Learning English continues to be one of the main challenges of the Guatemalan educational system. Although the language is a mandatory part of the National Base Curriculum (CNB) at the secondary level and its teaching has expanded to primary school, the country faces a shortage of specialized teachers and limitations in the quality of training.
According to the study English for job placement in Guatemalaprepared in 2024 by Inter-American Dialogue and Guatemala No Se Detiene, The Ministry of Education (Mineduc) has approximately 1,000 English teachers to serve public secondary education. This It is equivalent to one teacher for every 387 students, while the same teacher would have to serve up to 700 students to cover the existing demand.
Added to this is another challenge: Nearly 90% of English teachers in the public system only have an initial level of the language. “Many times these people do not have the teaching or evaluation tools to adequately support student learning,” the research indicates.
For Karin Rossbach, director of the Department of English Language Teaching at the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG), the lack of specialized teachers represents one of the main obstacles to moving towards broader bilingual education. “We need a large number of teachers to cover and prepare our entire society for this globalized and bilingual world,” he stated.
Advances and challenges
The study also highlights that, since 2013, the initial training of English teachers became exclusively in the hands of universities, as part of the reform that moved all teaching preparation to the higher level.
However, entry requirements vary significantly between higher education institutions. While some universities require applicants to demonstrate an intermediate level of English through placement tests, others do not require prior knowledge of the language.
Furthermore, Rossbach reiterated that The Ministry of Education maintains a policy that requires teachers who teach classes at the intermediate level, both basic and diversified, to have a specialization in the discipline they teach. “All teachers who teach classes at the secondary level must have specialized teaching staff in the subject they teach,” he explained.
Rossbach considers that strengthening the initial and continuous training of teachers is essential to improve educational quality. “There are few teachers and, of the few that there are, not all have the necessary qualities regarding the academic degree, the level of language proficiency, the methodologies and other fundamental aspects for teaching,” he explained.
The academic mentioned that the UVG has participated since 2022 in a program promoted by the Mineduc to strengthen the teaching skills of public sector teachers through specialized diplomas. According to him, around 450 teachers have received training through this initiative.
Problems that go beyond the classroom
Rossbach considered that The challenges of teaching English are not limited to the availability of teachers. In his opinion, there are structural factors that make effective language learning difficult, both in Guatemala and in other Latin American countries.
Among them mentioned the limited number of hours assigned to the English course, the unequal access to educational resources and the few opportunities for professional updating for teachers.
“The challenges throughout Latin America are similar. First, the number of periods assigned to the English course; second, the lack of access to quality learning resources for students; and third, the lack of training and professional updating opportunities for teachers,” he explained.
The situation is especially complex in a country like Guatemala, characterized by its linguistic and cultural diversity. “Guatemala is a multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic country. This means that for the majority of Guatemalans, English is a foreign language,” said Rossbach.
In this context, he indicated that Pedagogical strategies must respond to very different realities between regions and communities.
New ways of learning
The expansion of generative artificial intelligence tools also changes the way English is taught and learned. However, Rossbach believes that these technologies should be seen as a complement and not a replacement for teaching work.
“The human component remains the same. The person who needs to communicate in another language is still a human being,” he stated.
The academic pointed out that, regardless of technological advances, the ultimate goal of learning a language continues to be communication between people. “When it comes to negotiating over the phone or in person, serving a tourist or closing a deal, it will always be a human who communicates with another human,” he indicated.
In that sense, he considered that Teachers must possess not only a solid command of the language, but also knowledge about the cognitive processes of learning a second language and pedagogical tools that allow them to develop communicative skills in their students.
“A teacher should have a high level of proficiency in the language they teach, good practical knowledge of pedagogy and didactics, and the ability to plan, execute and evaluate students’ communicative skills,” he said.
As explained, teachers must develop skills to use technological tools with pedagogical and ethical criteria, adapting them to the specific needs of their students. “Artificial intelligence cannot tell you how to teach a class in San Marcos or San Benito, Petén. The one who knows the context and makes the decisions is the teacher,” he said.
For this reason, he considered that future training should combine the use of new technologies with the strengthening of teachers’ pedagogical and communication skills.
A commitment to teaching updating
In this context, with the aim of generating spaces for professional updating and reflection on these challenges, the UVG Faculty of Education will hold the ELT Summit 2026: Rethinking ELT to Energize, Inspire, and Transform.
The activity will be free and will be developed in hybrid mode, which will allow the in-person and virtual participation of teachers from all over the country.
Rossbach explained that the activity arises at a time when the teaching of English faces important transformations derived from digitalization, artificial intelligence and the new demands of the labor market. “We have to rethink the role of the teacher, the student and all the actors involved in learning to respond to the demands of this new context,” he said.
The meeting will bring together representatives from six national and six international universities, who will share experiences and good practices related to the teaching of English.
The event will include two keynote conferences and 30 academic activities, including workshops, presentations and specialized sessions focused on the changes facing the teaching of English.
Among the central issues are the role of the teacher in the digital age, student-centered methodologies, the development of critical and ethical thinking in the use of artificial intelligence, as well as new strategies to strengthen communicative skills.
“We want to rethink how we teach and how we learn in a time of accelerated change. The role of the teacher, the student and educational institutions must respond to new social, academic and work demands,” explained Rossbach.