“Speak English – Don’t Be Lazy!

”: Exploring Decolonial Approaches to Multilingual Education

through a Case Study of an International School in Colombia
.

By
Esther Bettney

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

(Curriculum and Instruction)

at the

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

2022

Date of final oral examination: 04/27/2022

The dissertation is approved by the following members of the Final Oral Committee:
Lesley Bartlett, Professor, Education Policy Studies
Mariana Pacheco, Associate Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Diego Román, Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction
Richard Halverson, Professor, Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis
Gail Prasad, Assistant Professor, York University
 i

ABSTRACT

The promotion of language ideologies, policies and pedagogies that treat languages as

separate and hierarchical has become a central concern for critical education scholars. In this

case study, I explore how school actors at Colegio Colombiano (CC), an international school in

Colombia, engaged with critical approaches to bi/multilingual education to leverage the fluid

identities and languaging practices of plurilingual teachers and students.

In my first data chapter, I place CC within its larger educational context by showing how

a logic of coloniality informs both public and private K-12 foreign language education in

Colombia. This logic of coloniality reflects a hierarchy of actors within the field of foreign

language education in Colombia with external international organizations holding significant

power and influence over local priorities. I build on these findings to call international schools

into current conversations about decolonizing language education in Colombia.

In my second data chapter, I consider how school actors’ language ideologies impacted

the creation and enactment of language policies at CC. I describe a spectrum to show how

faculty demonstrated a significant shift away from hegemonic ideologies and oppressive

language policies through an increasing recognition of the importance of Spanish. While explicit

messages about English as superior were no longer officially promoted at CC, colonialistic

ideologies and policies persisted which valorized English, denigrated Spanish, and completely

ignored other societal and home languages.

In my final data chapter, I explore how teachers and students engaged with

translanguaging pedagogies. While many teachers expressed a desire to leverage their and their

students’ plurilingual repertoires they felt limited by significant obstacles, including the school’s

strict model of language separation. Elementary students generally demonstrated a willingness to

 ii

engage with translanguaging pedagogies, while older students expressed a complex resistance as

they negotiated their bilingual identities.

In my concluding chapter, I return to the identified logic of coloniality to discuss how

international school communities can unveil and interrogate colonialistic understandings of

languages, language users and languaging practices. I propose the Decolonizing International

Multilingual Education (DIME) framework as a tool to guide schools in the work of

decolonizing their language programs.

 iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As I look back on the journey of the past five years, it is difficult at times to assimilate all that
has happened: six international moves, a global pandemic, the loss of my brother, my children
turning into pre-teens before my eyes and more. Yet, amid unexpected highs and lows, I have
been surrounded by the support of many who have sustained me, and by extension my family, on
this journey.

Thank you to the Colegio Colombiano community who embraced me with open arms. My
deepest gratitude to the teachers and students who welcomed me into their classes and shared
with me both their triumphs and the challenges they faced. Thank you to the critical friends I
engaged with throughout the graduate courses I taught at CC. I look forward to our ongoing
conversations and collaborations.

I was blessed to have not one, but two, amazing supervisors, Gail Prasad and Lesley Bartlett.
Gail, I am so glad that our paths crossed again, 17 years after we first met at Queen’s University.
You have shown unbelievable support as a supervisor, mentor, and friend. I am eternally grateful
for your friendship on this journey of faith.

Lesley, thank you for welcoming me as an advisee. You walked alongside me in a way that
allowed me to find my own way while knowing I could always ask for support when I needed it.
Thank you for inviting me into the wonderful supportive BAMily advisory group which
provided much needed encouragement during the challenges of writing during a pandemic.

To the UW-Madison faculty members who supported me along this journey, especially my
dissertation committee. To Mariana Pacheco: I learned a great deal from you about how to
critically think about bilingual education which is reflected in my work. To Diego Román and
Rich Halverson: thank you for your helpful questions and your insights on my work. The input
from all of my committee members continues to enrich my scholarship.

