A presentation with basic information from a qualitative study on language policy. This study was carried out with EFL in-service teachers in Bogotá, Colombia.

1. PROFESSIONAL EMPOWERMENT OF
EFL IN-SERVICE TEACHERS THROUGH
LANGUAGE POLICY AND DECISION
MAKING IN EFL NATIONAL PROGRAMS
50TH ASOCOPI ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Half a century making history in Colombia
ELT – Tracing back our footsteps
October 8, 9, and 10, 2015
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

2. CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Language policy: EFL, local level, national EFL programs, and Colombian ELT
community
 Methodology : paradigm, approach, design, questions, objectives, setting,
participants, data collection, data analysis.
 Findings: documents, surveys, and focus groups.
 Discussion
 Conclusion
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

3. INTRODUCTION
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

4. INTRODUCTION
It goes without saying that the implementation of language policies and the reach of teachers’ decision
making are highly connected to the acknowledgement of their voices as political and pedagogical agents.
Within the framework of national EFL programs, teachers' voices need to be heard as they are deeply
connected to the intellectual, emotional, and educational realities of their communities (Giroux, 1988).
By having their voice valued, EFL teachers can have access to opportunities where their concerns and
suggestions may transform the systems that exclude them, which in the long run can impact positively
their lives and those of their students.
This state of affairs demands the adoption and development of consistent and solid discourses aimed at
providing the EFL Colombian community with strategies to critically examine how linguistic and socio-
cultural practices are constructed, legitimated, and contested (Kubota, 2004).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

5. 1. LANGUAGE POLICY
Language policy (statements of intent) and planning (implementation) is defined as a set of
actions and processes, often large scale and national, usually undertaken by governments with
the purpose of influencing, if not changing, ways of speaking or literacy practices within a society
(Baldauf, 2004).
Baldauf proposed a framework that adopts a goal-orientation to the four activity types (i.e.,
status planning, corpus planning, language-in-education planning, and prestige planning) typically
used to define the discipline and examines these across policy and cultivation planning. He
suggests that awareness of such goals may be overt (explicit, planned) or covert (implicit,
unplanned), and may occur at several different levels (macro, meso, and micro).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

6. 1.1. LANGUAGE POLICY AND EFL
When talking about language policy and EFL teachers, Ricento and Hornberger (1996) pointed
out that this kind of policy may appear quite theoretical and far removed from the lives of many
English language teaching practitioners.
External politics has traditionally influenced which language or which variety of that language
learners will acquire, and what its function will be in their future life. Such traditional approach to
language policy regards this process as one already decided before the EFL professional enters
the classroom.
To them, this is unfortunate since EFL professionals are involved in the processes of language
planning and making. They claim that educational and social change in general and language
policy in particular need to begin with the grass roots (educators, parents, students, and
communities), as they are the ones in charge of mobilizing innovation in schools and in classes.
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

7. 1.2. LANGUAGE POLICY IN THE LOCAL OR MICRO LEVEL
Amir (2013) explained that, even though there are both implicit and explicit language policies,
interaction and sequential analyses expose how de facto practices enshrine in the local or micro
level of language policy. This level is understood as how a policy is played out in situ in the foreign
language classroom.
Such a term contrasts with a more fixed and static conceptualization of language policy, whereby
a prescribed set of norms are readily available for implementation. On the contrary, it aims to
capture the dynamic, co-constructed and situated nature of language policy as opposed to the
workplan conceived by the policy makers.
In brief and in line with a policy-in process approach, studies about the micro-level language
policy strive to shift their focus from the task-as-workplan to the task-in-process, i.e. what
actually happens in the classroom (p. 86).
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8. 1.3. LANGUAGE POLICY AND NATIONAL EFL PROGRAMS
The adequacy of the country's conditions for bilingualism: Few classroom hours dedicated to the teaching of
English, a shortage of materials and qualified teachers and few opportunities to use authentic English
communication (Cardenas, 2006).
The difficulties experienced by this project: Not simply a lack of interest or language level of Colombian
teachers, but a need to improve the conditions in which teaching and learning occur in Colombia (Sánchez &
Obando, 2008).
Little inclusion and large exclusion: Opportunities for some groups and individuals, but inequality and social
stratification based on standardization and instrumentalization (Usma, 2009).
Tension between language policy, curriculum guidelines and actual conditions in the schools: A lack of macro
and micro articulation to assume bilingual learning processes as a meaningful interplay between L1 and L2
(Fandiño, 2014).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

9. 1.4. LANGUAGE POLICY AND THE COLOMBIAN ELT COMMUNITY
The Colombian ELT community has not quite managed to open up real and concrete possibilities for EFL in-
service teachers to articulate and exercise realistically their personal and professional voices in their
institutions and regions. This is not simply related to helping them share their experiences, realities, and
worlds, but more importantly by providing them with spaces and processes, in which they can reflect
about the values, ideologies, and principles they use when understanding and mediating their histories
and subjectivities (McLaren, 2002).
In this regard, Becerra (2005) claimed that being the school a social microcosm, the forces around it are
present in teachers’ practices and discourses. To her, this demands from them becoming aware of what
they are doing and saying and reflecting critically how they might be favoring the continuation of unequal
practices and processes. Ultimately, teachers will become stronger and more autonomous as they become
more responsible in transforming reality and increasing their power to do it (p. 50).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

10. 2. METHODOLOGY: PARADIGM, APPROACH, AND DESIGN
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
BASIC QUALITATIVE RESEARCH DESIGN
In conducting a basic qualitative study, you seek to discover and understand a phenomenon, a process, the
perspectives and worldviews of the people involved, or a combination of these (Merriam, 2002, p. 6).
QUALITATIVE APPROACH
An approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human
problem (Creswell, 2014, p. 4).
INTERPRETIVIST/CONSTRUCTIVIST PARADIGM
Interpretivist/constructivist approaches to research have the intention of understanding "the world of human
experience" (Cohen & Manion, 1994, p.36), suggesting that "reality is socially constructed" (Mertens, 2005, p.12).

