This article presents our narration of the emergence and development of a research area about the teaching and learning of the English language in Colombia and the creation of a research group named Critical Studies of Colombian Education Policies. The narration includes a description of the bilingual education policy in Colombia and a literature…

This action research study sought to foster dialogic action through the expansion of English language learners' communicative repertoires in a 6th-grade class at a public school in a Colombian town. During the first action research cycle, the restricted concept of communication of the grammar based syllabus and the competitive and violent…

This article of reflection considers socio-political issues such as linguistic perialism, native speakerism, English as an International language, and appropriate teaching methodologies, which are currently contentious issues in the ELT community. Framed within a critical approach of applied linguistics, these issues are addressed in three…

This study aims to understand the local and updated epistemological perceptions of the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Colombia from the voices of English language university teachers. This qualitative research emerges as part of a hermeneutical perspective which allowed the authors to analyze experiences,…

Emotions are ubiquitous and permeate all aspects of human life, including language learning. However, little attention has been paid to emotions in the ELT curriculum, let alone in the design and implementation of conversations clubs. In this article, we share the qualitative results of a mixed-method study on students' emotions while…

Educational institutions, particularly those for higher education, seek to ensure their visibility and valid indicators for institutional accreditation processes through the publications of their teachers. Their projection is intimately associated with the circulation of their production in accredited publications whose reputations depend on their…

This qualitative research project aims to determine the impact that Task-Based Instruction had on fifteen Intermediate English language students´ writing skills in online classes at a private institute in Cartagena. A journal, a questionnaire, and a checklist were used as instruments to collect information during the diagnostic stage. During the…

This study reports the contextual Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) of five Colombian English language teachers. Two semi-structured interviews and reflective journals were used for data collection. The findings show that the teachers used varied traditional and alternative assessment instruments, assessed language and non-language constructs,…

The professional development of English teachers is a significant area in language teaching and learning, as well as in teacher education. On the one hand, at least in theory, professional development initiatives respond to the teachers' changing needs. On the other hand, it reflects the beliefs that different educational authorities and…

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the concepts of linguistic colonialism and cultural alienation in University textbooks for teaching English as opposed to the theories about culture in the decolonial turn. Dichotomous categories were established based on the analysis of the cultural component of the textbooks for the teaching of…

This article presents a research study on the interactional styles of teacher educators in the English language teacher education classroom. Two research methodologies, ethnomethodological conversation analysis and self-evaluation of teacher talk were applied to analyze 34 content- and language-based classes of nine English language teacher…

Knowledge and experience, mediated by reflection, are essential components in teacher education and development programs. This paper discusses core elements that have guided ELT education in the last years and analyzes the case of five English language teacher educators who--in the Colombian context--reflect on their own pedagogical practices…

The present qualitative study with an action research orientation focuses on the strengthening of students' oral fluency in English through the implementation of six theme-based teaching workshops. The participants were students of an EFL pre-intermediate English language course in the institute of foreign languages at the Technological University…

Promoting learner autonomy is relevant in the field of applied linguistics due to the multiple benefits it brings to the process of learning a new language. However, despite the vast array of research on how to foster autonomy in the language classroom, it is difficult to find step-by-step processes to design syllabi and curricula focused on the…

This document reports on a research study carried out in a rural public school in Colombia. The aim of the study was to identify the impact of a task-based teacher development program on three primary school teachers' teaching practices. To this effect, we used a survey, classroom observations, and semi-structured interviews before and after the…