In addition to my committee, various others have provided meaningful support throughout my

academic journey. To Jaime Usma Wilches: from the first message I sent you about conducting
research in Colombia, you have gone out of your way to support my family as we have found our
way in the Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera. ¡Gracias, Jaime! To Jon Nordmeyer, my supervisor in
the WIDA International Program, thank you for your unwavering support. Your commitment to
equity and excellence within the context of international schools is only matched by your
integrity. My professional journey has benefitted greatly from our collaborations.

I am grateful to the funders who provided financial support: Government of Canada’s Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship, Mitacs Canada, Phi Kappa Phi
Honor Society, International Symposium of Bilingualism, Latin America Mission Canada and
various sources within the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

My family’s transnational life means we are connected to people all over the world. During my
PhD, friends and family loved us and cared for us in Honduras, the United States, Canada, and
Colombia. While it is impossible to name each individual person, my sincerest gratitude to those
 iv

who stood by my family as we experienced unexpected illness, loss, and transitions. The road
has been twisty and dark at times. Thank you to those that have walked this road with us.

I am blessed to have been born into a loving family and to have joined one through marriage.
Thank you to the Bettney and extended Heidt/Hannah families for their ongoing love and
support. To my mom and dad, my steadfast supporters throughout all of my out-of-the-box
adventures and ambitious plans. You have given me the gifts of confidence and faith and I am
forever grateful. To my siblings and sibling-in-laws, my nieces and my nephews: through grief
and through celebration, our bonds have strengthened and our hearts have expanded in new
ways. I am grateful for each of you.

The decision to pursue a PhD requires sacrifice on many levels. No one has given more to
support me on this journey than my husband, Dave, and my two children, Grace and Zach. Dave,
thank you for supporting my dreams and never doubting that I could do this, even when life put
many obstacles in our way. Grace, thank you for being you. Your kind and sensitive heart
reminds me to never lose sight of what matters most. Zach, thank you for helping me find joy in
the everyday. Your love of life is contagious, even if none of us can keep up with your energy! I
am grateful for the three of you.

To all of you, named and unnamed, my most heartfelt thank you.

 v

DEDICATION

“At this forever home, he will forever and fully heal us – body and soul! Consider the feeling of
finding yourself forever home.”
~Philip Heidt, March 2021

In memory of my brother, Philip.

Until we meet again, in our forever home, may I be the person you saw in me.
 vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii
DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................v
LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1
Problem Statement .......................................................................................................................... 1
Research Questions ......................................................................................................................... 5
Significance...................................................................................................................................... 5
Outline of Chapters .......................................................................................................................... 7
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................. 10
Language Ideologies....................................................................................................................... 12
Language Policy ............................................................................................................................. 16
Classroom Languaging Practices ..................................................................................................... 20
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 29
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH CONTEXT .......................................................................... 30
Colombia ....................................................................................................................................... 30
International Schools ..................................................................................................................... 38
Shifting Toward Heteroglossia ....................................................................................................... 50
Colegio Colombiano ....................................................................................................................... 52
CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................... 58
Introduction................................................................................................................................... 58
Case Study ..................................................................................................................................... 58
Design-Based Research .................................................................................................................. 63
Research Design............................................................................................................................. 65
Limitations ..................................................................................................................................... 80
Positionality................................................................................................................................... 82
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 86
CHAPTER FIVE: LOGIC OF COLONIALITY ........................................................................ 87
Introduction................................................................................................................................... 87
Literature Review .......................................................................................................................... 88
 vii

Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 100

Findings ....................................................................................................................................... 101
Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 111
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 114
CHAPTER SIX: EXAMINING LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND POLICIES IN AN
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL IN COLOMBIA: FROM ENGLISH EXCELLENCE TO
DEVELOPING CRITICAL AWARENESS.............................................................................. 114
Introduction................................................................................................................................. 115
Literature Review ........................................................................................................................ 120
Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 125
Findings ....................................................................................................................................... 125
Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 152
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 157
CHAPTER SEVEN: WHO NEEDS TILDES ANYWAYS?: STUDENT AND TEACHER
ENGAGEMENT IN TRANSLANGUAGING PEDAGOGIES ............................................... 159
Introduction................................................................................................................................. 159
Literature Review ........................................................................................................................ 163
Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 170
Findings ....................................................................................................................................... 171
Teachers’ Responses .................................................................................................................... 177
Discussion .................................................................................................................................... 192
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 202
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION ........................................................................................ 204
Introduction................................................................................................................................. 204
Summary of Study ....................................................................................................................... 204
Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) Framework ......................................... 206
Considerations for Applying DIME Framework ............................................................................. 209
Future Research ........................................................................................................................... 212
Coda ............................................................................................................................................ 213
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 216
APPENDIX A: EXCERPTS FROM UNIT PLANS................................................................. 237
APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS ........................................................................... 246
APPENDIX C: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION PROTOCOL .............................................. 250
APPENDIX D: TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE ..................................................................... 251
 viii

APPENDIX E: EXAMPLE OF CODE TREE ......................................................................... 252

APPENDIX F: VISUAL DATA DISPLAYS ............................................................................ 253
 ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Visual Representation of Data Chapters........................................................................... 8

Figure 2 Literature Review Visual ................................................................................................ 10
Figure 3 Teachers’ Responses to Exploring Key Terms .............................................................. 69
Figure 4 Key Actors in K-12 Foreign Language Education in Colombia .................................. 102
Figure 5 Foreign University Flags .............................................................................................. 107
Figure 6 Pete the Cat Bulletin Board .......................................................................................... 132
Figure 7 Presentation Rubric ...................................................................................................... 140
Figure 8 Colombian Section of Library ...................................................................................... 147
Figure 9 Cover of “Vamos a Colombia” Book from Library ..................................................... 148
Figure 10 Teacher-designed Slides for Egan Bernal Unit .......................................................... 149
Figure 11 Teacher-designed Slides for Photojournalism Unit .................................................... 174
Figure 12 Teacher-created Science Poster .................................................................................. 177
Figure 13 Classroom Language Norms Poster ........................................................................... 185
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Relationship between Basic Assumptions of Critical Theory and My Study.................. 11

Table 2 Stages of Data Generation ............................................................................................... 72
Table 3 Overview of Chapter 6 Findings .................................................................................... 126
Table 4 Overview of Chapter 7 Findings .................................................................................... 172
Table 5 Comparison of García et al’s. (2017) and Chapter 7 Findings ...................................... 193
Table 6 DIME Framework .......................................................................................................... 209
 1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

“Speak English – Don’t Be Lazy!” As I walked the halls of an international bilingual

school in Colombia, these words jumped out at me. Written in blue Sharpie on white chart paper,

the poster was created by students as part of a recent campaign led by the high school principal

to promote the use of English, which he felt was being neglected at the school. While not all

posters were as explicit in their hierarchical positioning of English, many posters denigrated the

use of Spanish and criticized examples of translingual practices, in a school where over 95% of

the student body spoke Spanish as their home language.

Problem Statement

The promotion of language ideologies, policies and pedagogies in bi/multilingual schools

that treat languages as separate and hierarchical has become a central concern for critical

education scholars who instead advocate for the recognition of students’ and teachers’ diverse

plurilingual languaging practices and identities. Bi/multilingual1 programs exist across diverse

geographical contexts and reflect a wide spectrum of instructional models, student populations

and sociopolitical situations, however research consistently demonstrates the widespread use of

monoglossic and hegemonic approaches that attempt to separate and create a hierarchy among

classroom languages (Cummins, 2007; de Mejía, 2006; García, 2013; Naqvi, Schmidt, &

Krickhan, 2014). Nonetheless, within the context of international schools, relatively little is

known about alternative heteroglossic approaches which emphasize the interconnectedness and

1
To clarify terms, I use bi/multilingual to refer to educational programs which include “the regular use of two or
more languages for teaching and learning in instructional settings when bilingualism and biliteracy are two of the
explicit learning goals” (Abello-Contesse et al., 2013). I use bilingual in the Colombian context to signal the
growing emphasis on Spanish-English bilingual programs, even though foreign languages have a long tradition of
inclusion within the school curriculum (de Mejía, 2006). I use the Common European Framework of Reference for
Languages’ (CEFR) (Europe, 2001) distinction “between multilingualism (the coexistence of different languages at
the social and individual level) and plurilingualism (the dynamic and developing linguistic repertoire of an
individual user/learner)” (Europe, 2018, p. 28).
 2

fluidity of plurilinguals’ languaging practices and linguistic identities while undermining

ideologies which valorize certain languages or language variations over others (García, 2013).

