Decolonizing ELT: Diversity, difference, and teaching practices

Decolonizing ELT in
Colombia: Difference,
diversity, and practices.
Yamith José Fandiño Parra
October 2020

INTRODUCTION
 How do you interpret these pictures? What do they say about
teaching and schooling?
 Based on these mindsets, how do one should decolonize the
education of student teachers?

ACCOUNTING FOR DIFFERENCE AND DIVERSITY IN LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND LEARNING IN COLOMBIA
Methods… Methods
• An increasing interest has emerged in the way the languages spoken in
countries can be taught and learned… As a result, several different
approaches and methods have developed which consider different views such
as habit formation, innate capabilities, cognitive processes as well as
contextual and situational factors, among others.
• The proliferation of methods might make one think that they provide different
alternatives to teaching and learning a language, but a critical analysis
concludes that they offer a superficial view of the same phenomenon from
similar fundamentals.
• Despite their variety, none of them go beyond linguistic or functional
postulates since the scope of those methods is limited to the development of
linguistic skills or to the use of the language in specific situations.

Methods: Objections and myths
• A top-down perspective of language learning: Teaching and learning must match
or accommodate a specific prescriptive methodology already pre-established.
• An ambiguous notion: Teachers do not really show attachment to a specific
method. Instead, they adjust their teaching to elements of different
methodologies.
• A perfect or single method: Adopting language-teaching methods seems to be
insufficient when trying to promote tolerance, equity, and recognition, as well as
respect for others.
• Overall organizing principle of all language teaching: Basing materials, curriculum
design, syllabus, instructional strategies and testing techniques on a “chosen
method” disregards the local daily context in which they take place, which in turn
overlooks contextual oppressing needs and priorities of the population.

• A universal and historical value: This perspective would just favor top-down
dynamics and would not account for local individual situations, mobility,
change, wants and interests.
• Standardizing language teaching: Policy makers hold the misleading belief
that, by importing models, they are proposing the same goals to be attained
for all citizens and following equally foreign methodological prescriptions.
• Teachers as theory implementers: Teachers do not base their professional
action on theory, but instead they seem to rely more on the empirical
knowledge they have gained through experience.

• Brown (2002), Allwright, (1991) and Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2003, 2006)
Methods should not be emphasized. Instead, teachers should know how to
create their own “eclectic methodology”.
• Larsen-Freeman (2000)
Methods should not be prescriptions or impositions on teachers. They are help
for professional growth in terms of expanding the teachers’ repertoire and of
providing teachers with different options to choose and decide what to do in the
classroom.
• Cruz-Arcila (2013)
Adopting teaching methods is ineffective for two main reasons. First, methods
by nature do not respond to the particularities of every context; second,
methods do not present options for inclusion and support for people who have
diverse needs and realities.

A redefined post-method pedagogy
• Particularity: It favors local, specific needs that are not intended to be widely
generalized and are created in a bottom-up dynamic.
• Practicality: It is a call for theorizing what is being done as well as putting into
practice what has been theorized - all mediated by research.
• Possibility: It is about being aware of the students’ socio-cultural conditions as
well as of their linguistic needs, to integrate these conditions in their classrooms
in a way that is balanced for all.
Locally Global / Globally local: Glocal perspective
• Globalization is causing the world to denigrate local knowledge at the global level
and to glorify global knowledge at the local level.
• Language teaching actions and policies need to be rooted not only on exolingual
interests, but also on endolingual concerns.
• Language teachers are called to mediate between local and global perspectives, in
order to promote intercultural communication and awareness.

Action Research
• Language teachers are faced with teaching practices that are based on a
particular population’s needs and wants.
• Observation, reflection, action and evaluation should now be at the core of our
professional action. Teachers are currently expected not only to teach a language,
but also to innovate and look for new alternatives.
• Teachers need to know how to improve their practices by proposing solutions to
problems, implementing them, reflecting on their impact, adapting their action
and being in constant search of improvement.
• Action research is highlighted here since it is appropriate for locally acting on an
issue of interest, a problem or an attempt to change.
• By researching, teachers will also be working for their own professional
development as producers, not only consumers, of theory.

 Based on postmethod pedagogy and action research, what do
you make of the following process? What does it mean to you?

