Autoevaluación competencial de los docentes de Natural Sciences en centros con Programa Educativo Bilingüe [Competency self-evaluation of Natural Sciences teachers in schools with Bilingual Education Programmes]

Abstract

Teaching Natural Sciences in schools with a Bilingual Education Programme continues to be a challenging task for teachers who teach this subject in English. Under this pretext, the British Council requested us a study on the self-assessment that teachers of Natural Sciences carry out on their own professional competencies. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 198 participants. The aim was to determine their level of self-assessment on the dimensions of their scientific, didactic-methodological and linguistic-communicative competencies, as well as to establish the intensity of their difficulties and improvements. Adopting a mixed approach with qualitative predominance, the results reveal deficiencies in the functional dimension of their scientific competence and difficulties in content application and planning demonstrative and experimental tasks. Conclusions are focused on the need to intensify pre-service and ongoing teacher training in key STEM and multilingual competencies to improve the quality of Bilingual Education.La enseñanza de Ciencias de la Naturaleza en centros con Programa Educativo Bilingüe continúa siendo una labor exigente para los docentes que imparten esta materia en inglés. Bajo este pretexto, el British Council nos solicitó realizar un estudio para analizar la autoevaluación de los docentes de Natural Sciences sobre sus propias competencias profesionales docentes. Para ello, se administró un cuestionario a una muestra de 198 participantes, con el objetivo de determinar su nivel de autovaloraciones sobre las dimensiones de sus competencias científica, didáctico-metodológica y lingüístico-comunicativa, así como de establecer la intensidad de sus dificultades y aspectos de mejora. Adoptando un enfoque mixto con predominancia cualitativa, los resultados revelan carencias en la dimensión funcional de la competencia científica y dificultades en la aplicación de contenidos y planificación de tareas demostrativas y experimentales. Se concluye la necesidad de intensificar la formación docente inicial y continua en las competencias clave STEM y plurilingüe. Palabras clave: autoevaluación; competencias del docente; Ciencias Naturales; educación básica; educación bilingüe.   Abstract: Teaching Natural Sciences in schools with a Bilingual Education Programme continues to be a challenging task for teachers who teach this subject in English. Under this pretext, the British Council requested us a study on the self-assessment that teachers of Natural Sciences carry out on their own professional competencies. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of 198 participants. The aim was to determine their level of self-assessment on the dimensions of their scientific, didactic-methodological and linguistic-communicative competencies, as well as to establish the intensity of their difficulties and improvements. Adopting a mixed approach with qualitative predominance, the results reveal deficiencies in the functional dimension of their scientific competence and difficulties in content application and planning demonstrative and experimental tasks. Conclusions are focused on the need to intensify pre-service and ongoing teacher training in key STEM and multilingual competencies to improve the quality of Bilingual Education. Key words: bilingual education; Natural Sciences; Primary Education; self-evaluation; teacher competencies