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This case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. The teachers' trajectories of action were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers' narratives, and lesson observations. Using the ecological model of agency as a framework, we situated teachers' steps within projective, iterational, and practical evaluative dimensions of agency. In this paper, we provide additional dimensions of teacher agency, which can help to expand theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field. Findings show that teachers cope with the changes derived from policy differently. The analysis presented in this paper can inform the creation and promotion of future curriculum policies in similar contexts.

This paper reports a mixed-methods study at a public university in Colombia. It describes the classroom assessment practices and challenges of 75 novice foreign language teachers. To gather the quantitative data, the participants completed an online survey. For the qualitative data, 11 key informants participated in one-on-one online interviews. Findings revealed that novice teachers predominantly used summative assessment in the classroom and aligned their assessment instruments to large-scale tests. Moreover, novice teachers faced many challenges with classroom assessment, including determining how to assess their students, developing assessment instruments, and interpreting and using assessment scores to inform teaching and learning. In conclusion, novice teachers need more knowledge, skills, and support to handle daily assessment-related tasks.

English teachers' professional development responds to individual needs and societal discourses about teaching, learning, and language use. This paper reports the findings of a case study that explored the factors that increased or limited the active and committed participation of nine Colombian teachers of English in professional development programs. Findings suggest that English teachers are invested in their professional development if they may develop three imagined identities--as proficient English speakers, ELT experts, and ICT competent users--and their affiliation to an imagined community of "bilinguals." The teachers' journey to the imagined identities and the imagined community is full of conflicting emotions amidst the socio-political context of their work and the country's language education policies.

Critical language teaching education has become an inescapable endeavor for language teacher education programs. To contribute to this effort, this paper outlines the implementation of an English course from a critical, intercultural perspective, during the first semester of a language teacher education program in Colombia. It also reports the ways preservice teachers responded to this implementation as evidenced in data stemming from their oral and written outcomes and from course evaluations. Results indicate that this approach to language teaching allowed preservice teachers to affirm their multiple identities as they developed and strengthened their language skills in English. Data also indicate that looking at the world from a more critical perspective entailed contradictions and challenges for preservice teachers and the teacher educator.

The current discussion about assessment in the language teaching context--involving topics such as immigration and citizenship, and university entrance--has brought with it the issue of justice in assessment. Although in Colombia such concerns are not generally discussed, it is important to consider fairness when it comes to classroom assessment. This paper presents a review of five Colombian well-known journals during the period 2009-2020 aiming to identify the scholarly discussion regarding language assessment and testing in the country. Findings suggest that Colombian researchers are concerned with fair and democratic assessment practices, and the involvement of students in peer- and self-assessment practices to improve learning and promote autonomy. Also, there is a perceived need for more teacher education in language assessment.

This paper reports a qualitative narrative study that explored the trajectories of English language teachers' identities before and after their participation in a master's program in English language teaching at a Colombian public university. After analyzing the data gathered through oral narratives and narrative interviews, results showed that teachers' identities are part of an endless process nurtured by experiences at the academic, pedagogical, and personal levels. We found that such experiences were constantly cultivated and analyzed in the master's seminars, which positively influenced the development of the participants' identities by making them more reflective and critical practitioners. Most teachers reported developing higher levels of social commitment, critical-reflective engagement, and research-oriented practices due to their graduate academic experience.

This paper reports a collaborative autoethnography on a first teaching practicum at Universidad Surcolombiana. The study aimed at how we, as novice researchers and preservice English as a foreign language teachers, make sense of our teaching experiences in our first teaching practicum using collaborative autoethnography as a research method. The data were collected by reflective journals and ethnographic observations. Results show the meaning that we give to our experiences, before and during the covid-19 pandemic, by recognizing and analyzing our sociocultural context. Additionally, we were immersed in a virtual learning environment where we had the opportunity to confront unforeseen changes imposed by the pandemic, familiarize ourselves with possible issues that teachers grapple with, and imagine new ways to be ourselves.

