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Check out this 1080p designed by Alexander Hoyos.

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Conceptualizing Teaching Acts - Infographic by JOSE ANTONIO ESPAÑA DELGADO

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Unvealing A Part of my Language Teacher Journey

As an in-service teacher with over five years' experience, I have identified some significant changes regarding my teacher identity. In this regard, teacher identity develops continuously from teaching experiences and social interactions (Macias, Hernandez & Gutierrez, 2020). This premise guides the reflection that follows on how my teacher identity developed from acknolwedeging realities beyond the classroom.

Before obtaining my bachelor's degree, I already worked as an English teacher and exclusively focused on teaching English language skills, namely, listening, reading, writing and speaking. This worldview guided my teaching acts throughout different private institutions that required of me English teaching only. However, I entered a new world when working at public schools. Although my main job was teaching English, I realised that such task would be impossible without considering variables present in local communities. I could not ignore that teaching English in rural areas would appear useless, considering that most of the student population finds it difficult to pursue higher education. Some students would say, "I do not need to speak English when harvesting coffee beans, teacher". Thus, the new reality challenged my teacher identity. I finally understood ideas taught in the undergraduate program that would highlight the importance of context. These contextual conditions referred not only to considering shallow variables, such as teaching vocabulary that was context-related but implied a deeper understanding of the human being living within specific contexts and having multiple identities. In this regard, I turned to life skills as the main philosophy in my teaching practices.

The previous experience aligns with Macias, Hernandez, and Gutierrez's (2020) ideas in that conflicts reshape teacher identity. In this regard, I found myself with realities that led to a teacher identity reconstruction, which was also co-constructed with local communities' lives. As the authors stated, teachers' understanding of their identity continues to expand with every new assessment of their identity. The more understanding we have about our mission, the more conflicts we shall encounter. In this sense, I currently wonder, am I actually addressing life skills? Is what I consider helpful for students' lives what they need? Thus, the cycle should repeat itself.

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The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education (2013)

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The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education (2013)

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What can you conclude?

The scope of second language teacher education will continue to expand, thus unveiling the need for teachers to embrace their role as agents of change.

What are the implications for your professional development?

I feel engaged with my professional development, so I aspire to understand better the scope of my role as an educator. In this task, I will have to deal with different variables that might affect my engagement.

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As educators, we need to consider our positioning constantly because the discourses we project consciously or unconsciously affect learners and us directly. In this sense, we assume positions towards all aspects of our professional and personal lives, which usually derive from inhereted contextual conditions. When we act withtout considering inhereted positions, we ignore what we think or how we feel regarding such worldviews. However, we can take a conscious position to resist, accept, or modify discourses so that we enact meaningful teaching practices for our students and advance in our professional development.

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Professional Development of EFL Teachers in Colombia: Between Colonial and Local Practices. González (2007)

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Professional Development of EFL Teachers in Colombia: Between Colonial and Local Practices. González (2007)

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Troublesome Policies Then and Now

Colombian's national educational authorities have launched several policies to promote bilingual education, such as the National Plan of Bilingualism (2004) and Bilingual Colombia (2014). However, these policies have failed to achieve their core goal, turning Colombia into a "bilingual country". In regards to the latter policy, González (2007) found it "inadequate" in the light of teachers' professional development because of several reasons, some of which continue to be troublesome upon fourteen years later the publication.

The model for professional development had issues deriving from the use of a foreign framework and foreign policymakers, which reflected on colonial views of "bilingualism" by focusing on English and Spanish and ignoring the existence of over 50 indigenous languages. Although indigenous populations are "acknowledged" at schools through school census, the notion of bilingualism maintains colonial because most teachers lack education that would enable them to integrate other languages than Spanish.

In the same line, González (2007) criticizes the disrespectful notion towards local knowledge because the policy ignores the Colombian literature. This notion continues to be a problem due to increased standardization in testing and curriculum and focus towards predominant foreign knowledge. The situation inspired the research project that I am conducting as part of the master's degree, considering that having a policy based on distant realities promoted decontextualised and unmeaningful teaching practices.

In short, the consequences of ignoring local knowledge are evident and shall continue to worsen if the model for professional development fails to be democratized. Thus, González' call stands relevant in that "the creation of mechanisms for respectful dialog between policymakers and teacher educators and researchers is a must".