A hegemonic view denotes a hierarchical positioning of languages in which certain

languages or language varieties are seen as more valuable. Within the context of many

international schools, this often refers to the assumed superiority of English as an instructional

language, a reflection of international schools’ colonial histories and the presence of ongoing

colonialistic ideologies within these spaces.2 Drawing on Gramsci’s use of hegemony, Ives

(2013) discusses the superior positioning of English in language teaching, illustrating that

“whether or not individuals, institutions or states ‘choose’ (seemingly freely) to learn, teach or

facilitate English, the spread of English is part and parcel of unequal power relationships” (p.

662). In other words, the ongoing rapid spread of teaching English worldwide is not neutral and

it cannot be removed from the power relations that both propel and govern its spread. The spread

of English has significant impacts on linguistic diversity, as the heavy emphasis can lead to

linguistic capital dispossession in which English takes the place of either national languages or

students’ home languages (Phillipson, 2010). Graddol (2006) argues English as an international

language of globalization has played a complex role in “redefining national and individual

identities worldwide; shifting political fault lines; creating new global patterns of wealth and

social exclusion; and suggesting new notions of human rights and responsibilities of citizenship”

(p. 15).

While hegemonic refers to a hierarchical positioning of languages, a monoglossic

ideology signifies an understanding of languages as separate, static, and distinct. Within a

2
I use hegemonic to refer to the hierarchical positioning of certain languages or language varieties as more valuable.
I employ colonialistic when describing more specific instances in which the positioning of English and other
colonial and foreign languages and their presumed associated cultures are seen as more valuable.
 3

monoglossic approach, school actors position students as deficient for not fitting monolingual

norms, or at best, as dual monolinguals with separate linguistic systems (Escobar & Dillard-

Paltrineri, 2015; Grosjean, 1989). Languages are seen as operating separately and programs

therefore minimize the assumed negative interference between languages through a strict

separation of instructional languages (Spiro & Crisfield, 2018). While alternative models of

bi/multilingual education have existed in linguistically diverse areas, prior to the turn of the 21st

century these more flexible models were generally seen as poor practice in the field of

bi/multilingual education (Spiro & Crisfield).

This view of languages as separate and static has come under mounting scrutiny as

current research calls for a shift towards a heteroglossic view. While the term heteroglossia has

different meanings in various fields, within the field of bi/multilingual education, heteroglossia

refers to a language ideology that emphasizes the interconnectedness and fluidity of

plurilinguals’ languaging practices and linguistic identities while undermining problematic

ideologies which valorize certain languages or language variations over others (García, 2013).

Blackledge and Creese (2013) claim that language use in our current society can no longer be

explained through conceptualizing languages as separate and bound. Instead, heightened global

migration and digital technology requires a new view of language in which individuals’

languages are not positioned as separate entities, but as maintaining a plurilingual repertoire that

users can draw on differentially to communicate (Piccardo, 2013). May (2014) argues languages

are increasingly seen as dynamic and hybrid, as crossing artificially constructed boundaries and

borders. This ideological shift has been noted by Flores and Schissel (2014) who point to a

significant interest in heteroglossic ideologies, evidenced in the growing use of terms such as:

translanguaging (García, 2009), flexible bilingualism (Creese & Blackledge, 2010),

 4

polylanguaging (Jørgensen, 2011), and translingualism (Canagarajah, 2013). While each term

reflects different epistemological perspectives, Flores and Schissel posit all emphasize

“languaging as a fluid, complex, and dynamic process” (p. 461), as opposed to static, mutually

exclusive, and hierarchical.

