An intercultural exchange: A reflection of the aspects involved

Interculturality is a trend that has been more visualized nowadays as a consequence of globalization ideas which have cause different cultures to meet. According to this, this article represents a reflection on issues related to interculturality based on the author’s experience when she took part of a trip as a cultural exchange in Scotland in a program granted by the ICETEX and the British council. The development of the article displays theoretical concepts of interculturality illustrated by the author’s anecdotes when she faced the changes in assimilating and accommodating to that new culture. Finally, she introduces a reflection on how these intercultural interchanges made another shape in her actual teaching of the Foreign language

Mentoring Models for student-teachers professional development

This short article was published in a newsletter and it is based on a previous article published called "mentoring pre-service teachers: from reflection to a didactic proposal". The intention in this review is to stress a proposal that can be an innovation for mentoring teachers more focused on critical reflection

Addressing culture in the EFL classroom: A dialogic proposal built up through dialogism

Language teaching has gone from a linguistic centered approach towards a lingocultural experience in which learning a language goes hand in hand with the understanding of, not only the target culture but the learner’s own culture. This paper intends to describe and reflect upon a collaborative and dialogical experience carried out between two teachers of the Languages Program of Universidad de la Salle. The bilateral enrichment of such a pedagogical experience not only helped the teachers to improve their language teaching contexts but also prompted the construction of a theoretical proposal to enhance intercultural awareness and develop critical intercultural competence in FL learners

REPRESENTACIONES SOCIALES SOBRE LOS DERECHOS HUMANOS EN LAS INTERACCIONES DE LOS JÓVENES EN LA INTERNET: implicaciones pedagógicas

This article reports the main findings of research study done with a group of young people from Universidad de la Salle de Bogota, during the year 2009. The research tried to enquire about the social representations upon human rights that are conveyed on the internet interactions of such a population. In order to achieve our goals, this research developed a qualitative methodology.Data collection techniques such as interviews and video recorded internet sessions were the support for the research procedure. Students’ voices permitted to conclude that social representation regarding human rights are focused on the principles of the rights to culture and liberty. In this way, this text elicit a reflection about the implications of this new flow of information, knowledge, new roles for educative actors and in general for school, education and pedagogy

Responsabilidad social en la comunicación con la web

This presentation is a research report that explores new technologies, within them, the internet as a mediator device that becomes a facilitator for social representations. This enquiry is base on the interest for human rights and how they are represented in web pages and e mail communications by a university students group. Surveys, recorded internet sessions and interviews were the instruments that allowed explaining the way some human rights were evidenced in the participants’ actions. In the study a tendency to cultural rights was identified involving education, access to art and entertainment. On the other hand, a category evoking freedom emerged making sense of interactions and construction of social representations but it is also limited by those processes. Finally, a pedagogical reflection from the social responsibility approach came up from the findings

Formative research: challenges and tendencies

21st century teachers are not only required to develop top teaching skills, but also strong research ones that allow them to expand their understanding of teaching-learning phenomena and improve their school practices. This relatively recent trend has also impacted the Language Teaching field, making language programs in universities to develop different approaches to Formative Research for their student-teachers. This paper aims to contrast how two different universities (a private and a state one) understand and carry out formative research processes. The analysis attempts to specifically describe how two Bachelors of Arts in Education of teachers in Foreign Languages programs have dealt with formative research revealing goals and difficulties when initiating student-teachers in research

Sociocultural factors involved in the teaching of English as foreign language in rural areas of Colombia: an analysis of the impact on teachers’ professional development

Bilingual education has been a very controversial issue in the last decade in Colombia because national laws now aim at fostering English–Spanish bilingualism. In particular, it has been evident that special attention has been paid to privileged, urban contexts, leaving aside the realities of disadvantaged and rural areas. This article attempts to raise awareness of critical sociocultural factors involved in the teaching of English in rural areas to understand the complexity of teachers’ professional development considering the particularities of their local work settings. Within the outcomes of this exploration, we found that teachers’ development in rural areas is quite different from that in urban areas. The sociocultural issues in the language classroom frame both teachers’ labour and their professional development needs

The experience of preparing a closing session

This short article explains the development of a closing project developed with students of English as a foreign language. The project emerged with the idea of innovating in the classroom and trying to make links with their reality which could help developed a more meaningful process. Students involved study English for different reasons but most of them do it as a complementary activity for their job or study. They attend classes on the weekends so this project was enhanced also with the intention to break the old scheme of the foreign language as an additional but unconnected activity. The cooperative work and the motivation arisen from this task were some of the more valuable results