This qualitative ethnographic study investigates students' agency of a language policy in a Colombian public university. Participants were 85 undergraduate students, and data collection involved document analysis, non-participatory observation, a questionnaire, and a portfolio. Three categories emerged from the analysis: acceptance, rejection, and…

This study describes the factors that enhanced students' construction of arguments when participating in culturally infused discussions at an undergraduate English as a foreign language British Culture course. The research was conducted at a university in Northwestern Colombia. This paper presents a section of the results of a larger project whose…

Learner autonomy is a vibrant and diverse field. In its approximately 40-year history, it has drawn liberally on theoretical constructs and research methodologies from other disciplines. In turn, it has contributed to the field of applied linguistics by drawing attention to the fundamental importance of understanding the language learner as an…

This article provides an overview of how student-teachers and the pedagogical practicum are conceived in the Colombian English language teaching field. The study reviewed 72 articles in three levels of analysis: extraction of corresponding knowledge, epistemic review, and concatenation of emergent insights. The analysis reveals that…

As part of a large study aiming to understand how kindergarten children in Colombia used translanguaging during independent play, Paula (the teacher) along with Dr. Moses (lead researcher) co-designed a 6-week play-based intervention that included a variety of learning experiences such as partner reading, small-group reading, and supported play,…

Virtual exchange (VE) has gained prominence as a means to improve students' intercultural competence and foreign language abilities through forums and other supplemental activities. This study examines a supplemental activity referred to as the student-generated survey (SGS) implemented in the IVEProject, a large-scale VE with, at the time of this…

Many higher education (HE) systems in the Global South have prioritised English language education (ELE), including in Colombia where English has become the dominant foreign language of HE. However, little is known about its effects on the lives of HE students from low-income backgrounds. Addressing this knowledge gap is critical to ensure that…

Learning a foreign language incorporates cognitive, communicative, emotional, and social aspects. Some of these aspects have to do with the structure of the language being studied; some others deal with social and psychological issues that influence the environment where the learning process takes place. This reflection paper addresses various…

Even when proficiency in foreign languages has emerged as a critical skill to foster academic, professional, and personal growth, there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding the relation between language learning strategies (LLS) and communicative competence in English among Colombian high school students. This investigation used an…

English as a Second Language (ESL) is a mandatory class for international students when they come to study abroad, particularly those who come from unspoken English country. This study aims to identify the correlation between learning styles and attitude of AIIAS ESL students and their academic achievement. The respondents of this study were…

Conversation clubs are excellent resources for practicing a new language. They bring together individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds to engage in enriching language activities and discussions that promote intercultural consciousness and intercultural skills. While previous studies have emphasized the importance of conversation…

ChatGPT employs a deep learning (DL) model constructed using artificial neural networks and designed to analyze input data and extract increasingly complex features (Hu and Buehler 2023). Its chatbot interface makes it easy to use, requiring just a prompt to generate a response from the model. It is capable of producing fluent text in multiple…

Smartphones accompany international students as they adapt to different contexts during their stay abroad. In this empirical study, we examined how a group of international students (n=10) in France used their smartphones during the eight-week lockdown that imposed on everyone a stay-at-home order and allowed minimal physical contact (April and…

This paper reports on a mixed methods study which explored whether English medium instruction (EMI) fosters the development of intercultural competence (IC) in students (n = 91) in eight courses taught by seven professors in two Colombian universities. Voluntary participants, through surveys, focus groups, and interviews, perceived that students…

This article provides a comprehensive qualitative synthesis of EFL writing studies published in Colombian journals between 1990 and 2020. We synthesised 63 research reports regarding authorship, publication year, focus, methodology (context, participants, research paradigm, design, and data collection methods and analyses), validity, reliability,…