Education in Spain and Latin America has been experiencing an ever-increasing use of English as a medium of instruction at all levels and across curricula. Bringing the vast research-literature into a reflective dialogue is paramount to advancing the discipline and to refining English teaching practices. As such, this literature review systematically situates English-as-a-medium-of-instruction literature related to higher education within the Iberian-American school contexts where Spanish was the students' first language. Thus, the paper asserts that while research that addresses methodological approaches, processes, procedures, and their effects in instruction is significant, there is still a pressing need for framing English-as-a-medium-of-instruction research within the reciprocal relationship existing among communication, classroom culture, social values, the classroom climate for learning, and ultimately, the students' learning.

This paper reports an exploratory and descriptive qualitative study on speaking assessment approaches in a teacher education program at a Colombian university. The study aimed to explore how four in-service English language teachers approach the assessment of students' speaking skill. The data were gathered through classroom observations, interviews, and documentary analysis. Results revealed teachers' preference for summative assessment practices to determine students' progress regarding speaking. As a conclusion, teacher professional development in terms of language assessment may be seen as an alternative to develop significant assessment processes where students, teachers, and the institution can be benefited.

In this paper, a teacher-educator and two students of a B.A. program in foreign language teaching (English and French) of a public university in Colombia discuss our pedagogical experiences in a research seedbed. First, we present the conceptualizations underlying our analysis: research seedbeds, undergraduate research education, and curriculum as a process. Second, we describe our contextual background. Third, we analyze our experiences using three themes: creating and recreating curriculum, negotiating the official and non-official curriculum, and taking positions as teacher-researchers. We conclude that research seedbeds can broaden the pedagogical repertoire of undergraduate research education in foreign language programs and that it becomes necessary to conduct studies in this area in Colombia.

This paper presents a narrative inquiry study on agency development in student-teachers of an English language teacher program at a public university in the south of Colombia. Our goal was to understand how student-teachers develop agency when narratively inquiring their community by planning and conducting community-based pedagogy projects on issues they found pertinent to investigate. The data were gathered through semi-structured focus group interviews, individual journal entries, and video-recorded talks about their inquiries. As a conclusion, we acknowledge that certain social and narrative practices such as interacting within their inquiry groups, interacting with their communities, voicing their communities' necessities, and acting upon the inquired necessities facilitated developing agency and contributed to rethinking their roles as transformative members of their communities.

This paper reports on an exploratory collective case study on three in-service English language teachers in Medellin, Colombia. The study aimed at creating a route for teachers to collaboratively construct their understanding of intercultural communicative competence through their involvement in a study group. Data were collected through recordings, interviews, and reflective logs, which followed a bottom-up analysis. Results evidenced changes in the participants' views of culture, cross-cultural knowledge, intercultural stance, and understanding of intercultural communicative competence. As a conclusion, study groups materialized as an applicable tool for teachers' professional development, which allowed participants to redraw their own initial beliefs and assumptions, fostering them to change professionally and in their praxis.

This paper reports an action-research study aimed at exploring the benefits of the critical analysis of YouTubers' content through the empowerment spiral model to foster students' talk as performance. Twenty 11th-grade students shared alternative messages related to social issues based on content analysis and reflections. Data were collected via preservice teachers' journals, students' written and multimedia artifacts, and voice recordings, whose analysis was done through processes of codification and categorization. The results showed that the implementation of critical media literacy helped students become aware of the content they were consuming and improve their English oral performance by means of specific oral activities. Therefore, this study has a balance between English as a foreign language learning and the use of critical approaches.

This paper describes the process English as a foreign language university students and their teacher underwent when engaging in critical literacy practices. Interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, students' artifacts, and the teacher's journal were used to collect data in this study. Findings suggest that when students engage in critical literacy practices, they are prone to reflect on the power they have as agents of social change, while developing language skills. However, teachers should be ready to encounter some resistance from students and to struggle with the incorporation of critical perspectives in their lessons, which is understandable considering the emphasis grammar mastering has traditionally had on language teaching and learning.

This paper reports on an action research study aimed at implementing "Plotagon" to enhance English writing skill. The study involved 18 students from 10th grade of a public secondary school in Colombia. The findings showed that the use of "Plotagon" promoted students' motivation to write through an interactive and attractive interphase to create digital stories. Consequently, students created their own digital story working in pairs and as a result increased their vocabulary, improved their English writing skill and other language skills. The data collection tools (surveys, tests, journals, observations, and dialogs as students' production) showed that "Plotagon" is a pedagogical tool that promotes students' English writing in a fun and meaningful way

This paper presents a review of studies on pre-service teachers' beliefs about teaching. The purpose of the article is to show teacher educators the relevance of exploring such issue in the classroom. Preservice teachers come into the teaching profession with beliefs about teaching; sometimes they are aware of them, other times they are not. The studies reviewed in this paper demonstrate that when teacher educators ascertain this principle, they clearly integrate it in their syllabi thus aiding preservice teachers to acquire awareness of their entering beliefs about teaching and to experience changes in them so that explicit beliefs guide and inform the act of teaching. Teacher educators assist this process through reflection, course content, and learning activities, as well as by engaging in research activities.

The communicative approach in EFL education has generated a concern for the development of communication in the foreign language classroom within which the promotion of oral interaction is usually paramount. However, what constitutes authentic oral interaction is sometimes not clearly understood and some of the activities that take place in the classroom seem unlikely to generate meaningful opportunities for the development of oral interaction. To address this gap, this paper characterizes four samples of oral communication exchanges that occur in Colombian EFL secondary school classrooms in Montería and discusses their effectiveness for developing meaningful oral production in both student-student and teacher-student interaction. The paper has two main sections: the first is devoted to the analysis of student-student interaction, and the second to discussing teacher-student exchanges.

Stemming from a study of what it is like to teach English in rural Colombia considering both English language teaching policy and social challenges of these contexts, this paper explores different locally grounded English language teaching practices. Through the analysis of teachers' narratives and field observations, four examples of such practices are discussed. These examples highlight how teachers intuitively tend to make the most of their expertise, the limited resources available, and the local lingua-cultural repertoires in an attempt to help students make sense of English. From the perspective of language teaching as a socially sensitive practice, findings suggest that teachers' own experiential and situational knowledge constitutes a powerful platform from which valuable bottom-up practices are and can further be devised.

This paper presents one Colombian university English as a foreign language program's in-house teacher development program for curriculum renewal. This program is an innovative attempt to prepare teachers for implementing a new curriculum and, simultaneously, engages them in professional development activities. The program is a response to the lack of existing teacher and professional development models that fit certain specific contextual needs, including preparation for implementing new curriculum as well as emphases in the updating of particular teaching practices. In addition to presenting the program, the article also describes the integration of key aspects of various existing models of teacher and professional development into one program that meets contextual needs while encouraging positive change among faculty and students.

Master degree programs have rapidly increased in Colombia to the point where they are one of the most favored options for English teachers seeking to bolster their professional development. This survey study characterizes eighty participants, their five master programs, and their perceptions concerning the influence these graduate courses exerted on their teaching. While participants' pedagogical and research work seemed to have benefited the most from their studies, their practices involving language policy and administration were regarded as distant from what they learnt. Findings suggest that innovation, reflection, and collaboration permeated participants' overarching categories of development. Challenges to respondents' integration of their newly acquired education with their teaching included competing ideologies and agendas exhibited by stakeholders in school communities.

This research paper reports on the development of oral presentation skills in a 3D virtual world called "Moviestorm" machinima, in contrast with real-life videos. In this way, the implementation of both types of videos sought to promote the improvement of oral communication skills, specifically oral presentations in a foreign language, as well as promoting collaborative work. The study involved 60 students from different semesters of a private Colombian university from the schools of electronic engineering, computer science, and law, focusing on English for specific purposes. The results showed how students from different faculties worked collaboratively to achieve one goal: improve their oral presentation skills.

