking Caribbean, and with many countries in Asia, Africa,and Europe where English is the lingua franca. The strong Cuba-Chinatrade ties, for instance, are carried out principally in English as an in-ternational language.

Internally, English is associated with desirable jobs in the dollarizedtourist sector and, as elsewhere in the world, with popular culture andmusic lyrics, subtitled English-language movies, as well as with joint ven-tures, the Internet, information technology, and international knowl-edge networks. A positive climate toward learning English as a bridge toopportunities at home and in the wider world has been created, creating

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the linguistic infrastructure necessary to strengthen Cuba’s worldwideweb of relationships, including Cuba as a safe global ecotourism desti-nation. To these English-language relationships, often with countriesand peoples with which Cuba had no diplomatic or tourism ties before1989, may be added an increasing number of Spanish-language relation-ships with sympathetic Latin American nations, respectful of Cuba’s his-torical hemispheric significance and desirous of gaining access to Cubaneducational, scientific, and medical expertise. The result is a distinctivenational project with considerable resonance around the world, not leastin the developing world, and it would not be an exaggeration to suggestthat ELT policy will continue to occupy a very prominent place as aninstrument of Cuba’s creative adaptability to changing circumstances ina volatile international environment.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author of this article gratefully acknowledges the valuable contributions of TonyIrizar, Alejandro Torres, and Andrea Vechter.

THE AUTHOR

Ian Martin is an associate professor of English and is the coordinator of the Certifi-cate Programme in the Discipline of Teaching English as an International Languageat York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

REFERENCES

British Council. (2007). British Council in Cuba [Web site]. Retrieved February 26,2007, from http://www.britishcouncil.org/cuba-english-projects-and-events.htm

Canadian Embassy in Havana. (2003). Cuba-Canada. One hundred years in view. Ha-vana, Cuba: Author.

Communist Party of Cuba. (2007a). Daily Granma: Official organ of the Central Committeeof the Communist Party of Cuba [Web site]. Retrieved August 21, 2007, from http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/

Communist Party of Cuba. (2007b). Digital GRANMA internacional [Web site]. Re-trieved August 21, 2007, from http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html

Corona, D. (1993). English: The most widely taught foreign language in Cuba (1960–1990).Havana: Cuba: Ciudad de la Habana.

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CUSO. (2006). We stand for people [Web site]. Retrieved August 21, 2007, from http://www.cuso.org/home/index_e.php

Grupo de Especialistas en Lengua Inglesa. (2007). About GELI [Web site]. RetrievedFebruary 26, 2007, from http://www.geocities.com/alcgeli/about.html

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Hunter, A. (1988). A historical study of a communicative approach to ELT in post-revolutionary Cuba. Unpublished doctoral disseration, University of Edinburgh,Scotland.

Instituto Nacional del Turismo. (1990). Estrategia para el desarrollo de la ensenanza deidiomas estranjeros en el INTUR. Havana, Cuba: Ciudad de La Habana.

Irizar, T. (1999, March 9–13). An ESP project for tourism in Cuba. Paper presented atthe 33rd Annual TESOL Convention and Exhibit, New York, New York.

Irizar, T. (2001, January–February). English language education in Cuba. ESL Maga-zine, 26–28.

Maclean, J., Santos, Z., & Hunter, A. (2000). The evolution of an ESP programme inCuba. English for Specific Purposes, 19, 17–30.

Ministry for Foreign Investment and Economic Collaboration. (2006). Economic andsocial panorama. Havana, Cuba: Author.

Valdez, A. I., & Chiappy Jhones, A. (1989). Introduction of communicative languageteaching in tourism in Cuba. TESL Canada Journal, 8(2), 57–63.

Wright, R. (2006). Three nights in Havana: Pierre Trudeau, Fidel Castro, and the cold warworld. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: HarperCollins Canada.

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