As a Colombian teacher educator and researcher in the field of applied linguistics to English Language Teaching (ELT), I am pleased to have witnessed how the Doctorado Interinstitucional en Educación of Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas (DIE-UD) has long been committed to advancing critical, socially engaged, and transformative knowledge. Within this framework, the emphasis on ELT has become a fertile space for encouraging diverse ways of knowing, questioning orthodoxies, imagining alternatives to mere linguistic ability, and fostering a community of practice among doctoral students, faculty, and affiliated researchers.
The publication of ELT Local Research Agendas IV is the result of a collaborative effort that reflects the DIE-UD ethos. It marks an important contribution of its authors to the imperative of “reimagining ELT through the lenses of locality, inclusion, and critical engagement” (Quintero-Polo & Bonilla-Medina, 2025, p. 1). This volume also continues the tradition of the earlier Local Research Agendas books, while advancing it by explicitly positioning methodological uncertainty and decolonial reflection as central to the formation of new researchers. In this sense, the book consolidates a path of collaborative and critical inquiry within the emphasis of DIE-UD on ELT.