11. 2.1. METHODOLOGY: QUESTIONS, OBJECTIVES, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
• How do EFL in-
service teachers
interpret
national EFL
programs in
public schools in
Bogotá?
Research
question
• Explore meanings EFL in-
service teachers give to
national EFL programs
• Describe experiences EFL
in-service teachers have
when working with national
EFL programs.
Research
objectives •Two public schools south of
Bogotá.
• Colegio Cafam Santa Lucía and
Colegio Mercedes Nariño.
• 2nd or 3rd social strata.
•20 EFL in-service teachers.
• 3 -5 years experience in public
sector.
• Most with specializations in EFL
methodology and a few with
master’s degrees in education.
Research setting
and participants

12. 2.1. METHODOLOGY: DATA COLLECTION
Documents
Public and private records
that qualitative researchers
obtain, which provide
valuable information in
helping researchers
understand central
phenomena (Creswell, 2012,
p. 223).
Surveys
A procedure in which
investigators administer a
questionnaire to a sample in
order to identify and describe
trends in the attitudes,
opinions, behaviors, or
characteristics of a
population (Creswell, 2012, p.
376)
Focus groups
Process of collecting data
through interviews with a
group of people, typically
four to six. The researcher
asks a small number of
general questions and elicits
responses from all individuals
in the group (Creswell, 2012,
p. 218).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

13. 2.1. METHODOLOGY: DATA ANALYSIS (Chambliss & Schutt, 2012)
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA
Documentation
Conceptualization, coding and
categorizing
Examining relationshipts
and displaying data
Corraborating and
legitimazing
Reporting

14. 3. FINDINGS
DOCUMENTS
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

15. 3. FINDINGS
SURVEYS
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

16. 3. FINDINGS
FOCUS GROUP
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17. 4. DISCUSSION
Teacher decision making (Villareal, 2005)
Decision making is about making informed choices for solutions to classroom problems and issues. It is about
feeling capable to make these decisions. It is about teachers given a decision-making opportunity and getting the
organizational support to successfully implement these choices.
Teachers’ engagement in decision making can be defined at two levels: classroom level for individual judgments
and school level for collective judgments. Their involvement requires the development of both collective and
individual decision-making skills.
Teachers can demonstrate appropriate application of decision making when they are given space and time to:
- follow the steps of making a good decision,
- support decisions with research-based knowledge or experience, and
- demonstrate assessment of alternative actions and a decision’s possible impact.
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

18. 4. DISCUSSION
Understanding EFL in-service teachers as decision makers requires Colombia’s government to recognize
policy as a sociocultural process that transcends official or legally authorized designations. Instead, policy
should be understood as a process of human interaction, negotiation, and resistance, what Levinson,
Sutton and Winstead (2009) call appropriation.
Appropriation refers to “the ways that creative agents interpret and take in elements of policy, thereby
incorporating these discursive resources into their own schemes of interest, motivation, and action”
(Levinson et al., 2009, p. 779).
Finally, the appropriation of language policy by EFL in-service teachers encourages one to interpret
ambiguities and gaps as opportunities for transformative pedagogical interventions. Such interventions
give rise to teacher agency. This agency is typically viewed as a quality within educators, a matter of
personal capacity to act usually in response to stimuli within their pedagogical environment (Priestley,
Biesta & Robinson, 2012, p. 3).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

19. 4. DISCUSSION
Although in-service EFL teachers try to reproduce or replicate official discourses through
particular classroom language practices, such reproduction is never total and in some cases is
eclipsed by strong adaptations and contestations.
In this regard, Hornberger and Johnson (2011) proposed ethnography of language policy as a
method that can be used to approach the multiple levels of policy activity in order to better
understand both the power of language policies to marginalize and the power of educators to
adapt and resist.
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

20. 5. CONCLUSION
Overall, this study offers evidence that suggests that in-service EFL teachers need to be incorporated into
language policy and decision making. By doing so, programs such as Bogota Bilingüe can effectively take
into account their meanings, experiences, and perspectives of EFL practitioners, which can lead to the
reconfiguration and reinterpretation of the discourses and practices official bilingualism and mainstream
EFL instruction seem to be based on. Ultimately, having in-service EFL teachers act as main participants can
help official actions and decisions
“superar políticas instrumentalistas y proyectos programáticos caracterizados por el
desconocimiento de la voz de los actores del proceso” (Bermúdez, Fandiño & Ramírez, 2015, p.
166).
YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

21. REFERENCES
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Baldauf, R. (2006). Rearticulating the case for micro language planning in a language ecology context. Current Issues in Language Planning, 7(2), 147-170. doi: 10.2167/cilp092.0
Baldauf, R. (2004). Language planning and policy: Recent trends, future directions. American Association of Applied Linguistics, Portland, Oregon, (1-8). Retrieved from http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:24518/LPPCoPap1AAAL04.pdf
Bermúdez, J., Fandiño, Y., & Ramírez, A. (2015). Percepciones de directivos y docentes de instituciones educativas distritales sobre la implementación del Programa Bogotá Bilingüe. Voces Y Silencios: Revista Latinoamericana De Educación,
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YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

22. REFERENCES
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Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2012). Understanding Teacher Agency: The Importance of Relationships. Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Vancouver, 13-17 April. Retrieved from
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YAMITH JOSÉ FANDIÑO PARRA – LA SALLE UNIVERSITY, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA