This two-cycle action research explores how Colombian students from rural and urban areas construct community knowledge by exploring funds of knowledge using dialogue journals. Thirty-three seventh graders from an urban school participated in the first phase and 19 sixth graders from a rural school and 18 eighth graders from an urban school in the…

This paper presents the outcomes and findings of a qualitative study aimed to describe the effects of combining visual literacies with Community-Based Pedagogies (CBP) to enhance writing skills in early high school learners. The data was gathered through community mapping reports, a needs analysis instrument, students' artifacts, a focus group,…

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…

This paper reports an action-research study aimed at exploring the benefits of the critical analysis of YouTubers' content through the empowerment spiral model to foster students' talk as performance. Twenty 11th-grade students shared alternative messages related to social issues based on content analysis and reflections. Data were collected via…

This paper reports on an action-research study aimed at identifying the problems and needs of a specific group of tenth graders at a school in Colombia in relation to their reading comprehension in English in order to design, partially implement, and evaluate a genre-oriented syllabus. Findings show that the explicit instruction of metacognitive…

This article reports on an action-research study which examined the impact of a radio program as a strategy to develop the speaking skills of a mixed course at a private institution in Colombia. Hence, data were collected from 18 students through tests, surveys, field notes, and interviews. The results indicate that there is an important…

Seventh grade teachers at a Colombian public school chose cooperative learning as a strategy to improve student's social performance and as a tool to get learners to enrich their academic level. This article reports on an action research and innovation project focused on the results eight students obtained in their written performance in English…

This research study examines the assumptions of creating bilingual scenarios to promote English language learning for 384 students of ninth, tenth and eleventh grade of a public school in Monteria Colombia. An action research methodology was carried out in this study. The findings of this research suggested that the creation of bilingual scenarios…

This study reports an action research on the use of pictures series technique to develop EFL narrative writing among a group of ninth graders at Institución Educativa Simon Araujo. It involves Experimental and Control groups. During the implementation of the strategy the Experiment group was taught writing with picture series technique and the…

This article reports on an action research project conducted with six ninth grade students in a rural public school in Colombia. The purpose of the study was to determine how the implementation of three reading strategies (skimming, scanning, and making predictions), when reading topics selected by learners, helps them to improve their reading…

This article reports an action research that intended to study to what extent students shape their writing skill in English through the use of a virtual room. As the study, we randomly selected six ninth graders in high school from thirty two students at a Colombian private institution. Three instruments were used, namely, interviews, students'…

This article reports the results of an action-research project focused on improving students' communicative competence in English through the task-based learning approach. This study was conducted in a co-educational public school in Medellín (Colombia) with thirty-four tenth graders. Actions implemented include the development of a series of…

Despite Colombia's official recognition of its ethnic and cultural diversity, it has yet to develop in practice an inclusive educational vision involving the recognition of diversity, as well as promoting the country's insertion within the global market. Garcia et al. acknowledge the importance of "cultivating" students' diverse…

This paper reports on an innovative and action research project which focused on the use of the dictionary and the prior knowledge of Colombian high school students to improve their reading comprehension of short scientific texts. Data collection instruments included students' work gathered during two workshops, field notes, and a questionnaire.…

Complying with school regulations and teachers' instructions is a basic principle of an excellent class; both novice and experienced teachers face challenging situations when getting into real classrooms, especially those related to classroom management. There are various reasons that explain discipline problems in public schools, as well as…