Editorial
Carlo Granados-Beltrán*

Editor-in-chief

It is a pleasure for our editorial committee to share with you this new edition of GiST Journal. In this opportunity, our contributions are framed within the sociocultural turn in human sciences (Johnson, 2006, 2009), in which it
is understood that language learning and teaching does not happen in a vacuum
as it is constructed dialogically by different actors with their shifting identities
and within particular contextual features. Understanding that learning to teach
is a sociocultural practice is a premise that leads three of the contributions
to this issue; first, Torres-Cepeda and Ramos-Holguín describe the process
of identity construction as language teachers and learners for a group of pre-
service teachers in Tunja by means of a narrative design; second, and in the same
line of interest, Vez-López and Jiménez-Velásquez explored undergraduate
students’ perceptions about the skills they have developed when in their last
semester of their university studies;

Turning to the practical applications of the sociocultural approach,
we find the notion of community supporting pedagogical practices. In this
sense, Bonilla-Salazar shares with us a case study about elements of youth
identity emerging from the participants’ interaction with music in English
during interventions guided by critical and community-based pedagogies.
Also, Gómez and Cortés-Jaramillo describe the results of an action research
aiming at the construction of negotiated curriculum by using community-
based pedagogies to benefit a rural school. Different models focusing on
the development of bilingualism also take into consideration the contextual
factors which could influence on their success and effectiveness; in this regard,
Rodríguez-Tamayo and Tenjo-Díaz explored the construction of children’s
identities during their experience in a dual language program in the United
States. Likewise, Torres-Rincón and Cuesta-Medina analyzed how Content
and Language Integrated Learning could foster the development of 21st century
skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication
and how professional development in this methodology could help teachers to
see it as a dialogic approach. Subjectivities also constitute a key component
of a sociocultural approach to language teaching and learning, then, Posada-
Ortíz and Garzón-Duarte by means of autobiographies recovered pre-service
teachers’ experiences, feelings, and insights as English language learners and
Sevilla-Morales and Gamboa-Mena examine how pre-service teachers’
theoretical reflections on critical incidents connect to the English teaching
system in Costa Rica.

No. 18 (January - June 2019) No. 18 (January - June 2019)

In the sociocultural turn, it is understood that knowledge is socially
construct and for that construction to happen, we need to communicate
with one another; in the field of research, this is done through writing, that
is why we have a case study by Giraldo-Aristizábal about the challenges
and gains scholars face when engaged in the activity of writing academically.
Additionally, and regarding, knowledge construction, Cárdenas, González and
Álvarez in 2010 stated that teachers’ knowledge base is an aspect of teacher
education that has not been frequently explored. Daniel and Burgin decided
to work in this direction by exploring Guatemalan teachers and learners’ funds
of knowledge about their cultural capital and a similar interest is displayed by
Castañeda-Londoño, who reviews the concept of teachers’ knowledge base
from a poststructuralist and decolonial perspective.

We hope you enjoy this issue and we invite you to continue sending
your contributions to build a learning and research community for the field of
language pedagogy to encourage others to publish valuable work for fellow
teachers and researchers.

References

Cárdenas, M. L., González, A., & Álvarez, J. A. (2010). El desarrollo
profesional de los docentes de inglés en ejercicio: algunas consideraciones
conceptuales para Colombia. Folios, (31), 49 – 67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.
17227/01234870.31folios49.67

Johnson, K. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second
language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 235 – 257

Johnson, K. (2009). Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural
Perspective. New York, NY.: Routledge

*Carlo Granados-Beltrán holds a PhD in Education from Universidad
Santo Tomás, an MA in British Cultural Studies and ELT from the
University of Warwick and an MA in Applied Linguistics to TEFL
from Universidad Distrital. 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. 18 (January - June 2019) No. 18 (January - June 2019)

https://doi.org/10.17227/01234870.31folios49.67
https://doi.org/10.17227/01234870.31folios49.67

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