SEMBLANCE

 

 

Marjorie Moore, outstanding teacher of the University of the Medical Sciences of Havana

 

Marjorie Moore, Profesora distinguida de la Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana

 

 

Gabriela Alonso Bermúdez, Migdalia Torres Pérez, Luis Enrique Estrada Hechavarría

Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana. La Habana, Cuba. [e-mail]

 

This paper is a translation to English of its original version, available on:
http://www.revhabanera.sld.cu/index.php/rhab/article/view/2017/1820

---

Professor Marjorie Moore Reynolds was born on November 24, 1920, in Peoria, Illinois, the United States of America, daughter of Harley Moore Crouch and Ida Reynolds Bacon. From a professional father, landlord grandparents and business owners, she grew up in a bourgeois environment. For grammar school she went to different schools (1926-1934), then for High School (1934-1938) she went to Central High School and enrolled Humanities at Bradley College, in Peoria, Illinois (1938-1940) without graduating. Later, she studied English Literature during the 1945-1946 Academic Year at Columbia University, New York. She worked as a radio writer in her country. She moved permanently to Havana, Cuba in 1950, after marrying Luis Rios Valdés, a Cuban businessman, and from that union two daughters, Pamela and Susana, were born. She worked as an English teacher at private schools, Lafayette (1957-1959) and Buenavista (1960-1961).

In 1959, she began to work voluntarily as an English-Spanish translator-interpreter for several months, a profession acquired through practice at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to help the Cuban Revolution and then, at the insistence of the Minister Raúl Roa, she was officially hired. On February 4, 1964, she joined the English Department of the Institute of Basic and Preclinical Sciences "Victoria de Girón" as an English teacher of first and second year medical students. Simultaneously, she worked as a style editor for the Granma newspaper in English, from 1964 to 1966.

Since she started teaching, she taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In 1968 she wrote a book for the study of English in postgraduate education and later for undergraduate education, with which she carried out an intense pedagogical work. She was appointed Head of the Language Department at Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences from 1975 until 1978; even though, according to the current law of that time, only a Cuban citizen could hold that post. Full Professor since 1977, she taught numerous postgraduate courses and studies for the training of English teachers in the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana and the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), as well as courses for Interns, Residents, Specialists and Candidates for PhD in Comprehensive practical sciences, Linguistics, and Reading and Writing Techniques at the Center and different universities in the country. She proposed the use of a new procedure for the teaching of language in Medical Sciences, consisting of the use of the functional-notional approach for the teaching of English for Medical purposes in order to achieve a higher level in the academic performance of all medical students.

During her long career as Principal Professor of the English subject, she participated in the validation of proficiency exams, undergraduate classes and basic courses. She directed the pedagogical activity of the graduated instructors, coordinated examinations in order to obtain the teaching category, and presided and was the secretary of scientific boards and teaching categories. She was President of the Talent Plan Examination Board in Havana, Villa Clara, Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba. She taught distance courses to teachers from other regions (Distance Learning Course). She designed the English Language Curriculum for several five year periods, which was proposed for the Higher Institutes of Medical Sciences of the country. With results of Excellence from her classroom instruction and the fulfillment of the educational consultations, she was a model for her students. She was tutor of more than 50 postgraduate theses, and president of examinations to 75 researchers of Biotechnology at the National Center for Scientific Investigations and Immunoassay.

She provided technical advice and developed the study material used for courses for international medical personnel (doctors and nurses, 1978), requested by the rectors of the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages ​​and the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana. In 1979, she was a Senior Professor of Postgraduate Studies. In 1981, she was Member of the National Subcommittee for the Design of Minimum Entry Requirements for English Courses, and during the period 1984-1992, she was Member of the National Methodological Committee of the English Language of the Ministry of Public Health of Cuba (MINSAP). By 1988-1989, she had assumed the position of Head of the Group of English Language Teachers of the Medical University. She was considered as a very critical teacher, her opinions were always aimed at improving the work, and this made her worthy of great prestige and authority.

She supervised methodological meetings, prepared plans for classroom observation, and elaborated scripts for lessons filmed by the Ministry of Public Health for undergraduate teaching. Another outstanding activity was the collaboration in courses about the improvement of the English language for Boards of Directors of Higher Education and the preparation of dialogues for summer courses. She gave lectures in other Higher Education centers such as "José Antonio Echeverría" Higher Polytechnic Institute, the University of Havana, and the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, ​​and coordinated the exams for Russian and German languages in the latter center mentioned and the Pushkin Institute for the process of category acquisition of some of our teachers.

She contributed to an advanced training project for teachers of English for Medical purposes of national scope in 1989, and together with Joan Cutting she made the Advanced Studies for the teaching of English which had three levels: the first, long distance; the second, with stay in Havana and the third, in Scotland. They elaborated the criteria for the selection of professors and proposed the granting of scholarships to two Cuban professors at the University of Edinburgh per year. Taking into account conceptually that Masters´ Thesis was designed as the first project in the teaching of English, they selected the materials for the development of the program, acquired in Scotland with the support of Adrienne Hunter. The proposal was approved by the MINSAP. The first students traveled in 1990 who came from Camagüey and Holguín. The second group came from Granma and Las Tunas and the third, from Havana. Since then, a professor from the capital and another one from other provinces travelled to that country. This program was maintained until 2015.

She was also member of the Scientific Council of "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences. She was a founding member of the Association of Linguists of Cuba, attached to the Cuban Academy of Sciences, and Executive Member of GELI (National Association of English Teachers). She participated in several investigations, among the most important ones we can mention: "Effectiveness of the intensive repetition of authentic discourse in foreign languages listening comprehension ", "Improvement of foreign language teaching methods in postgraduate courses for less than one year", "Results of the National Improvement Plan for Teachers of English in Higher Medical Education Centers", "Results of examinations made to 273 health professionals who traveled abroad regarding the ability to write in English", "Methodological aspects of foreign languages teaching", and "Translation or direct comprehension? A study".

