Exploring oral discourse development in the efl classroom: perspectives from Ecuador, Honduras, Chile & Colombia

Educating learners of English as a second/foreign/additional language to speak is a complex social practice. Speaking in another language involves a range of processes that go from successfully handling new muscular movements to developing and consolidating an individual, yet social, voice in that language. This voice deals with the projected identity the learner deploys when engaging in meaningful interactions, which is constantly being negotiated in every use of the language. For Ortiz-Medina in this issue, “the construction of identities and, particularly, the ways in which English language learners position themselves and others are determined by how they interact in the power networks of the classroom” (p.252). She investigated how young adult learners of English constructed their identities as speakers of English through their positioning in oral tasks in an English class

Research tendencies in the teaching of English as a foreign language

An analysis of the thematic tendencies in the 41 research articles published in the issues of the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal during the last three years, 2013-2015, indicates that authors have focused their attention primarily on five topics. These themes can be grouped as a) Trends and Approaches to teaching English as a foreign language, with the highest number of articles, followed by b) language learners´ processes and outcomes, c) teacher education for both preservice and inservice teachers, d) critical literacy and literacy involving social development, and d) uses of Spanish as expression of popular culture and English as a sociolinguistic phenomenon in San Andres. The variety of research reflected in these five thematic groups certainly contributes to addressing the two target disciplines our journal is interested in: Applied Linguistics and English Language Education in the context of Colombia and Latin America

Belonging to a Community of Research Practice

Belonging to a community of research practice as applied linguists or as academics in any field is part of our professional life. Being an academic implies, inter alia, creativity in advancing knowledge in the disciplines, which reflects in writing journal articles, presenting papers in conferences, doing research, teaching, tutoring students and publishing. Globally, every higher education institution requires that academics publish in prominent journals to make their work and their institution visible and influence their professional field. However, the questions that arise concerning academic production are how do communities of research support academic production?, How do higher education institutions help novice researchers develop academic writing competences?, What is the place of writing within research? How do institutions foster quality publication

Belonging to a Community of Research Practice

Belonging to a community of research practice as applied linguists or asacademics in any field is part of our professional life. Being an academic implies,inter alia, creativity in advancing knowledge in the disciplines, which reflects inwriting journal articles, presenting papers in conferences, doing research, teaching,tutoring students and publishing. Globally, every higher education institutionrequires that academics publish in prominent journals to make their work andtheir institution visible and influence their professional field. However, the questionsthat arise concerning academic production are how do communities of researchsupport academic production?, How do higher education institutions help noviceresearchers develop academic writing competences?, What is the place of writingwithin research? How do institutions foster quality publication

Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal: A consolidated scientific community locally and globally

An analysis of the thematic tendencies in the 41 research articles published in the issues of the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal during the last three years, 2013-2015, indicates that authors have focused their attention primarily on five topics. These themes can be grouped as a) Trends and Approaches to teaching English as a foreign language, with the highest number of articles, followed by b) language learners´ processes and outcomes, c) teacher education for both preservice and inservice teachers, d) critical literacy and literacy involving social development, and d) uses of Spanish as expression of popular culture and English as a sociolinguistic phenomenon in San Andres. The variety of research reflected in these five thematic groups certainly contributes to addressing the two target disciplines our journal is interested in: Applied Linguistics and English Language Education in the context of Colombia and Latin America

Fomentando literacidades de estudiantes de inglés a través de investigaciones locales en una experiencia multimodal

