Editorial
Carlo Granados-Beltrán, PhD*

Welcome to issue no. 23 of GiST Journal. In this new edition, authors from 
Colombia and different parts of the worlds are reporting studies focused on three 
main areas: a social orientation to language teaching and learning, including aspects of 
interaction, social justice, discrimination and paradigmatic changes in the discipline 
of ELT; learning experiences triggered by the pandemic by COVID-19; and the 
promotion of skills in language components, such as pronunciation and vocabulary, 
through different mechanisms such as mnemonic techniques and scaffolding. We 
highlight the use of quantitative methodologies, not so frequently used in language 
pedagogy, as well as the autoethnography as an innovative methodology for the field. 

Contributions following a sociohistorical orientation in language teaching and 
learning include Mora’s who invites us to questions the hegemonic frameworks and 
concepts used to define language and language teaching in Colombia; Campos Campos, 
Garzón Roa, Méndez and Castañeda report an autoethnographic experience as au pairs 
in the United States and their confrontation with social justice and discrimination 
issues. We also count with an article by Daniel, Wasonga and Burgin from Guatemala 
who document a study about teachers’ professional development at a public school. 
Kaya as well explored the language development of a group of EFL learners as well as 
their advances when interacting in a foreign language by participating in the Erasmus 
program. 

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has brought many learning opportunities 
for both teachers and students. In relation to this, we can find Arsalan Nazir and 
Raza Khan who explored the difficulties that Pakistani university students had when 
learning online in this COVID-19 pandemic. Lopera contributed to this area with 
a reflection article about his social experience when transitioning from face-to-face 
teaching to emergency remote teaching. 



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                No. 23

In this new issue of GiST journal, we can find contributions describing experiments 
related to vocabulary learning. Farrokh developed quantitative study to analyze the 
effect of the implementation of a mnemonic technique in the learning of vocabulary. 
Also, Naserpour and Zarei report a project to determine the effect of scaffolding 
strategies on knowledge about lexical collocations. Among these studies following 
quantitative methodologies, we can also find Khasawneh’s contribution about the 
effectiveness of an instructional program based on phonological awareness to help 
students with learning disabilities develop the phonetic sequential-memorization. 

We invite ELT scholars in Colombia and abroad to continue disseminating the 
results of their research and reflections and we thank the continuous support given by 
the members of our editorial and scientific committees, authors, and readers. 

Dr. Carlo Granados-Beltrán
Academic Vice Chancellor 
ÚNICA

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                No. 21