English - A global South Perspective. The case of a National Bilingualism Program in Colombia

In this chapter I use the National Bilingualism Program (henceforth NBP), launched in 2004 in Colombia, as a framework to discuss some unforeseen developments in the English Language Teaching (ELT) field that might resonate in other sites of the global South. Bearing in mind that after the implementation of this policy English and ELT have become sites for ideological struggle, my interest is to call the attention on some aspects that had not been problematized in the country prior to the implementation of this so-called Bilingual program. I rely on concepts already discussed in the broader literature while situating them locally, as well as on the work of many Colombian scholars who have contributed to bringing critical perspectives on the field in an attempt to have a voice from within.