Nonetheless, a traditional view of separate and hierarchical languages persists within

many international school contexts. While international schools may include various

instructional languages, programs often emphasize developing proficiency in high-status or

power languages and not necessarily on valuing linguistic diversity or students’ languaging

practices (Spiro & Crisfield, 2018). As noted by Ceginskas (2010), while international schools

may claim to support multilingualism, often the programs perpetuate language hierarchies as

linguistic diversity is assumed to be valued and therefore is taken for granted. While students,

staff and families are often plurilingual, the language ideologies reflected in school’s language

policies and program models are often “monolingual in attitude and implementation” (Spiro &

Crisfield, p. 16).

Nevertheless, within some international school contexts, there is an increasing

recognition for the need to move away from program models and language policies that exclude

students’ home languages and the host country’s local languages (Spiro & Crisfield, 2018). For

example, Spiro and Crisfield highlight five schools who have undergone a significant shift from

a monoglossic and hegemonic view of language teaching and learning to engaging in

heteroglossic approaches. In addition, the rapid growth of the WIDA International School

Consortium, with now over 500 member schools, indicates a desire by schools to “transform the

conversation about what multilingual students can do” ("WIDA International School

Consortium", 2022) and to move away from seeing multilingual students as deficient and in need
 5

of additional English language support (Bettney & Nordmeyer, 2021). However, these schools

often face significant barriers in this shift, not the least of which is an ideological one, as schools

move away from the “strong pull towards language separation in the classroom and the isolation

of languages into separate spheres for bilingual learners” (Spiro & Crisfield, p. 25). While

international schools often position themselves as leaders in terms of diversity, this seems

incongruent with the ongoing presence of monoglossic and hegemonic approaches to language

education.

Research Questions

This study documents how school actors negotiate alternative heteroglossic approaches to

language education at an international bilingual school in Colombia. The following research

questions guide this study:

1. Where do international schools fit within the landscape of K-12 foreign language

education in Colombia?

2. What language ideologies influenced language policy creation and appropriation at

Colegio Colombiano?

3. What obstacles and opportunities did Colegio Colombiano teachers and students

encounter as they engaged with translanguaging pedagogies?

Significance

My study provides a broad perspective on opportunities and challenges associated with

engaging in critical approaches to language education in international school contexts. This

educational sector is experiencing significant growth, with the ISC Research organization

calculating 59% more international schools between 2012 to 2022 ("ISC Research," 2022). The

linguistic landscape of international schools is an important reflection of an increasingly diverse

 6

global society and evolving transnational education systems. In terms of programming and

curriculum, international schools offer potential innovation and insights that might inform

schools in other contexts. Hallgarten, Tabberer, and McCarthy (2015) call for international

schools to “become a ‘creative community with a cause’, mobilising their knowledge and

resources for social good” (p. 10). There are opportunities for international schools to leverage

both their autonomy and resources to provide more diverse and equitable learning environments

for plurilingual students. My research contributes to the fields of critical language education by

exploring how international schools can help students critically draw on their expansive

communicative repertoires as they participate in and build culturally and linguistically diverse

societies.

In addition, my study brings attention to the impact of international schools within the

complex context of foreign language education in Colombia. Through the lens of decoloniality. I

contribute to the dynamic field of critical research in Colombia which has documented

colonialistic language ideologies and pedagogies within international schools and their impact on

public schools but has not yet documented alternative approaches (Bettney, 2022). Within the

context of bilingual education in Colombia, international schools will likely continue to play an

influential role as their hallways operate as corridors of power (Phipps, 2019). From the parent

groups made up of bank presidents, lawyers and politicians to the students who will inherit this

economic and cultural capital, it is impossible to ignore the power contained within international

schools. As noted by Usma Wilches (2009) and others, the language ideologies and pedagogies

embraced at international schools influence educational policy across the country. Therefore, my

decision to conduct research within this context includes an intentionality to engage in the act of

decolonizing within these corridors of power. Alongside school administrators, teachers, and
 7

students, I engage in research which provides opportunities to reflect on current relationships of

power and language within both the individual school context, as well as the larger contexts in

which they operate. As noted by Colombian scholar, Yecid Ortega (2020), schools do not have to

perpetuate inequalities, but can instead “serve as spaces to transform oppressive policies and

foster social justice and democracy” (p. 39). My study demonstrates how international schools

can use their privilege and resources to be part of this transformation.

