Felipe Urueña

The Uniminuto teacher who teaches

English to children in the San Pablo
neighborhood
 BILINGUALISM TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
BY FELIPE URUEÑA
The department of Tolima is a region very rich in
resources, it has all the thermal floors, this makes it
ideal for the development of agriculture as the main
economic activity. In Tolima, rice, sorghum, coffee,
bananas, corn, etc. are grown. Livestock activities were
also developed, such as livestock, pig farming, fish
farming, among others. All this is due to its
geographical position and abundant water resources, to
this is added the proximity to the capital of the country.
•
But the richness of its soils and the warmth of its
population is not enough to eliminate the social gap
that exists in the region, the wealthy population is
only three percent (3%), while the population
considered poor is a total of twenty-seven percent
(27%). In this count, people who cannot access
education are classified, people who work and
therefore leave the study aside.
Within the Tolima there is a teacher in the English area whose vocation
helps children in their rest time to learn a second language through play
and different recreational activities, which emerged from the live oak of
the teacher in his childhood.

There is no better way to know the work of Professor Felipe Urueña, as

described in the Tolima alert informational article, which says:
With games, music and dance, every Saturday for more than a month,
students of UNIMINUTO Tolima who belong to On Fire, the English
club led by Professor Luis Felipe Urueña, are in charge of teaching
English to children from the San Pablo neighborhood of the city.

“What we are doing in the San Pablo neighborhood is to train the

community in speaking, listening and writing a foreign language. They
are children who are passionate about learning another language, but do
not have the economic resources or availability in time or space,
UNIMINUTO is an alternative for learning, ”says Luis Felipe Urueña.
For the English Club, children learn the language from their
relationship with the context, an example of this is the work
done with the children of the Chess League, who are taught
the vocabulary of the sport, from English. “What
UNIMINUTO does with the English Club is to open
scenarios so that these children can develop their skills, it is
also a strategy to take children out of urban environments
and teach in a playful way,” concludes Luis Felipe.

The community of Ibague and its surroundings is kind

enough to provide the best disposition for the development
of this project directed by the teacher Felipe Ureña, which is
aimed at making the future of the children have a better one
than we live today.