I am an English language teacher employed by the Bogotá Municipal Secretary of Education (Secretaría de Educación del Distrito -- SED). When I took an optional course called “Identity and Language Learning” for my Master ́s in 2014, I realized that it was important to include topics in the academic curriculum that would be relevant to the background of my students, so I decided to use short stories that would appeal to them, in line with the idea of Richards (1994): “each learner has a belief system, which is influenced by the social context” (p. 97). The most important thing was to give students more opportunities to interact with each other at the same time that they could learn to respect each other’s opinions and ways of being, that is, to give them the chance to show their social identities while doing the activities. The experience was very enriching, because some students became more aware of the social problems that surround them and ways to become better citizens who are more respectful of the viewpoints of others.