Addressing students’ social reality through the exploration of community inquiries in the English language class can create learning environments for developing students’ language and literacies. This paper addresses the ways in which community inquiries create opportunities for students to explore social and cultural issues in their neighborhoods using multimodality. It discusses the role community inquiries play in the development of literacy practices of a group of 10th graders in their EFL class. This descriptive qualitative project carried out at a public institution in the south of Bogotá, Colombia involved 40 participants. The goal of the project was to transform the way students relate to the community in order to create local knowledge. Data was collected through videotape recordings of students’ presentations, teacher’s journal, students’ interactions on Facebook, and students’ blogs over a two-year period. The findings reveal that teachers and students enacted a critical pedagogy through an inquiry curriculum that explored community issues and allowed participants to become inquirers of their own realities. Students’ language learning was evident in multimodal texts in English in their blogs, in the use of EFL in their oral presentations, and in their comments in response to peers on Facebook and their blogs.Abordar la realidad social de los estudiantes a través de la exploración de investigaciones en su comunidad en la clase de inglés permite crear ambientes de aprendizaje para desarrollar múltiples prácticas de lectura y escritura. Este artículo aborda la pregunta de qué formas las indagaciones sobre la comunidad crean oportunidades para que los estudiantes exploren aspectos sociales y culturales de sus barrios usando la multimodalidad. También discute el rol que las investigaciones de comunidad juegan en el desarrollo de prácticas de lectura y escritura de un grupo de estudiantes de grado 10 en su clase de inglés como lengua extranjera. Este proyecto es descriptivo y cualitativo y fue desarrollado en una institución pública en el sur de Bogotá, Colombia e involucró 40 participantes. La meta del proyecto fue transformar la manera como los estudiantes se relacionaron con la comunidad para crear conocimiento local. La información fue recolectada a través de grabaciones de las presentaciones de los estudiantes, el diario del profesor, las interacciones de los estudiantes en Facebook y el blog de los estudiantes en un periodo de dos años. Los hallazgos revelan que los profesores y los estudiantes promulgaron una pedagogía crítica a través de un currículo basado en indagación que explora asuntos de la comunidad y permite que los participantes se conviertan en investigadores de sus propias realidades. El aprendizaje de lengua extranjera de los estudiantes fue evidente en los textos multimodales en inglés, en sus blogs, y en el uso del inglés, en presentaciones orales y en sus respuestas y comentarios a sus compañeros en Facebook y en el blog

Teachers’ identities under the magnifying glass in the EFL field: Crossing intellectual borders

As a coeditor of CALJ, I would like to draw your attention to the rising importance of identity studies in the EFL setting and their contribution to the field. The Socratic imperative “know thyself” has inspired teacher researchers around the world (Benwell & Stokoe, 2006; Cheung, 2015; Johnson & Golombek, 2016; Norton, 2013) to raise awareness towards knowledge-power relations affecting our own constitution as subjects (Foucault, 1980). From a post-structuralist view, the comprehension of identity as something not given but constituted has illuminated a type of research more interested in revealing how interior and exterior forces—in Deleuze’s (1993) words—influence our constitution as subjects of a practice. In the field of EFL, research examining identity contributes to the understanding of who English teachers and learners are and how these identities are related to the teaching and learning process

Pedagogías emergentes en contextos cambiantes: pedagogías en red en la sociedad del conocimiento

The notion of pedagogies is a multi-dimensional and emergent construct built within the interplay(s) of pedagogical components (i.e., technology, pedagogy, and content) and changing pedagogical contexts of society, economy, education, and science and technology, to name a few. But the traditional/existing pedagogical frameworks fail to see the interplay between the components and the changing contexts of pedagogies. The traditional/existing pedagogies seem to be static and one-dimensional that either they exclusively focus in the components or in the contexts only. In this paper, I call for rethinking the traditional/existing pedagogies and framing them as “emerging pedagogies” so as to capture the emergent and multi-dimensional nature of pedagogy within the currently evolving pedagogical contexts of networked knowledge society, knowledge economy, diversity-oriented democracy, and digital literacies. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of two major pedagogical frameworks – i.e. “technological pedagogical content knowledge” (TPCK) and multicultural education (MCE), I offer a theoretical discussion for emerging pedagogies as a concept and as a practice. A recommendation is made for future research and theories pertaining to the emerging pedagogies.La noción de pedagogías es un concepto multidimensional emergente construido a partir de la relación entre los componentes pedagógicos (como la tecnología, la pedagogía y el contenido) y los contextos pedagógicos cambiantes de la sociedad, la economía, la educación y la ciencia y tecnología para mencionar algunos. Desafortunadamente, para los marcos teóricos tradicionales existentes no es importante la relación entre los componentes y los contextos pedagógicos cambiantes. Las pedagogías tradicionales existentes se ven como estáticas y unidimensionales y se enfocan exclusivamente en los componentes o en los contextos. En este artículo, propongo repensar las pedagogías tradicionales existentes y enmarcarlas como pedagogías emergentes, con el fin de encontrar la naturaleza emergente y multidimensional de la pedagogía en los actuales contextos pedagógicos cambiantes que evolucionan dentro de redes en la sociedad del conocimiento, la economía del conocimiento, la democracia orientada en la diversidad y la alfabetización digital. Así, a través del reconocimiento de las fortalezas y debilidades de dos marcos pedagógicos esenciales –como son el conocimiento pedagógico y tecnológico del contenido (TPCK, por su sigla en inglés), y la educación multicultural (MCE, por su sigla en inglés)–, se plantea una discusión teórica sobre las pedagogías emergentes como concepto y como práctica. Igualmente, se hace una recomendación para futuras investigaciones y teorías relacionadas con las pedagogías emergentes