She had a wide profusion in her publications. In 1968, she became the co-author of the basic text for postgraduate courses in English Second Course at the University of Havana, and was the co-author of four basic undergraduate texts for MINSAP. In 1979, she was the author of English I, English II and English III and in 1980, English IV. In 1985, she was the author of a basic postgraduate text: Using English. In 1984, she published the article: "The effectiveness of intensive practice in the auditory learning of a language" in the Cuban Journal of Higher Education, and in 1989: "Applied linguistics and language teaching" (Sociolinguistic and Language Teaching). In 1990, her book "An internationalist nurse" was published by the "Editorial People and Education", as well as a brochure announcing the ASTE (Advance Study for Teachers of English), an innovative Diploma Programme with its distance learning component and six-month residential courses in Havana, the first of its kind in the country.   Also in 1991, in the No. 3 Journal of Applied Linguistics, National Autonomous University of Mexico, she published the National Specialization Curriculum for Teachers of English in the Higher Institutes of Medical Sciences of Cuba. She worked voluntarily in the translation into English of several articles of the Journal of Social Sciences of the Cuban Academy of Sciences (ACC) and revised the book Searching III, at the request of the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Villa Clara. After her retirement, she translated for different magazines such as Monthly Review, among others; and in 1997 "Seven Women and the Cuban Revolution" was published by Lupus Publications in Canada, which in turn, was published and translated into Spanish by the title of the same name: "Siete Mujeres y la Revolución Cubana", presented by the Social Sciences Publishing House, and the Cuban Book Institute at the International Book Fair in Havana, in 2003.

Her participation was wide in national and international events held in the country, where she presented multiple pedagogical works as a speaker, professor of pre-event courses or examining board active member. Likewise, she participated in the Pedagogical Scientific Conferences of the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences of Havana (ISCM-H), the annual Student Scientific Conference at the "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences, Scientific Conference for Residents, National Methodology Workshop for Teachers of English. She was assistant to the Provincial Scientific-Methodological Forum of the Higher Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages (ISPLE) and the II Social Communication Symposium of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, as well as the 1st Seminar for Language Improvement for Teachers of English of the Center for Tourism Studies and the National Seminar on Active Methods of Teaching in the Postgraduate Education of the Ministry of Higher Education. She was an assiduous assistant to scientific conferences such as the I Conference on Higher Medical Education of the ISCMH and the V Scientific-Methodological Conference of the "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences, and active participant in Expolingua Habana 92 ​​(International Conference on Languages ​​and Cultures) . Very important was her stay, in November-December 1982, at the University of Semmelweiss, Hungary, for the exchange of experiences and selection of information for her Candidacy thesis, as well as her trip in August-September 1979 to the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, to update knowledge.

In our country, she participated in the Literacy Campaign in Bainoa, Havana Province, as a "Conrado Benítez" brigade member, then heading a brigade of teachers in the Literacy Campaign from August to December 1961, when she resumed her work at MINREX, where she had been appointed representative of the Pro-Fair Treatment Committee for Cuba from 1960 to 1962, the year in which she began to work as an English teacher for the Pre-Doctoral school, located in the Somellán building. She was also founder of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution and held the position of Evacuation Manager for a few years. She joined the Revolutionary National Militias in the October crisis, passed trainings, and was mobilized by the organization on several occasions.

Professor Marjorie Moore Reynolds examined the specialties of Linguistics and Pedagogy in order to choose the degree of Candidate for a PhD in Pedagogical Sciences, she received a diploma at the age of 70 for the Thesis Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching, issued by the National Commission of Scientific Degrees on the proposal of the "Enrique José Varona" Higher Pedagogical Institute, on February 21, 1990, as the fruit of her preparation and deep mastery of the teaching of the English language. Among other awards, she held the Literacy Medal, the José Tey Medal, Manuel Fajardo Rivero Distinction, Outstanding Full Professor, Distinguished Professor of ISCM-H, Best Municipal Worker, Juan Tomás Roig Medal. She was National Vanguard and was awarded post-mortem with the commemorative Medal Anniversary 40 of "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences.

 

Final remarks:

Marjorie Moore was a model of pedagogical organization, quality and efficiency. She has been considered one of the best English teachers in the country. Magnificent person, her relationships with students and colleagues were excellent, and she was loved and respected; her work had a commendable impact on "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences and other Higher Education Centers. Her colleagues at the GELI group described her as an "innovative teacher; far-sighted; and quick to understand, implement and disseminate new ideas".

Her qualities and virtues have been reliably reflected in the words of her daughter, Pamela Ríos Moore:

"Marjorie embraced the revolutionary cause and with my father remained in Cuba. In the first years she was offered the category of Foreign Technician and she did not accept it, she alleged that she stayed in Cuba to live like any Cuban. My parents saw in the Revolution the possibility of living and working for something more than obtaining material benefits, they saw the possibility of living for a social and just cause. Marjorie was a woman of solid principles, and was consistent with them. She did not abandon them in difficult times."

 

References:

Teaching Files of the "Victoria de Girón" Institute of Basic and Pre-Clinical Sciences; Interview with Pamela Rios Moore, Marjorie's daughter.

 

 

Received: September 28, 2016.
Approved: January 2, 2017.

 

Gabriela Alonso Bermúdez. Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana. La Habana, Cuba.
E-mail: [e-mail]