Editorial
Josephine Taylor*

GIST is quite pleased this issue to offer reports of research from the U.S., Latin America and Africa. The articles in this issue point to the need to go beyond the standard recommendations 
of effective teaching practices, and delve into a deeper appreciation of 
classroom realities, cultural and contemporary issues of language use, 
teacher training and language policy. While much of the information 
teachers are presented with often reduces classroom practices and 
teaching or training models to set formulas or trite recommendations, 
GIST strives to offer the work of practitioners who have taken the time to 
investigate, document, gather and analyze evidence from their settings 
in an effort to contribute to on-going understanding and conversations 
around a variety of issues facing teachers, coordinators, directors and 
principals in our daily practice. 

Mora, Rivas, Lengeling and Crawford contribute to a series of 
publications in GIST on the issue of language brokering, particularly 
in the case of Mexican transnationals who return to Mexico to become 
English teachers. The study reveals the important role these individuals 
play as language brokers, particularly in their role as future teachers. 

Córdoba, Rodríguez and Gaubil outline the design and 
implementation of an in-service teacher training program for EFL 
teachers in Costa Rica and its role in improving the English language 
level of the majority of the country’s teachers. 

From Chile, Pelusa Orellana offers an exploration on the use of 
the seminar format with pre-service English teachers. Implementation 
of Socratic dialogue and the Paideia seminar protocol led to an increase 
in more elaborated arguments and overall sophisticated thinking in 
students. 

Paula Ramirez Marroquín reports on the articulation of 
formative research and the classroom projects implemented at a 
university in Bogotá. This study is interesting as it includes student and 
teachers’ voices as key perspectives in the examination of classroom 
practices and department policies and curriculum.

Oliva and Núñez explore how integrating language and content 
with second language learners may play a role in the development of 
learner autonomy.

5

  No. 9 (July - December 2014)



6

Jenny Melo León explores the promotion of critical thinking in 
preschool classes in an immersion school setting in Bogotá, Colombia. 
This baseline study helps argue the need to investigate classroom 
realities first before advocating the implementation of particular 
techniques or even curricular projects. 

In terms of the intersection between language change, culture and 
current usage, and the challenge this presents to language teaching, 
GIST is pleased once again to publish work by Omowumi Steve Bode 
Ekundayo, in which he explores the issue of orthographic intraference 
in examples of Educated Nigerian English.

Finally, Juan David Parra explores the current paradigm of 
critical realism in language policy debates and the need to involve 
educators and their experiences in the public discourse. It is our 
hope that readers enjoy this issue, find it thought provoking, and are 
stimulated to contribute with research of their own in upcoming issues.

 

Editor

*Josephine Taylor received her BA in English and French 
from Emory University and her MS in the Teaching of English 
as Second Language from Georgia State University, both in 
Atlanta, Georgia. She has been a teacher of English language 
and linguistics for more than 25 years, as well as administrator, 
curriculum designer, and external reviewer of language 
education programs in the U.S. and Colombia. She has also 
worked extensively in English language publishing, as author, 
course developer and editor. Josephine is currently the Editor 
of GIST Education and Learning Research Journal and Adjunct 
Professor in the undergraduate and graduate bilingual teaching 
programs at the Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana, 
ÚNICA. 

                No. 10 (January - June 2015)     No. 10 (January - June 2015)