Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article describes a pedagogical intervention carried out at a public university in Colombia. A total of 26 psychology students, aged between 19 and 26 years old, taking English classes for academic purposes, and in their fourth semester, participated in this study. This intervention was implemented for an academic semester and aimed to help learners develop their English reading skills—from literal to critical comprehension of short academic texts— through the use of infographics, which are visual tools that combine texts and graphs to help users communicate information. Teachers used students’ infographics to assess their understanding of short academic texts in English, and they interviewed students to learn their opinions on the intervention. Further, teachers implemented a colour-coding technique in interview transcripts to show relevant patterns in the student opinions. This data analysis indicated that the students clearly understood the ideas from the texts because they were able to go beyond reading to dynamise information in the infographics while using the visual aids as mediators in expressing their ideas. In conclusion, the infographics were beneficial in developing the students’ reading skills. They presented an opportunity for the students to paraphrase main ideas from the texts and represent their understanding of the readings. In addition, this pedagogical intervention was useful for teachers because it enabled them to explore reading comprehension using a new strategy that might be helpful in English classes.

This article offers a review of 25 empirical studies to identify the areas and findings of professional development initiatives for in-service English teachers in Colombia. The reviewed studies suggest that language teacher professional development has focused on six major areas: language proficiency, research skills and reflective practice, teachers’ beliefs and identities, an integrated approach to teacher professional development, pedagogical skills and teaching approaches, and emerging technologies. Results suggest that there is a need to move from traditional masterapprentice, content-oriented, teacher-centered models of professional development towards initiatives that allow teachers to critically analyze their particular context and needs, and devise their own local alternatives so that they can become more active agents of their own process of change. Issues that constitute possible alternatives for future research in the professional development of English language teachers are discussed.

El presente trabajo aborda la problemática en torno a la construcción de explicaciones de fenómenos naturales a lo largo de la clase de ciencias en contextos bilingües (español (L1)-inglés (L2)), donde se analiza el rol del lenguaje, su significado y su reconfiguración desde dos miradas: la dinámica comunicativa y la dinámica explicativa. Para llevar a cabo dicho análisis, el presente texto se centra en la categorización de las habilidades cognitivo-lingüísticas de los estudiantes durante los distintos momentos de la implementación didáctica, así como en analizar las expresiones usadas por ellos desde lo comunicativo. Este análisis nace de la creciente preocupación frente a la implementación del bilingüismo en Colombia y Latinoamérica. La metodología de trabajo es de tipo cualitativa-interpretativa y utiliza para el análisis instrumentos de recolección de datos como grabaciones de clase y diarios de clase de una muestra de veinticinco y diecinueve estudiantes pertenecientes a dos instituciones privadas de educación básica y media en Cajicá y Bogotá D.C., Colombia. Las siguientes categorías se describen a profundidad: habilidades cognitivo-lingüísticas, comunicación de ideas en la L1 como en la L2, los aspectos conceptuales, sociales, epistemológicos y organizacionales-didácticos del conocimiento. Ante esto, se encontró una estrecha relación entre la competencia en la segunda lengua (L2) y el nivel de profundidad en las explicaciones construidas, ya que a los estudiantes con mejor dominio del idioma se les facilita usar mejor el lenguaje científico y llegar a construcciones más complejas. Por otra parte, este trabajo redimensionó la perspectiva del contenido implementada por maestros cuando usan el enfoque CLIL (por sus siglas en inglés de Aprendizaje Integrado de Contenido y Lengua), situando al bilingüismo en las clases de ciencias en una dimensión epistemológica y pedagógica diferente a la de adquisición de vocabulario y expresiones en la L2, mostrándose como un medio que favorece los procesos comunicativos y explicativos al potenciar diferentes habilidades.

Bilingual indigenous students who attend public schools around the country are to develop English language skills as part of the suggested curriculum created by the Colombian Ministry of Education. This is the case of the Embera Chamí students in Florencia, Caquetá whose conditions for learning English differ from those of monolingual Spanish students. The purpose of this study is to analyze the difficulties and the advantages of learning English through task- and project-based learning in bilingual indigenous students. The analysis of the study was developed through the method of systematization of experience. Results suggest that the two learning approaches enhanced indigenous students’ speaking skills and facilitated vocabulary recognition. However, the students mentioned being more interesting in learning English for specific purposes.

