THE SUCCESS FACTORS OF PEDAGOGICAL MANAGEMENT IN THE TEACHING OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE M.A. Vargas Londoño E.O. Cardoso Espinosa J.A. Cortés Ruíz Instituto Politécnico Nacional, ESCA - Santo Tomás (MEXICO)

INTRODUCTION The pedagogical management is very important within the educational institutions since it is in this type of management that the necessary changes are generated to guarantee the educational quality and to be aware of what the society and the community really need; therefore, it is also important that the directors of educational institutions have a profile that responds to this process and the dynamism that it requires (Cárdenas, Marín and Vargas, 2008).

The relevance of the research was to provide information about the success factors that influence the pedagogical management carried out by the directors, which in turn influences the teaching of the English language in two language centres that belong to two higher education institutions in Mexico and Colombia.

METHODOLOGY The study sample consisted of 30 ILEX teachers from the Technological University of Pereira and 25 teachers from the CENLEX Santo Tomás of the National Polytechnic Institute, who answered the questionnaire taking into account the actions taken within the pedagogical management by the director of the language center. The type of study that was used was a quantitative methodology with a transversal design with exploratory-descriptive and comparative scope. The instrument that was designed to obtain the information was a questionnaire based on a Likert scale, which items were measured through a scale with five response options from 0 (zero) to 4 (four); where 0 is "not done or unknown by teachers", 1 is "insufficient", 2 is "regular", 3 is "good" and 4 is "excellent". 3. The instrument was subjected to an expert judgment to determine the validity of its content and, based on the results of this expert judgment, the necessary modifications were made and the final version of the questionnaire was prepared. 4. Once the field work was completed, the information collected was organized using the SPSS program as a support tool in order to obtain descriptive and inferential statistics that would allow the analysis of the data and thus be able to interpret the results obtained.

RESULTS OF THE SAMPLE Among the main results, it was found that the success factors of the pedagogical management are the constant training of teachers and the use of teaching strategies according to the context. To begin with, in both language centres, the managers provide constant training in current topics of the teaching of languages. The teachers agree with the fact that the managers of the institutes are bringing new methodology trainings periodically; this including conferences from experts in the topic or through research that the same teachers carry out inside the classroom and that they share with their colleagues through pedagogical sessions developed during the semester. In the same way, the managers allow teachers the freedom when selecting their teaching methodology so that it is contextualized according to the student population they have at the moment. Based on the questionnaire answered by the teachers, it was found that most of the teachers feel free at the moment of planning their courses, being able to analyse the student population they have for each course and adapting their methodology so that it can work better with this group of students.

RESULTS OF THE SAMPLE Also, another success factor found was the organization of the managers, since teachers agree when saying that both managers assign resources and jobs for each area of the institute in a good and equitable way. For this reason, teachers feel secure and guided during the development of their activities since the activities they need to develop are clear and specific. In relation to the supervision of the activities carried out by the teachers in the classroom, it was found that one of the managers gives great importance to this factor. Teachers at this institute feel well supervised, but they also feel supported by the supervisor due to the fact that the supervisor has a session with each teacher after the supervision, in order to let him know what his/her positive aspects are and what he/she could improve in order to have better lessons with the students.

CONCLUSIONS On the other hand, another important success factor found was the freedom of teachers when choosing the methodology they will use for their lessons. This aspect should be considered essential since teachers are the ones who know the student population and the real needs they have, which should be taken into consideration when planning the lessons so that every need can be taken care of, and in this sense students can receive better quality of education. In this sense, one of the main success factors found was the constant training that teachers receive from their managers. Being this an action that is carried out periodically, teachers feel well prepared and ready to face the new methodologies that are constantly appearing in the teaching of languages.

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