This paper reports an action-research study on language learning strategies in tertiary education at a Colombian university. The study aimed at improving the English language performance and language learning strategies use of 33 first-year pre-service language teachers by combining elements from two models: the cognitive academic language learning approach and task-based language teaching. Data were gathered through surveys, a focus group, students' and teachers' journals, language tests, and documentary analysis. Results evidenced that the students improved in speaking, writing, grammar, vocabulary and in their language learning strategies repertoire. As a conclusion, explicit strategy instruction in the proposed model resulted in a proper combination to improve learners' language learning strategies and performance.

This paper describes an approach to developing intermediate level reading proficiency through a strategic and iterative use of a discreet set of tasks that combine some of the more common metacognitive theories and strategies that have been published in the past thirty years. The case for incorporating this composite approach into reading comprehension classes begins with an explanation of its benefits and the context in which it came to be; its relationship to theoretical discourse in the field; a description of its three main components: textual indicators, strategy instruction, and content learning; and concludes by presenting a model for implementing the approach that integrates these three components.

Following the trend of much of the Western, non-English speaking world, Colombia has tirelessly strived for spreading English education in an effort to augment economic benefits. This paper aims at providing a critical account of foreign language education policy in Colombia, with special attention to English. It outlines the impact of its multiple transitions over the past decades through a historical description that overviews all previous policies, the critical reception by scholars, and present-day initiatives. We then move on to analysing the choice of English as a synonym for bilingualism and conclude with emerging questions that are to be considered for future debates and reassessments of Colombia's English-Spanish bilingual education policy.

This paper reports the experience of implementing a teacher's professional development strategy that sought to foster e-moderator competencies among language faculty at a Colombian public university. The study aimed at finding the extent to which participants understood the concepts of e-moderation and e-tivities. We analyzed the participants' performance in three different tasks to give account of the incorporation of the concepts. The results from the analysis of the tasks showed that participants understand online processes, they have some technical skills and they have many personal characteristics that will help them become e-moderators.

The increase in the publication of academic journals is closely related to the growing interest of research communities as well as of institutional policies that demand visibility of the work done by their staff through publications in highly-ranked journals. The purpose of this paper is to portray the experiences of some authors who published their articles in the "PROFILE" journal, which is edited in Colombia, South America. Data were gathered using a survey carried out through the use of a questionnaire. The results indicate the reasons the authors submitted their manuscripts, their experiences along the process of publication, and what the publication of their articles in the journal has meant to them. The authors' responses and the reflections derived from them also show that despite the difficulties faced, there were achievements and lessons learned as well as challenges ahead to ensure the sustainability of the journal and teachers' empowerment.

This paper reports on an exploratory, descriptive, and interpretive study in which the roles of discussion boards, the students, the teacher, and the monitors were explored as they constructed a collaborative class project in a virtual environment. This research was conducted in the virtual program of a Colombian public university. Data were gathered through a questionnaire, recordings of conversations through Skype, and artifacts or samples of students' participation in the discussion boards. The analysis of the data followed the principles of grounded theory. The main findings suggest that as they were doing project work in a virtual environment, students played the role of team workers, the teacher and monitors played shared roles, and the discussion boards served as a facilitating tool.

This paper reports on an innovative and action research project which focused on the use of the dictionary and the prior knowledge of Colombian high school students to improve their reading comprehension of short scientific texts. Data collection instruments included students' work gathered during two workshops, field notes, and a questionnaire. Findings showed that searching in the dictionary and activating prior knowledge seem to facilitate the use of the text to answer reading comprehension questions. Students experienced less difficulty answering questions that required literal information than those that required establishing relationships among elements of the text. They equally valued the prior knowledge of the subject and the use of the dictionary in the resolution of science workshops in English.

The present paper provides a critical analysis of Colombia's National Program of Bilingualism focusing on the ideologies behind it, how it facilitates the manufacturing of Colombian citizens' consent for foreign intervention through free trade agreements, and the progressive dismantling of public education. The program is analyzed with a critical language policy lens that brings into consideration the historical and socio-political factors of the Colombian context. For this purpose, several news articles, policy documents, and academic essays are discussed. Connections are made between this language policy, the interests of transnational companies, and how this policy helps portray the Colombian public education system as inadequate to fulfill the government's educational goals.

