Situating Local Literacies at the Core of ELT Curriculum in Higher Education

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20

Higher Education; English for Academic Purposes; Local Issues; Foreign Countries; Private Colleges; Sociocultural Patterns; Teaching Methods; Second Language Learning; Second Language Instruction; Curriculum Design; Curriculum Implementation; Personal Autonomy; Sanitation; Conservation (Environment); Access to Education; Physical Activities; Grounded Theory; Group Discussion; Student Attitudes; Relevance (Education); Language Usage

1692-5777

This qualitative interpretive study carried out with four EFL teachers in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course at a private university in Bogotá, Colombia addresses the disconnect that exists between curricular content and the life of students in education. From our understanding of literacy as a sociocultural practice, we proposed a pedagogical approach that immersed teachers and students in community explorations to study local issues informed by different disciplines. Therefore, this study describes the ways teachers designed and implemented curriculum using community assets (Kretzmann & McKnight, 2003) to develop student agency. The issues addressed by students in their inquiries included improving civic practices in the cycling route; fostering river preservation; environmental issues with garbage in Bogotá; and possibilities to access higher education for young populations in Colombia. Using a grounded theory approach, we collected and analyzed data from class discussions, curricular units, semi-structured interviews and class observation. Findings reveal that community explorations fostered students' agency towards studying social issues and promoted the construction of context-embedded opportunities for learning using students' realities and topics of local relevance (Canagarajah, 2005). The target language was used to reflect, pose problems, produce texts and participate in social reflections within an academic environment.

As Provided

2021

EJ1285918