Pilar Méndez Rivera

Since the onset of poststructuralist and sociocultural approaches to the applied linguistics area of second language acquisition and learning (SLA/L) and the advent of identity research in foreign language (FL) teaching and learning, different dimensions such as gender, race, sexuality, and ethnicity have been greatly explored. Nonetheless, an identity inscription which has been under examined in the abovementioned fields is that of social class. Scholarship on identity and FL educational research has not yet fully examined the hidden class-based power dynamics and the struggles for symbolic capital that students and educators experience and exercise in the EFL classroom that lead to construction and negotiation of class identities through discursive acts. Examining social class identities and discourses in FL practices such as literacy practices, interculturally development, project work, and linguistic practices becomes paramount given several factors around the world such as the...

The purpose of this study is to uncover the struggles English language teaching textbook writers experienced in producing English language textbooks and their influence on educational material in Colombia. The ELT textbook writers are considered individuals who create educational materials and play a crucial role in shaping language learning experiences for students and language teachers. These ELT textbook writers are subjects who have views on the content of teaching, pedagogical strategies, and cultural sensitivity to facilitate English language teaching and learning. However, the textbook industry is a hierarchical machinery with a top-down management approach, in which textbook writers have little space to resist and subvert hegemonical practices in textbook production. According to Jolly & Bolitho (1988, 2011), ELT textbook writers delve into the tension between embracing ideas of dominant cultural norms while challenging power dynamics during the editorial processes from...

This proposal on nurturing teacher leadership in pre-service teachers, promotes reflecting about teacher identity through: journals, interviews and focus groups. Using pedagogical practices as an opportunity to observe, analyze, discuss and adapt, pre and in service teachers will reflect about themselves and their methodological strategies, they could talk about their failures and achievements, there will be an authentic reflection process with the intention to accept who they are as persons and as teachers.

This research will be carried out at IED Colegio Sorrento, afternoon shift in secondary. It will involve practicum professors, mentors and pre-service teachers; finding a meeting point in pedagogical practices attach to Bachelor's degree in Foreign Language with Emphasis in English at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas since August 2022 to November 2024.

Change will become a common factor in pre-service teacher identity and will give them more...

Durante los últimos quince años, en Colombia se puso en marcha el “Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo 2004-2019”, el cual buscaba que los ciudadanos sean competentes en inglés a nivel internacional. Sin embargo, en su aplicación por parte de las instituciones terminó siendo tomado como un plan relacionado con el aumento de horas en la enseñanza del inglés, o con la capacitación docente, o con la utilización de material especializado, pero no como la enseñanza bilingüe que supone el PNB.

En la búsqueda de medios eficaces para alcanzar el objetivo del PNB, algunas instituciones educativas públicas se dieron a la tarea de asumir un modelo de educación bilingüe, en el marco del programa “Bogotá y Cundinamarca bilingües en diez años 2003-2013”. Aunque han logrado grandes avances en la competencia comunicativa de sus estudiantes, aún los esfuerzos son insuficientes ante situaciones que no permiten el progreso de los métodos de enseñanza bilingües: la falta de evaluaciones por parte...

Esta investigación se sitúa en un contexto nacional históricamente atravesado por procesos coloniales en los que las lenguas han operado como mecanismos de jerarquización social y cultural. Aunque Colombia es reconocida constitucionalmente como una nación multilingüe (De Mejía, 2006), esta diversidad lingüística ha coexistido con políticas educativas que privilegian el español como lengua nacional y el inglés como idioma asociado al progreso y la competitividad económica, particularmente en el marco del Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo. En el campo educativo, esta orientación ha contribuido a consolidar jerarquías lingüísticas en las que lenguas indígenas, afrodescendientes, criollas, de señas y otras lenguas extranjeras distintas del inglés han sido frecuentemente deslegitimadas o relegadas a posiciones marginales.

En este sentido, es importante reconocer que las jerarquías lingüísticas en Colombia no se han configurado únicamente en torno al inglés. Históricamente, otras...

This doctoral thesis demonstrates a careful analysis of the observers’ positions in English language classes. The topic focuses on the observations of in-service English classes, mainly from the Positions of the Observers who supervise, evaluate, and give feedback to English language teachers. In the ELT (English Language Teaching) field, it is common that teachers are periodically observed during classes for their performance of instruction. In fact, some of them do not agree with the class observation process. Others argue that the observation process is not necessary nor important. Some even do not pay attention to the person who observes the class and only keep in mind the rubrics used to observe. This study identifies some positions of the observers that are overlooked or are invisible in the educational community.

Research on language teachers’ identities in the English as a Second Language (ESL), Teaching to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and the English Language Teaching (ELT) in general has been a broad, extensive and multifaceted. While the field has achieved significant maturity, debates persist about how teachers in diverse educational contexts construct our identities through discourse and practice (Torres-Rocha, 2019; Trent, 2015). This study examines the intersection of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970; McLaren, 2002; Giroux, 2014) and English language teachers’ identities to explore the critical identities (CIs) of school English language teachers (SELTs) in Colombia through the lens of narrative positioning and critical pedagogy. While research on language teachers’ identities has often centered on higher education practitioners, this study focuses on SELTs, addressing the challenges and tensions we face within a socio-political and educational context that prioritizes...

In initial teacher education, community has been conceptualized around modern concepts such as Target Communities (Higgins, 2012), Imagined Communities (Anderson, 1983), and Communities of Practice (Wenger, 1998; Wenger-Trayner, M. Fenton-O'Creevy, S. Hutchinson, Kubiak and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Target Communities are understood as mostly cohesive groups of people who speak a (standard) language in relatively homogeneous ways, and whose cultural practices likely differ significantly from those who study the target language of that community. This view of community constructs the English Language Preservice Teachers through the dichotomy of Native Speakers of English (NSEs) vs. Non-Native Speakers of English (NNSEs) (Higgins, 2012). Imagined Communities point out groups of people, not immediately tangible and accessible, with whom we connect through the power of imagination (Norton, 1995). Within this view, the world is a global village where everybody shares an affiliation by...

From my experience as bilingual advisor at Secretaria de Educación de Bogotá and professor at a master of education program, I have wondered whether there is a curriculum on ELT education that could be studied from national policies, from institutional initiatives at undergraduate careers, specifically at the programs of future English teachers or from the teaching practices carried out at the same programs. Can it be said that the national policies proposed from the government shape the educational practices at the programs of prospective English teachers? The purpose of this research is to examine official documents, as follows, self-evaluation documents, general programs structures of the careers, accreditation documents and lesson planning among others taken from three undergraduate programs on the initial formation of English teachers, in order to identify the possible connections or discrepancies between English teaching practices in those programs aimed to prospective...