Evaluative Report

MA Applied Imagination in the Creative Industries

Jennifer Arbeláez Miranda

We Teach!
A toolkit for Colombian English Teachers.

English in Colombia

Teaching and Learning English in Colombia has been a challenge. Even if Colombians
identify and recognize English as an important tool for their professional and
academic lives, according to the British Council (2015) just approximately the 4,1% of
the population speaks this language. These numbers are relevant because even if
Colombians consider English important and “necessary”, they don’t use it.

English Language Teaching (ELT) is a controversial field in Colombia. It has faced a lot of
changes in the last years. There are a lot of different opinions about how English should be
taught. Some of them are very traditional based on old methodologies which are focused on
repetition, grammar and non-contextualized teaching. Others are focused on authentic and
natural communication, perceiving students as the center of learning.

Unfortunately, during this year (2020), Colombian Language teaching has faced more
changes and challenges due to the Covid-19. Aguirre (2020) said: “Safety considerations
directed by rulers and instructed by health organizations, disbanded apprehensions to new
teaching methods, therefore, one day, despite having predictable results, teachers of all
ages and social conditions were building online plans and adapting contents to platforms”.
Moving in-site classes to Online spaces has meant starting again in teaching. Teachers were
not used to teach virtually and this has affected their teaching practices. As a consequence,
progress on implementing new methodologies has been delayed and teachers have had
problems to approach their students successfully.

Additionally, Colombian secondary bilingual schools created OEP (Online Educational

Programs) and DEP (Distance Educational Programs) by adapting what most of them
already had in place for the term or semester (Aguirre, 2020), which sometimes, can be also
a problem. Teachers have found some concerns: “Low performance students procrastinate
excessively as most of them do not have good time management and, when lacking
language skills, they will avoid at all cost making an extra effort alone after class”. Also,
Aguirre cited in his paper Loeb (2020) who said: “Students who struggle in in-person
classes are likely to struggle even more online. While the research on virtual schools in K-12
education doesn’t address these differences directly, a study of college students that I
worked on with Stanford colleagues found very little difference in learning for
high-performing students in the online and in-person settings. On the other hand, lower
performing students performed meaningfully worse in online courses than in in-person
courses”
As a Colombian Language Teacher, I have also faced this situation and I have talked with
students about how they feel in this new environment, and they do not feel comfortable,
since they thought that communication, time and activities were not approachable. On the
other side, colleges have also expressed that they feel demotivated with onlines classes,
they do not have enough resources for all students and sometimes they even feel that they
do not know how to prepare their classes to engage and connect all students.

This is why this project was born, as the necessity of supporting the teachers community to
continue teaching in the best way possible and that students could achieve the learning
goals proposed by teachers and institutions, taking as basis the following question:
“How can a toolkit enable Colombian English Teachers to adapt teaching practices to be
more agile in online and offline environments with young EFL learners?”

Toolkit for English Teachers

We Teach! is an in-process toolkit for Colombian English teachers. Its idea is to collect and
create useful materials and experiences that can be used for teachers to improve their
teaching practices and their own teaching experience during these challenging times, as well
as meaningful ideas to use when they start again in-person classes.

The toolkit and the interventions are based on 4 pillars: classroom practices, teaching
practices, teaching activities and teaching strategies.

1. Classroom Practices

They are an essential aspect in the education field, since they help to identify problems or
point out strengths to improve teaching and learning processes.
It is necessary to state that there is not only a single definition of classroom practices,
considering that this is such a big item that involves everything that happens inside the
classroom.

First, Leithwood and Jantzi (2006) in their research Transformational school leadership for
large-scale reform: Effects on students, teachers, and their classroom practices, defined it as
a whole of: teachers’ motivation, capacities, and work settings and the intentions of
improving students' learning. Also, they exposed that the practices changed according to
students’ needs and responses.

Second, Classroom practices in the study Technology and classroom practices: An

international study by Kozma (2003), were perceived from an innovative and technological
view, associating the concept with desirable teacher and student outcomes, and
consequently, involving the teacher and student practice inside the classroom.

Taking into account the previous information, I came up with my own definition of classroom
practices regarding my intentions for this research. Thus, classroom practices are
understood as some specific teaching issues that involve the students learning, it means
teaching activities, teaching strategies, teaching practices and in some way how students
answer those issues.
 2. Teaching practices

According to Gower, Phillips and Walters (2005) teaching practices are focused on four
aspects: “1) sensitivity of problems to language use for learners, 2) sensitivity of how
learners learn, the skills they need, the strategies they employ and the problems they have;
3) classroom management skills, 4) teaching techniques” (p.1)

3. Teaching activities

Regarding teaching activities, Richards and Schmidt (2010) defined them as "any classroom
procedure that requires students to use and practice their available language resources"
(p.9). It means that is anything that the teacher does in order to foster the use of the
language inside the classroom.

4. Teaching strategies

This is the way chosen by teachers to teach, they analyze, observe and reflect about the
students and contexts’ needs in order to come up with a strategy that fills those necessities
and encourages all the students in the learning process. Stephen (2006) proposed an
approach called Strategy Instruction. Here, he claimed that “Strategy instruction has the
power to transform passive students into active learners equipped with the tools to promote
strategic planning and independent reflection”. It means that the use of strategies in the
classroom is extremely necessary to improve the learning process and transform low
learners into advanced and proficient students.

Interventions: Teachers’ Online sessions

To build this toolkit and develop this research project, interventions were seen as an
opportunity to involve stakeholders in the creative process of creation of this teaching tool
and not only see them as the participants that are providing feedback.

Eight sessions with English teachers from three different institutions and cities in Colombia
were done. Each session had a specific purpose:

● Session #1: ​We Teach! Instagram Account (August 28th-Ongoing)

● Session #2: ​Digital Boards
● Session #3: ​Sharing Experiences
● Session #4: ​Creative Photography in ESL
● Session #5: ​Assessment Tools
● Session #6: ​Teaching Strategies
● Session #7: ​First Expert Talk
● Session #8: ​Podcast - Trailer

During the interventions, I could identify teachers’ needs and concerns. Also, it was
rewarding to know more about different educational contexts and real-life situations of how
teachers face their daily life in different times due to the Covid-19. On the other hand,
throughout the process, a lot of challenges were faced, but the most relevant was dealing
with teachers' time. They are always really busy and sometimes, it was complex to find a
simultaneous space to have the session. However, this difficulty was the beginning of a
different approach that was applied in the last 2 sessions where I searched different options
to approach teachers in a suitable way for them.

Conclusion

Colombian English Teachers in general are busy people, they are always full of stuff to do,
work to check and grade, meetings, training sessions, lesson planning, etc. It is crucial to
understand each teacher's context and situation. During the interventions, it was evident that
even if they needed support and they were engaged with the project, time was a negative
factor that affected their effective participation in the project activities. This is an important
element to point out, since it is a reality and it means that it is necessary to look for other
strategies to approach the stakeholders and obtain better responses.

Consequently, they need a tool of easy access that provides them quick and meaningful
resources, they can use for their classes or to organize themselves. The tool needs to be
catchy, intuitive and flexible, so all teachers can access easily.

That is why, I decided that the most suitable tool for them was the production of a podcast.
Thus, I started We Teach! podcast. It is a production of 5 short mini podcasts episodes.
They will cover topics based on the 4 pillars of the research project. The trailer is ready and
some teachers have already listened to it and provided feedback. It is an ongoing project
that will continue even after the conclusion of the MA. The coming future interventions and
actions will settle on podcast ideas that include and engage more English teachers and the
educational community.