Outline of Chapters

In the first four chapters of my dissertation, I frame my study through a literature review,

description of the research context and methodology. In Chapter 2, I situate my work within the

field of critical theory and then review literature from the fields of language ideology, language

policy and classroom languaging practices. In Chapter 3, I describe both the broader research

context for my study, K-12 foreign language education in international schools and in Colombia,

and the context of my case study, Colegio Colombiano. In Chapter 4, I outline the research

design and methodology for my study.

In Chapters 5 to 8, I present my data and analysis, as represented in Figure 1. Moving

from the outermost circles inward, first in Chapter 5, I document how a logic of coloniality

underlies key actors in K-12 foreign language education in Colombia. In Chapter 6, I move to the

school level to consider how faculty’s language ideologies influenced the creation and
 8

implementation of language policies. In Chapter 7, I explore how teachers and students at

Colegio Colombiano engaged in translanguaging pedagogies.

Figure 1 Visual Representation of Data Chapters

In Chapter 8, I summarize my findings and discuss implications from my study. I propose

the Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) framework which I have

developed based on my empirical fieldwork. The DIME framework can support school actors in

interrogating a logic of coloniality within their own school contexts.

Conclusion

As I read the words, “Speak English – Don’t Be Lazy!”, I recognized again how policies

and practices often constrain students’ and teachers’ languaging practices and linguistic

identities. I reflected on my own complicity, as I also had been a teacher and school

administrator at a bilingual school in Latin America. At the time, I believed I was serving my

students by emphasizing their need to learn English and attempting to create an English-only

classroom. While my beliefs about language learning have evolved significantly over the fifteen
 9

years since I began my teaching career in Honduras, my desire to support plurilingual students,

and now teachers as well, remains the same.

I have not returned to the school where I saw that poster, but I often reflect on that

specific moment. As I stood and looked up at the poster, high school students streamed around

me, transitioning from one classroom to another. Though at the time I had only been in Colombia

for a few days, the experience solidified my own questions about the possibility of heteroglossic

policies and practices in bilingual schools. As I stood in a space in which students were

discouraged, and at times prohibited, from drawing freely on their expansive communicative

repertoires as plurilinguals, I reflected again on my own privilege and my language experiences,

while considering what it meant to equate speaking Spanish with laziness in the context of an

international school in Colombia.

My aim through this dissertation is to explore how international school actors engaged

with novel critical approaches to language education. Through this study, I have become more

committed to interrogate practices which uphold English, and its associated speakers, cultures,

and academic practices, as more valuable than those of local students and teachers. I argue for an

explicit acknowledgement of the colonial history of international schools, as well as an

interrogation of the persistent logic of coloniality which continues to inform K-12 foreign

language education in Colombia. My commitment to more equitable approaches to language

education informs my Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) framework

which provides pathways for schools to engage in the work of decolonizing their language

ideologies, policies, and practices.

 10

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this study, I explored how school actors at an international school in Colombia

engaged with alternative critical approaches to bi/multilingual education. In this chapter, I first

situate my work within the field of critical theory. Then, I review key literature from the fields of

language ideologies, language policy and classroom languaging practices to examine the

presence of monoglossic and hegemonic approaches often present within bi/multilingual

education. In Figure 2, I show how critical theory provides an overall framing for these three

fields of literature in my study.

Figure 2 Literature Review Visual

Critical theory draws attention to questions of power, hegemony and injustice which

further illuminate how a heteroglossic approach to language education belies a commitment to

social change. Crotty (2012) states that critical theory:

Emphasizes that particular sets of meanings, because they have come into being in and

out of the give-and-take of social existence, exist to serve hegemonic interests. Each set
 11

of meanings supports particular power structures, resists moves towards greater equity,

and harbours oppression, manipulation and other modes of injustice and freedom. (p. 59)

While acknowledging how the field of critical research is constantly evolving, Kincheloe et al.

