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Editorial 
Carlo Granados-Beltrán*

 

Welcome to a new edition of Gist Journal. The collection of research articles for this edition show very clearly what the concerns are for education and the role we are to play 
as teachers in the current world. It is key as educators that we start 
fostering in students skills in critical thinking and critical literacy, 
especially in a world embedded in fake news and extreme polarisation. 
In this line of thought, Luis Fernando Gómez contributes a case 
study in which news are used as a means to develop students’ critical 
intercultural competence in relation to different cultural communities. 

Teachers understand that literacy nowadays imply more than just 
decoding or encoding written messages. Literacy implies being able to 
read implicit messages in text, to read images, such as ads, cartoons, 
or online images such as memes. In this area, Fredy Alexander 
Giraldo contributes a study aiming to develop critical literacy at an 
undergraduate programme in Ibagué; also, María Teresa Esteban, 
Adriana Márquez and Jhon Everth Ortíz explored how political 
cartoons could serve the purpose of enhancing critical thinking in an 
English teacher preparation program, raising awareness about the need 
to become committed and active citizens. 

The development of skills has always been a concern for language 
teachers in the country, and we continue to explore different ways in 
which they can be strengthened. Gladis Arias and Eliana Roberto 
delved into how abridged novels could not only help students’ oral 
and written production, but also expose them to other cultural worlds. 
Odilia Ramírez and Wilfrido Muñoz decided to investigate about 
the way in which transactional communication strategies could boost 
elementary school pre-service teachers’ in Sincelejo. Also, in the field 
of teacher preparation, Frank Giraldo and Daniel Murcia decided 
to approach how pre-service teachers are learning about assessment 
with an emphasis on the link between theory and practice, assessment 
of bilingual processes, and knowledge of local policies related to this 
issue. 

                No. 16 (January - June, 2018)     No. 16 (January - June, 2018)



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Diana Durango, Clara González and Enrique Arias’ concern 
about inequalities in education for upper and lower classes motivated 
them to investigate about how audiovisual material could help in 
the implementation of an early bilingual program for pre-school age 
children of low socioeconomic background. Additionally, we have a 
very timely reflection paper about self-plagiarism by Sergio Lopera 
which calls for a joint effort between editors and writers in the interest 
of maintaining the quality of our publications. 

We expect our readers find our contributors’ experiences valuable 
to probably implement similar studies in their own context and also to 
share with us the results of their current studies to continue building a 
community of learning and teaching in the fields of bilingual education 
and foreign language teaching. 

*Carlo Granados-Beltrán holds an MA in British Cultural 
Studies and ELT from the University of Warwick and an MA 
in Applied Linguistics to TEFL from Universidad Distrital. 
Currently, he is doing a PhD in Education at Universidad Santo 
Tomás. He is the Academic Director at the BA in Bilingual 
Education at ÚNICA. He has been teacher of the Language 
Department at Universidad Central, the BA programmes in 
Spanish and Languages and Spanish and English at Universidad 
Pedagógica Nacional and the BA in Modern Languages at 
Universidad Javeriana. Also, he is guest lecturer for the MA in 
Language Teaching at UPTC.

                No. 16 (January - June, 2018)     No. 16 (January - June, 2018)