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The Wisdom of Teachers’ Personal Theories: Creative ELT Practices From Colombian Rural Schools
La importancia de las teorías personales de los profesores: prácticas creativas de la enseñanza del inglés en colegios rurales colombianos
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v20n2.67142Keywords:
Critical pedagogy, English language teaching practices, teacher knowledge, rural contexts (en)conocimiento docente, contextos rurales, pedagogía crítica, prácticas de enseñanza del inglés (es)
Stemming from a study of what it is like to teach English in rural Colombia considering both English language teaching policy and social challenges of these contexts, this paper explores different locally grounded English language teaching practices. Through the analysis of teachers’ narratives and field observations, four examples of such practices are discussed. These examples highlight how teachers intuitively tend to make the most of their expertise, the limited resources available, and the local lingua-cultural repertoires in an attempt to help students make sense of English. From the perspective of language teaching as a socially sensitive practice, findings suggest that teachers’ own experiential and situational knowledge constitutes a powerful platform from which valuable bottom-up practices are and can further be devised.
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