This paper reports on the first phase of an exploratory qualitative study carried out with in-service language teachers pursuing a graduate degree in Colombia. It aims at analyzing their practices, needs, and challenges, examined under two perspectives—the teacher as a learner and the teacher as a teacher. The study made use of interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires as the primary sources of data. Data analysis included a grounded theory approach and the use of coding, triangulation, and validation procedures. Results unveiled the difficulties that current in-service teachers have in different domains (cognitive, metacognitive, and linguistic), and also inform how the teaching challenges within their specific contexts influence their beliefs, practices, learning and teaching outcomes, and their professional growth. The study presents both theoretical and applied considerations to tackle the needs and challenges reported, aiming at offering a systematic analysis and approach for the endorsement of reflection, and thus, setting milestones for the enhancement of effective professional development for language teachers in educational communities such as in Colombia as well as overseas.

This article reports the fndings of a descriptive case study that analyzed how unfair social relationships established in an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) classroom influenced a group of adolescent English language learners’ academic investment and identity construction at a school in Bogotá, Colombia. Data associated with students’ social behaviors and identities were collected through feld notes, a questionnaire, and an interview. Norton’s theory of identity and investment served as the basis to analyze the data from a social perspective. Three main fndings emerged from the data: First, EFL learners identifed themselves as high investors and low investors in their learning, depending on their own opinions about the usefulness of English in their lives. Second, power relationships based on domination and oppression reduced productive investment in the classroom. Third, some high investors resisted unfair relationships of power by investing through collaborative learning. Consequently, participants created diverse English learners’ identities (dominant, submissive, resistant, and productive), which influenced their academic investment negatively or positively.

A classroom-based case study was conducted as part of this research project to understand situations experienced by a group of students during their English classes. The students’ complaints and expectations in each context were identified. An overall workshop (Egg, 1999) was introduced in order to recognise such situations. The information collected through students’ complaints and expectations was processed on the basis of critical discourse analysis (Van Dijk, 2003), in addition to its interpretations from the perspectives of pedagogy and the theory of recognition (Honneth, 1997), thus, allowing to reveal students’ expectations of English classes beyond their complaints. These characteristics are related to educational categories and teachers’ qualities as regards professionalism, warmth and interaction. The lack of these expected characteristics and qualities makes meaningful English learning difficult because students are unable to experience fair conditions that are essential for their educational process in order to become comprehensive citizens, recognised in terms of love, law and solidarity.

The aim of this paper is to examine the identity of foreign language (FL) pre-service teachers in two distinct contexts: Brazil and Chile. A multiple case study methodology was used to investigate how foreign language pre-service teachers develop and conceptualize their teacher identity in three different teacher education programs—two in Brazil and one in Chile. The analysis focused on three main issues: emerging identities, the role of foreign language proficiency, and the practicum as a mediating space to develop teacher identity. Results of the two case studies situated in Brazil suggest that FL pre-service teacher identity is shaped by their beliefs on language proficiency. The case study in Chile confirmed that pre-service teachers’ identity oscillates between identifying as students and as teachers. Overall, results of the study suggest that FL teacher identity is shaped by notions of legitimization of the teacher’s role and language proficiency.

La presente antología está conformada por catorce textos teóricos en torno a la literatura fantástica escritos por diversos autores hispanoamericanos a lo largo de un periodo de más de sesenta años. Esta simple descripción inicial debería llamar la atención pues implica conceptos que no relacionamos tan frecuentemente como quisiéramos: en primer lugar, una tradición tan duradera de pensamiento abstracto latinoamericano; en segundo, un esfuerzo compilatorio que los reconoce, los ordena y propone con ellos un sentido; en tercer lugar, el propio objeto, lo fantástico literario, como un tema digno de suscitar dichos fenómenos.

Amparo Dávila, junto con otros autores hispanoamericanos del siglo pasado (Julio Cortázar, Juan José Arreola, Rosario Ferré, Francisco Tario, entre otros) explora en sus cuentos posibilidades de lo fantástico que trascienden los parámetros positivistas en que se basa el relato sobrenatural clásico. El cuento "El huésped" demanda del lector una participación decisiva que va más allá de la duda epistémica entre lo real y lo imaginario que suele provocar el relato fantástico tradicional, pues le ofrece enigmas en el plano simbólico que remiten a problemas de carácter ético y existencial. En esta nota se ensaya una aproximación hermenéutica y con perspectiva de género al cuento de Dávila a partir de la detección significativa de temas y motivos procedentes del mito y de los cuentos de hadas.