(2011) draw on their decades of experience in the field to outline six basic assumptions which

are essential to critical research. In the following chart, I highlight three of these assumptions and

describe how they directly inform my study.

Basic Assumptions of Critical Theory My Study

“Language is central to the formation of Language is a central theme throughout my study,
subjectivity (conscious and unconscious not just the teaching and learning of languages but
awareness)” (p. 164). also how language ideologies impact language
policies and languaging practices within
classroom contexts.
“Certain groups in any society and In my study, I explore how monoglossic and
particular societies are privileged over hegemonic language ideologies inform policies
others and, although the reasons for this and practices that oppress and exclude certain
privileging may vary widely, the languages and languaging practices. I also explore
oppression that characterizes how discriminatory policies and practices, based
contemporary societies is most forcefully on country of origin and accent, impact
reproduced when subordinates accept Colombian English teachers.
their social status as natural, necessary, or
inevitable” (p. 164).
“Mainstream research practices are I am aware of my positionality as an outsider with
generally, although most often privilege and how it opened doors which allowed
unwittingly, implicated in the me to conduct my research. My study has the
reproduction of systems of class, race, potential to reproduce systems of oppression that
and gender oppression” (p. 164). have kept the doors of international schools closed
to researchers without the same privilege if I do
not advocate for and alongside those who have
been excluded.
Table 1 Relationship between Basic Assumptions of Critical Theory and My Study
Drawing on this critical stance, I argue heteroglossic approaches provide a starting point

to resist the influence of monoglossic and hegemonic language ideologies on the creation and
 12

implementation of language policies that oppress and exclude certain languages, language users,

and languaging practices.

Now, I turn to my three key fields of study for this literature review: language ideologies,

language policies and classroom languaging practices. Language ideologies provides a means to

explore factors that influence the creation and appropriation of language policies and the

enactment through teachers’ and students’ classroom languaging practices. Language policy

guides the allocation of languages within bilingual programs and informs policies about the use

of language by teachers and students within these programs. Finally, I draw on classroom

languaging practices which enact a heteroglossic view of languages, through pedagogical models

such as translanguaging and Critical Multilingual Language Awareness.

The confluence of these three fields of study provides opportunities for the opening of

ideological and implementational spaces. Hornberger (2005) describes how, “ideological spaces

created by language and education policies can be seen as carving out implementational spaces at

classroom and community levels, but implementational spaces can also serve as wedges to pry

open ideological ones” (p. 606). As schools create ideological spaces through language policies

that reflect a heteroglossic view of languages, teachers can further push open implementational

spaces through their use of heteroglossic practices within their classrooms.

Language Ideologies

Canagarajah (2000) broadly states: “Ideologies are, for me, ways of representing and

interpreting reality, and there is no life outside of them” (p. 123). More specifically, language

ideologies represent ways in which societies and individuals represent and interpret language

(Woolard, 1998). They inform how individuals view languages, how and why hierarchies of
 13

languages are constructed and enacted in certain social spaces and why certain languaging

practices are considered more valuable than others.

Based on this understanding of language ideologies, I discuss how different types of

language ideologies inform the positioning of languages and language users at both the societal

and individual level, and how these ideologies intersect with debates regarding the separation

and ranking of languages in bi/multilingual programs. While I have structured the following

discussion to first focus on language separation at the macro level of society and then at the

micro level of the individual for the sake of clarity, this separation is an artificial one. Just as I

am presenting a dynamic and interconnected view of languages, the relationship between macro

societal factors and micro individual factors is also permeable. These spheres do not exist in

isolation but are instead in constant interaction, as individuals impact and are impacted by the

societies they create.