DECOLONIZING LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ TEACHING PRACTICES
THROUGH A POSTMETHOD PEDAGOGY
“In spite of having the Bilingualism program in Colombia, the educational sector has
huge challenges to fulfill the bilingualism ideal levels (Spanish-English), in particular
in what refers to the offer of qualified English language teachers” (Sánchez, 2013,
p.5)…
Programs like “Teaching in Foreign Languages- the challenge” (Formar en lenguas
extranjeras- el reto, 2009) and nowadays, “Bilingual Colombia”, (Colombia Bilingue)
do not belong to what Colombian people’s educational situations entail, neither they
take into consideration students’ reality, background, and culture.
In this perspective, language teachers, institutions and students need to consider
English learning as a way to recognize their own culture to start decolonizing
teaching and learning practices.
Schools and teachers should incorporate students’ own culture, context and local
knowledge into the institutions’ curriculum to support meaningful learning.
In this perspective, it becomes relevant to understand teaching through a post
method pedagogy.

Language view considerations
• Traditionally, learning a language is a matter of mastering its grammatical system.
• Recently, learning a language implies an understanding that through language
people establish relationships with others, acquire and share knowledge, express
their thoughts and feelings, create their identity and recognize their culture and
someone else’s culture too.
 Language is a way of identity, who I am and who you are, and the way both of us
use language to pursue communicative purposes.
 Language is as a means of power and domination. People can create perspectives
of the world according to certain points of view and they try to convince others or
to impose such beliefs and thoughts through language.
 Language is a tool for adopting certain positions of consciousness about the use
of it and what people can achieve through it depending on peoples’ backgrounds,
and the spaces for communication in which language takes place.

Importance of language teachers’ local knowledge in a post method pedagogy
Language teachers need to:
• recognize the existence of more than one method to pursuit language teaching
and learning goals.
• move from being passive technicians (teaching as content transmission) into
acting as reflective practitioners (teaching as context understanding) and
transformative intellectuals (teaching as social change).
• take advantage of their teaching experiences to construct their own theory and
improve their own teaching practices as a means to work through their own
contexts and their own students’ realities.
• be aware of the power and political forces behind educational policies and the
need to transform these realities through their own practices.

Considerations for Decolonizing Teaching Practices
• Decolonization is a process of taking control of the principals and practices of
planning, learning and teaching English.
1. Gaining awareness of what decolonization implies: Freeing oneself from imposed
discourses, inequal relationships, and homogenizing processes.
2. Recognizing decolonization as a process: Devoting time towards working in and
out the classroom to strengthen meaningful learning and decision-making
regarding planning and teaching.
3. Understanding the importance of proposing and designing a theory from one’s
practice: Reflecting about every day's actions and realities and doing research to
understand and transform them.
4. Provoking students’ reactions: Having students question their own conceptions,
while at the same time encouraging them to examine their identity.
5. Being aware of the social, economic, psychological dimensions and policies of the
school and the region, the systems in which they develop pedagogical tasks.

Decolonizing teaching practices is a reflection activity about teachers’ role in
teaching, not just as knowledge facilitators, but also as change agents. Educators are
not just theory consumers; they need to take an active and positive attitude towards
the transformation of a curriculum that includes students’ needs and interests.
Following the idea above, to what extent do you think ELT education programs are
preparing student teachers to decolonize their learning practices and discourses so
that they are ready to decolonize those of their students?
How do you think ELT education programs should prepare student teachers to
assume critical positions on what is going on around them?

References
Avella, A., & León, G. (2016) Decolonizing Language Teachers’ Teaching
Practices through a Postmethod Pedagogy. Enletawa Journal, 9 (1), 69-85.
Cruz Arcila, F. (2013). Accounting for Difference and Diversity in Language
Teaching and Learning in Colombia. Educación y educadores, 16(1), 80-92.
Drinkwater, M. A. (2014). Democratizing and Decolonizing Education: A Role
for the Arts and Cultural Praxis: Lessons from Primary Schools in Maasailand,
Southern Kenya (Ph.D thesis, University of Toronto).
https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/68232/1/Drinkwater_Mary_A
_201411_PhD_thesis.pdf

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