Enacting Agency and Valuing Rural Identity by Exploring Local Communities in the English Class

• Autores: Lucelly Paredes-Mendez, Ingrid Alexandra Troncoso-Rodriguez, Sandra Patricia Lastra Ramírez
• Localización: Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development, ISSN 1657-0790, ISSN-e 2256-5760, Vol. 23, Nº. 1, 2021, págs. 125-142
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • This article reports on an action research study about the exploration of local communities to enact agency and value rural identity. Thirty-three students from a rural public school in Colombia participated in the study. Our aim was to examine ways in which students enacted agency as a result of participating in local community inquiry to realize the predominant value of their identity as farmers. Data were gathered through a focus group, interviews, students’ artifacts, and teacher journals. Results showed that when communities are linked with classroom practices and foreign language learning, English becomes a vehicle to explore their places, who they are as members of the community, and how to promote decision making to help others.