Perspective on Social Justice
Education and Leadership in Glocalization : What does “think globally, act locally” mean for education around the world?
21-24
2014
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access and use of ICT have increased in recent years, they are still major disadvantages in rural institutions
see Fedesarrollo, 2011; MEN, 2010. In these circumstances, rural EFL teachers count on less
resources and more difficult conditions to try to meet the learning goals described above. In terms of
professional development, rural EFL teachers, especially those who work in remote locations, find
additional constraints to have access to the opportunities of professional development offered by
the MEN
2
. Even if they do, as suggested in a previous study Bonilla Medina Cruz-Arcila, 2013, they
might not find training in mainstream language teaching methodologies as useful as alternative
modalities of professional growth oriented to understand and get involved in the local community.
This is certainly true in the case of Jaraba Ramírez and Arrieta Carrascal 2012 who through ethnographical
approaches could reach a better understanding of cultural practices of a group of rural indigenous EFL
students; and based on that, device their own methodological strategies to make learning English
more meaningful in their school.
To make things more problematic, at least in my view, although the language policy is aimed to have a nation-
wide coverage, the complexities of the rural EFL classroom have remained invisible. In the national
context, public discourses on bilingualism or foreign language teaching hardly ever include or address the
rural classroom. Perhaps, due to the urban- centeredness of the country, attention and awareness of
what happens in the rural classroom have proved to be insufficient. Even local researchers seem to have fallen
into the mainstream dinamics of urbanism and the real complexities and opportunities of the rural classroom
are still to be visibilised. The idea that in the current language policy local teachers are invisible has already
been pointed out by Guerrero 2010, who, in her critical discourse analysis of the document of standards
for teaching English and other public documents, argues that not only are Colombian teachers invisible
but also given the role of clercks and technicians
3
. However, I also argue that rural teachers, in particular,
have been hitherto excluded from academic discourses. In a review of publications of research reports of well-
known local journals in the field of ELT in Colombia, reference to the rural reality is limited to exporadic
allusions to how more difficult it must be for teachers in these locations to successfully teach English. The
study by Jaraba Ramírez and Arrieta Carrascal 2012 mentioned above represents, to the best of my
2
Currently the MEN offers opportunities for professional development in the form of inmersion
courses, English or methodology taught courses, and training in the use of virtual resources See MEN,
n.d.
3
In her study, Guerrero 2010 points out that local EFL teachers’ knowledge and voices have been
knowledge, one of the very few research studies conducted in a rural milieu in this field up to 2012.