Intercultural Practices in an EFL Classroom: E-Book

Daniel Alirio Cruz Bernal

• Herausgeber: Editorial de la Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia - UPTC
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Spanisch

Seitenzahl: 126

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

This book is intended for English language teachers who are concerned about comprehending how diversity might take place in EFL classrooms. It is easy to think of all language learners as similar- they are all learning English. The reality is that diverse groups of English as a foreign language learners bring to the classroom substantial differences. As such, this book is an attempt to honor the group of students we worked with and their territories. We looked at interculturality as an opportunity to learn from the rich cultural background of our students. The four participants in this qualitative case study belonged to a Language Institute at a public university in Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. They unveiled the intercultural practices they nurture while participating in intercultural encounters as part of their EFL classes. By sharing dialogical spaces, our participants let us listen to their voices which honor rural territories and local practices. This research study helped us to denormalized knowledges that have been usually vanished in academia.

Leseprobe

ENFOQUE:INVESTIGACIÓN

ÁREA: HUMANIDADES

Colección N°. 305

Intercultural Practices in an EFL Classroom: Visibilizing Rural Territories in Colombia

Prácticas Interculturales en un Aula de Enseñanza de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera: Visibilizando los Territorios Rurales en Colombia

Primera Edición, 2024

100 ejemplares (impresos)

© Daniel Alirio Cruz Bernal, 2024

© Bertha Ramos Holguín, 2024

© Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, 2024

ISBN (impreso) 978-958-660-912-8

ISBN (ePub) 978-958-660-913-5

Impreso y hecho en Colombia - Printed and made in Colombia

Intercultural Practices in an EFL Classroom: Visibilizing Rural Territories in Colombia / Prácticas Interculturales en un Aula de Enseñanza de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera: Visibilizando los Territorios Rurales en Colombia / Cruz Bernal, Daniel Alirio; Ramos Holguín, Bertha. Tunja: Editorial UPTC, 2024. 152 p.

ISBN (impreso) 978-958-660-912-8

ISBN (ePub) 978-958-660-913-5

Incluye referencias bibliográficas.

1. Diversity. 2. Interculturality. 3. Intercultural Practices. 4. Territories. 5. Rurality.

(Dewey 370/21) (THEMA - JNA - Filosofía y teoría de la educación)

Rector, UPTC

Enrique Vera López

Comité Editorial

Carlos Mauricio Moreno TéllezVicerrector de Investigación y Extensión

Yolanda Torres PérezDirectora de Investigaciones

Bertha Ramos HolguínDelegada Vicerrectoría Académica

Martín Orlando Pulido MedellínRepresentante Área Ciencias Agrícolas

Yolima Bolívar SuárezRepresentante Área Ciencias Médicas y de la Salud

Nelsy Rocío González GutiérrezRepresentante Área Ciencias Naturales

Olga Yanet Acuña RodríguezRepresentante Área Ciencias Sociales

Juan Guillermo Díaz BernalRepresentante Área Humanidades

Pilar Jovanna Holguín TovarRepresentante Área Artes

Edgar Nelson López LópezRepresentante Área Ingeniería y Tecnología

Juan Sebastián González SanabriaRepresentante Grupos de Investigación

Editor

Óscar Pulido Cortés

Corrección de Estilo

Nelson Zorro Gutiérrez

Diagramación formato digital

Andrés A. López Ramírez

Libro de investigación resultado del proyecto titulado “Los Sentidos de la Formación en Lenguas Extranjeras en Zonas Rurales en Boyacá, Colombia: el Caso de Samacá, con SGI 3178.

Citar este libro / Cite this book

Cruz Bernal, D. & Ramos Holguín, B. (2024). Intercultural Practices in an EFL Classroom: Visibilizing Rural Territories in Colombia. Editorial UPTC.doi: https://doi.org/10.19053/9789586609128

Libro financiado por la Vicerrectoría de Investigación y Extensión - Dirección de Investigaciones de la UPTC. Se permite la reproducción parcial o total, con la autorización expresa de los titulares del derecho de autor. Este libro es registrado en Depósito Legal, según lo establecido en la Ley 44 de 1993, el Decreto 460 de 16 de marzo de 1995, el Decreto 2150 de 1995 y el Decreto 358 de 2000.

Editorial UPTC

La Colina, Bloque 7, Casa 5

Avenida Central del Norte No. 39-115, Tunja, Boyacá

[email protected]

www.uptc.edu.co

https://editorial.uptc.edu.co

Abstract

This book is intended for English language teachers who are concerned about comprehending how diversity might take place in EFL classrooms. It is easy to think of all language learners as similar- they are all learning English. The reality is that diverse groups of English as a foreign language learners bring to the classroom substantial differences. As such, this book is an attempt to honor the group of students we worked with and their territories. We looked at interculturality as an opportunity to learn from the rich cultural background of our students. The four participants in this qualitative case study belonged to a Language Institute at a public university in Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. They unveiled the intercultural practices they nurture while participating in intercultural encounters as part of their EFL classes. By sharing dialogical spaces, our participants let us listen to their voices which honor rural territories and local practices. This research study helped us to denormalized knowledges that have been usually vanished in academia.