Web-based distance education is an innovative modality of instruction in Colombia. It is characterized by the separation of the teacher and learners, the use of technological tools and the students' autonomy development. This paper reports the findings of a case study that explores students' perceptions about an English reading comprehension course in a web-based modality. Findings show that students have different opinions about the course, its content and objectives, its level of difficulty, the time students invested in the course, adults' learning, and the role of the teacher. We perceived that this course represents an academic challenge; it is conducive to learning, and favors students' autonomous use of time.

Strategy instruction is useful in teaching contexts. This paper examines the effects of strategy instruction in an EFL reading comprehension course carried out with 26 undergraduate students at a Colombian university. As a research method, a case study was implemented. There were three instruments with which to collect data: reading comprehension tests, teacher's field notes and self-reflection in class at the strategy instruction phase, and a learning perception questionnaire. Given that students improved in reading comprehension, it would seem that reading strategy instruction is indeed very useful. Also, it was noted that when students applied reading strategies, they became more self-confident and this in turn enhanced their motivation. Finally, when students applied the reading strategy approach, the use of dictionaries decreased considerably.

This paper reports a study carried out with eleven deaf volunteers who belonged to different academic programs at a Colombian public university but did not receive English instruction as part of their professional training. The main goal of the research study was to identify the effect of using Internet resources as support for the design and development of a blended English course for deaf university students. The data were collected by means of surveys, artifacts, logs and a recorded interview to understand what worked well for deaf students and what barriers could interfere with their English learning. The study revealed some insights into the learning process of deaf students and their preference for collaborative learning and tasks linked to visual media.

Today it is necessary to approach environmental topics with students in an interdisciplinary manner to mitigate the environmental damages that the Earth is suffering. In this paper we report an action-research and innovation study aimed at sensitizing students with respect to the care and preservation of the environment through the writing of short descriptive texts in English. The study had four stages: motivation, knowledge of ecological vocabulary, production of sentences and paragraphs, construction of short descriptive texts with the help of guidance questions and their publication in the school newspaper. The findings show that the procedure used in class promotes interdisciplinary work around environmental topics as well as the development of writing skills.

Discussion boards as tools in blended "English language" learning programs have unique characteristics when compared to other synchronous and asynchronous communication tools that are different. Therefore, it is important to investigate the way they operate, their role within a given program and the students', teachers' and tutors' attitudes towards them. This paper contains the report of a study that took place in an English virtual program of a public university in Colombia. Students' surveys and reflections, the tutor's and teachers' interviews and reflections were used to collect data. The results showed the main advantages and disadvantages of the use of the tool as well as ideas for new proposals to improve their use and, therefore, increase the students' performance in the program.

Distance web-based learning is a popular strategy in ELT teaching in Colombia. Despite of the growth of experiences, there are very few studies regarding teachers' participation in these courses. This paper reports preliminary findings of an on-going study aiming at exploring the roles that a teach er plays in an EFL reading comprehension distance web-based course. Data analysis suggests that teachers play new roles solving technical problems, providing immediate feedback, interacting with students in a non traditional way, providing time management advice, and acting as a constant motivator. The authors conclude that EFL teachers require training for this new teaching roles and the analysis of web-based distance learning environments as an option under permanent construction that requires their active participation.

This paper reports an action research project which examined the foreign language reading comprehension of public school eighth graders who experienced a directed reading-thinking approach with strategies for comprehension and application. The strategies used were prediction, prior knowledge, graphic organizers, and questions. Data analyzed included participants' perceptions of the usefulness of the strategies and students' work on the graphic organizers and reading worksheets. Findings showed that participants thought that the strategies and an interactive reading task improved reading comprehension. The majority of students used English to answer knowledge, comprehension and a good number of application questions. The answers to the application questions provided by the less proficient students were, despite their use of Spanish, unclear.

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)