This paper reports the process of designing and partially implementing and evaluating a content-based and genre-oriented syllabus with a group of ninth graders at a public school in Barranquilla, Colombia. The syllabus sought to promote reading strategies in order to improve learners' comprehension of natural science texts. The results of this…

This article is a report of a pedagogical intervention which was developed with a group of seventh graders during their English as a foreign language class in a public school in Bogotá. It is part of an investigation in which the main purpose was to foster students' classroom interaction through the use of cooperative learning principles from a…

Teachers' knowledge and how they construct it is an area that deserves attention when it comes to producing fruitful professional development practices. This small-scale action research aims at identifying the perceptions of three teachers in a private language center about peer-coaching and their actual construction of knowledge in a…

This case study reports the analysis of the induction as a socialization process of a Colombian novice teacher of English. Since critical approaches to socialization highlight the role of novice teachers in critical school transformation during their induction stage, this study aims to disclose the teacher's possibilities of becoming an agent of…

This research report shares the findings that emerged from a qualitative study in which the main objective was to discover whether or not novice English as a foreign language teachers regulate their negative emotions during their initial teaching practice, and if so, how they do this. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews and…

This case study explores the relationship between the results obtained by a group of Industrial Engineering students on a national standardized English test and the impact these results had on language program improvement. The instruments used were interviews, document analysis, observations, surveys, and test results analysis. Findings indicate…

The teaching and learning of English as a foreign language has a long tradition within the Mexican public education system. Unfortunately, this endeavor has been unsuccessful for the most part throughout the country. In this paper, we share and compare the results of two studies, ten years apart, whose data collections were carried out in very…

While much has been written about the use of instructional materials in the field of language education, very few studies have actually studied the impact of the context in the use of materials in teachers' practices. This work shows the findings of a study about the contextual factors that a group of experienced Mexican teachers believe shaped…

This article reports on a qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative research intervention case study of English as a foreign language students' construction of perceptions on social issues found in famous works of art. Participants in this study engaged in the practice of critical thinking as a strategy to appreciate art that expresses social…

A group of university students used a variety of personal portable devices (cellphones, tablets, laptops, and netbooks) which distracted them in English class. This qualitative action research aimed to implement activities entailing the use of such devices and to learn their impact on students' learning and the use of English in class. Thus, a…

This article reports on an action research study that focused on developing the distinct multiple intelligences of an English class of fifth graders through interest centers at a Colombian school. A multiple intelligences questionnaire, an open-ended observation form, and a student mini-report sheet were used to collect data. Findings revealed…

This article aims at exploring the beliefs of a group of pre-service teachers from a B.Ed. program in Bilingual Education in Bogotá (Colombia), regarding their role as teachers in some general pedagogical and emotional aspects of their primary school students inside the classroom. They were observed over 16 weeks during their pre-service practice…

Over the past few decades, information and communication technologies have been integrated into the language teaching and learning scenario with relatively great success. Accordingly, teachers' role in this process is fundamental in order to make this integration really relevant for students' learning. This paper reports the results obtained in a…

This article focuses on the way in which technology-based activities may shape and characterize students' awareness of their own learning processes and their understanding of autonomy. The study was carried out at a public university in Colombia. Data collection was done through the implementation of class observations, a survey, and some focus…

This article reports a case study conducted at a school in Bogotá. It was based on constructivist and poststructuralist frameworks that viewed gender positioning as a social construction in foreign language learning contexts (Baxter, 2003; Sunderland, 1992; Tannen, 1996). Aiming to understand how ninth grade gender positioning is constructed, and…