Keywords: diversity, interculturality, intercultural practices, territories

Resumen

Este libro está dirigido a profesores de inglés interesados en comprender la manera como la diversidad se dá en las clases de inglés como lengua extranjera. Es fácil pensar que todos los aprendices de idiomas son similares. De hecho, todos están aprendiendo inglés; sin embargo, la realidad es que diversos grupos de aprendices de inglés traen con sigo diferencias sustanciales. Por lo anterior, este libro es un esfuerzo por reconocer a los participantes de esta investigación y sus territorios. Analizamos la interculturalidad como una oportunidad para aprender de los contextos culturalmente ricos de nuestros estudiantes. Los cuatro participantes de este estudio de caso cualitativo pertenecían a un instituto de idiomas en una universidad pública en Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. Ellos dieron a conocer las prácticas interculturales que cultivaban mientras participaban en encuentros interculturales como parte de sus clases de Inglés como Lengua Extranjera. En su participación en estos espacios dialógicos, los participantes nos permitieron escuchar sus voces que, a la vez, reconocían sus territorios rurales y las prácticas locales. Esta investigación nos ayudó a desnaturalizar conocimientos que, usualmente, son opacados en la academia.

Palabras clave:diversidad, interculturalidad, prácticas interculturales, territorios.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract

Resumen

COMPREHENDING ECOSYSTEMS

PLANTING THE SEEDS

FERTILIZING THE SOIL

Diversity in an EFL classroom

Interculturality as a possibility of social construction

Intercultural Practices in the Territory

Rurality

LEARNING ABOUT CROPS

Research Approach

Research Paradigm

Type of Study

Data Collection Instruments

Students’ Artifacts

Field Notes

Focus Groups

Audio-recording (transcripts)

Context

Participants

Sample

Ethical Issues

HARVESTING LEGACIES

Case study 1: Fray

Themes

Case study 2: Deisy

Themes

Case study 3: Santiago

Themes

Case study 4: Robin

Themes

Stretching the Territory through a Critical Intercultural Posture

The Integration of Local and Indigenous Saberes as a Guideline to Decolonize the Self, the Land, and the Curriculum

Individuals’ Intercultural Practices Understood as a Social Transformation Claim

PRESERVING THE GARDEN

References

COMPREHENDING ECOSYSTEMS

Colombia is known for being a diverse, multiethnic, and multicultural nation, as it was stated in the National Constituent Assembly in 1991, which recognized the ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity along the national territory. In our local educational contexts, classrooms integrate diversity as a melting pot where students construct and build sociocultural relationships. These are spaces where people’s divergences meet, providing an opportunity to share cultural knowledge and life experiences with others. As educators, we cannot put our teaching practices aside from the students’ realities and contexts. According to Ramos-Holguín (2017), comprehending participants’ cultural realities is a means to integrate their voices, cultural knowledges, legacy, and heritage. In essence, educators must value diversity in their classroom as a means to build bridges between home and meaningful learning. The aforesaid argument ties the need to reflect upon sociocultural realities in multiple backgrounds.

As part of the research group TONGUE, we have seen the need to question our roles as language teachers, since they are not only related to the teaching of the language, but they go further to understand our students’ personal histories. In fact, one of the research lines the group has promoted is linked to interculturality. In this sense, diverse research studies have been carried out by members of the group. One of the macro-projects the group is working with concerns the comprehensions of students from culturally diverse backgrounds and their academic achievements at the university level. The report that we present in this book embodies a small contribution to the macro-project that attempts to think of diversity deeply.

In this context, we understand that we are called not only to teach a language, but to motivate students to be active social agents when talking about their background and the world from different angles. Therefore, as educators, we recognize interculturality as an opportunity to construct “dialogue, respect, [and] harmony” (Ramos-Holguín, 2021a, p. 112) among individuals and their cultures.

This book, which reports a multiple case study aiming at unveiling the intercultural practices (IP) students nurture when participating in intercultural encounters, was carried out within a public university where undergraduate students attended the English II course at a language institute, which admits students from all the university undergraduate programs. In this context, students who partook in this study came from different regions of the country. This vital feature turned the classroom into a rich and diverse class where learners were provided with spaces for learning, caring for others, and growing as moral human beings. Nieto (2013) stated that participants deserve intercultural spaces to become active social members of their communities rather than subjects that need to be interculturally homogenized and/or enclosed to a singular worldview.

This book is divided into five chapters that describe how we have started to plant a tree. We used this metaphor because we are convinced that the teaching experiences we portray in this book provide other ways to think about the teaching of languages, offering a hopeful perspective of the need to think and behave based on an intercultural standpoint. Planting a tree advocates for the must to take time to think about the essential. In contemporary life we have become so hectic with our daily duties that we have lost the vital art of taking time to plant seeds and see how they grow little by little.

