Foreign language telecollaboration offers innovations to enhance language instruction. Previous research has cited its use to develop linguistic skills and intercultural competence (Belz, 2003; Blake, 2013; Chun, 2015; O'Dowd, 2000; Schenker, 2014). This article reports preliminary outcomes of a pedagogical project which leveraged…

This reflective study explores a different perspective of intercultural communicative competency (ICC) by focusing on the speech acts that nonnative speakers of Spanish from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds find difficult to perform competently in various contexts in Colombia. This article covers a qualitative case study using…

This research arose from the need to consolidate a meaningful bilingual methodology for children from three to five years of age from low socioeconomic backgrounds belonging to the public education system, where they could begin learning English and Spanish by means of a bilingual methodology that provides them with the same opportunities as…

The International Baccalaureate (IB) has expanded in Latin America. Drawing from a larger multi-sited qualitative case study, we examined the challenges associated with the implementation of the IB Primary Years Programme (PYP) in a Colombian and bilingual context. Findings highlight (1) the intersecting nature of challenges associated with the…

This paper reports the results of a group intervention based on strategies derived from the systemic therapy model--brief strategic therapy. These strategies aimed at decreasing the anxiety levels commonly found in oral performance tasks related to L2 learning. Thirteen students from different semesters who belonged to two foreign language…

We report on an exploratory study comparing the performance as online tutors of two groups of beginner eleven-year-old students of English in Colombia and Spanish in New Zealand. The native speaker students of the foreign language the others were learning corrected paragraphs written by their peers. The feedback provided by each group of tutors…

The adoption of the English language paradigm and the subsequent implementation of bilingual policies worldwide are generating new linguistic hierarchies. These have an effect on the linguistic diversity at the sub-national level and on individuals' linguistic human rights. This article reports the results of a case study on an individual's…

This article reports the results of an action-research project that examines enhancing students' English learning processes through the selective use of their mother tongues with the aim of overcoming their reluctant attitudes toward learning English in the classroom. This study involves forty ninth-graders from an all-girls public school in…

I present here the results of a qualitative research study on the impact of a curriculum that connects learning events in Spanish and English in authentic communicative performances during its first year of use in a private school in a medium-size Colombian city. I did discourse analysis of interviews with participating teachers and class…

In this article we present the results of a qualitative research study on the pedagogical factors that influence English teaching in four public schools of Medellín, Colombia. Twelve teachers were interviewed regarding three linguistic principles: communicative competence, native language effect, and interlanguage. The data analysis led to the…

Previous studies have drawn some results concerning the way in which second language (L2) students use their first language (L1) when producing texts in their L2. Therefore, this study examines the influence L1 written structure has on L2 written structure when students are asked to carry out assignments in the L2. To answer this question, twenty…

As an EFL Student teachers' advisor, I had constantly perceived that they regarded using the target language with their pupils inside their classroom as a challenge. That is why I became interested in investigating how thirteen student teachers in Tunja public schools faced this issue. While participants were involved in a reflective teaching…

This qualitative study aims to explore the loss and maintenance of Spanish in Latin American children in Vancouver from the perspective of parents. It focuses on the experiences of children either developing bilingually (Spanish-English) or monolingually (English). The participating families were from Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and had…