We are convinced that planting a tree means planting our future for a better society that comprehends there are different ways of being in the world. In the first chapter, Comprehending Ecosystems, we introduce the book and our interest to acknowledge that Colombia is a diverse and multicultural country where our roots and knowledges play an essential role in exploring local and foreign realities (Sarrazing, 2015). Therefore, as educators, we understand lessons cannot be restricted to grammar features, formulas, and linguistic patterns of the language, nor to the mere act of repeating audios, readings, videos, and more pieces of the target culture presented in textbooks or worksheets.

In the second chapter, Planting the Seeds, we present the problematic situation and argue that the students’ diversity cannot be overlooked in teaching and learning programs. Diversity plays an essential role in society’s social transformation processes. As a result, students’ cultural backgrounds, life stories, individualities, values, and families contribute to implementing an “orderly, rigorous, and caring learning environment” (Nieto, 2013, p. 99). Unfortunately, students’ voices and diversity are scarcely included in the syllabus or in language learning practices (Ramos-Holguín, 2021a). The syllabus gives priority to areas such as grammar and vocabulary over the inclusion of diversity.

The third chapter, Fertilizing the Soil, presents the scholars that have helped us to comprehend diversity, interculturality, and ruralities. The fourth chapter, Learning about Crops, is about the paths we walked in order to better select the way to approach the information collected. It also informs about the participants in our study and their diverse backgrounds. Chapter five, Harvesting Legacies, accounts for the way the data was analyzed and for the findings of the study. Once we disclosed each participant’s case, we explained how the cross-analysis was performed. Finally, chapter five, Preserving the Garden, provides the readers with key elements that remind us about the importance of remaining grounded in our roots.

PLANTING THE SEEDS

This study took place at a language institute in a public university in Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. In this institute, undergraduate students must take English courses from levels I to IV, which are a requisite for graduation. They also have the chance to take levels V and VI to continue to improve their English skills. The General Law of Education, Law 115 (Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 1994), recommends universities to plan and implement curriculums that respond to their students’ specific needs. Thus, this language institute mission is “to promote with academic excellence the learning of foreign languages according to the needs and interests of the university’s community and the local, regional, national, and international surroundings of the students” (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, 2009, p. 1).

In level II, students are supposed to be in a beginner English level. This means, that the participants could express their thoughts limited by a lack of language knowledge. However, they knew how to look up words they did not know in order to convey their message. That is the population we worked with in this study.

As English university teachers in this language institute, we have identified that the course syllabus, which works as a roadmap to guide the language instruction lessons, does not consider the students’ identities, diversity, nor their sociocultural backgrounds. The syllabus actually focuses on grammatical characteristics rather than focusing lessons on a student-centered posture where participants can express themselves through their life stories and life experiences. In fact, the syllabi are based on the textbook that is being used at the institute. In this sense, contents are pre-established. The English teachers have the possibility to adapt the contents. However, because of time constraints, they usually keep teaching the contents that are established in the textbook.

The figure 1 provides an example of the format, structure, and curriculum topics that need to be accomplished during the semester.

Figure 1

English Level II – Course Syllabus

As seen in the graph above, the English course syllabus is book-based, grammatically structured, and organized throughout the semester in a linear sequence of topics and vocabulary to memorize. However, students’ diverse sociocultural experiences are left out from the teaching and learning process. The syllabus copes with different language features such as vocabulary, grammar structures, and language skills that are presented in a disconnected sequence. This is linked with the input students receive in order to reproduce structures in written or oral discourses. Regrettably, the syllabus does not recognize diversity. Consequently, students do not have opportunities and spaces to learn, respect, and honor their cultural backgrounds.

Besides that, through informal conversations with students who participated in this study as well as with the analysis of the course syllabus, they expressed their nonconformity when developing long grammar tasks or activities in class. During these discussions, several students assured that they had even dropped the subject because of the lack of dynamism in the lessons. From the students’ conversations, we could identify that the English class was meaningless to them. The students reported that their experiences in English consisted in filling up long grammar workshops designed to complement their understanding of the topics.

Furthermore, upon reading research studies about interculturality, we came across with the finding that interculturality is still in continuing exploration and seeks to be a “must be” in our daily interactions (Cruz, 2013, p. 159). What has been widely explored in ELT is the concept of intercultural competence (IC) as a range of attitudes, and skills that individuals need to have for being intercultural. IC claims that teaching a language is strongly tied to teaching culture. Accordingly, IC has been discussed in the national context by a great number of authors, such as Jaramillo (2015), Gómez (2012), Ramos-Holguín (2013), and Hernández (2017). There is a general tendency to see IC as a set of abilities and skills that foster communication with individuals from other cultures. The abovementioned scholars described and implemented Byram’s (1997) model as a path to follow when developing abilities that help students to deal and interact with other cultures. From the scholars’ conversation, IC allows students to establish meaning and cross-cultural communication.

Nonetheless, IC opposes to what interculturality