At the macro societal level, Makoni and Pennycook (2007) link the perception of separate

languages to the 16th century and the desire of states to consolidate political power through tying

standardized languages to a tool used to legitimize specific nation-states. The construction of

nation-states and their assumed one-to-one association with a standardized language perpetuates

the idea that languages are and should be separate. García (2009) argues this language ideology

“tends to associate monolingualism with the norm, whereby the dominance of one language

within the borders of a political entity is considered as more natural, more desirable, more

efficient, and more productive for the sake of cohesion than reality warrants” (p. 26). Hornberger

(2003) notes this tendency to create one-to-one associations between named languages and

nation-states and asserts that monolingualism is often seen as more powerful, even in

multilingual societies.
 14

A person’s language ideologies also impact how they view languages at the individual

micro level. Often multilinguals are seen as deficient for not fitting monolingual norms or at best

as dual monolinguals with separate linguistic systems (Escobar & Dillard-Paltrineri, 2015;

Grosjean, 1989). However, this view does not reflect the real-life languaging practices of

plurilinguals nor their linguistic identities. In a study of high school students at a Spanish-

English bilingual school in Honduras, I found students’ linguistic identities were constantly

under negotiation as students navigated the impact of their bilingual school experience on their

perception of themselves as Hondurans (Bettney, 2020). I argued for a re-conceptualization of

identities as dynamic and shifting, as opposed to monolithic or static. I emphasized the onus on

bilingual schools to provide spaces for their students to critically reflect upon and be supported

in negotiating complex linguistic identities which integrate, rather than separate, their

relationships with different named languages.

Ceginskas’ (2010) study of plurilingual alumni from international schools further

strengthens the importance of school spaces which recognize the complexity and fluidity of

students’ identities. Ceginskas found participants reflected positively on the impact of their

school experiences when linguistic and cultural diversity was acknowledged and positioned as

beneficial, as opposed to when diversity was seen as a threat to community cohesion. Further, in

her study of students’ representations of their plurilingual identities within an international

school in Canada, Prasad (2014) emphasizes how “students’ linguistic and cultural identities are

evolving in complex ways in an age of increasing transnational patterns of migration” (p. 51).

These studies emphasize the complex and evolving identities of plurilingual students within

international school contexts.

 15

In terms of plurilinguals’ languaging practices, Cummins (1980) has for decades

described the dynamic relationship between plurilinguals’ first and second (or more) languages.

Li (2017) contends while societies often acknowledge the existence of multilingualism, many are

still strongly against the idea of the perceived mixing of languages, as “the myth of a pure form

of a language is so deep-rooted that there are many people who, while accepting the existence of

different languages, cannot accept the ‘contamination’ of their language by others” (p. 14).

Monoglossic and hegemonic ideologies which position languages as separate, static, and

hierarchical entities have come under mounting scrutiny. In contrast, a heteroglossic view of

language emphasizes the plurality and diversity of languages, both within individuals and within

communities. Heteroglossia draws on Bakhtin’s critique of the 20th century single-voice

discourse promoted by the Soviet Union and refers to diversity present across and within

languages and within individual speakers (Madsen, 2014). While the concept of heteroglossia is

a term frequently linked to the work of Bakhtin, Madsen notes the term heteroglossia was created

by the English translators of Bakhtin’s work to cover three of Bakhtin’s concepts: diversity in

speech, language, and voice. The term heteroglossia attempts to encompass these various aspects

of linguistic diversity and “describes how language use involves various socio-ideological

languages, codes, and voices” (Madsen, p. 44). Within the context of multilingual education in

Latin America, Mortimer (2016) defines heteroglossia as recognizing, “multiple, co-existing

language norms and identities…based on an assumption of multilingualism, rather than

monolingualism, as the norm” (p. 349).

Since the Multilingual Turn (May, 2014), there has been a growing interest in

heteroglossia as a lens to explore diverse linguistic contexts, including bi/multilingual education.

A heteroglossic view emphasizes the interconnectedness and fluidity of plurilinguals’ languaging

 16

practices and linguistic identities while using a critical lens to undermine hegemonic ideologies

which valorize certain languages or language variations over others (García, 2013). While a

monoglossic view positions the learning of a new language as an additional separate entity, a

heteroglossic perspective, “allows for the integration of new language practices within existing

language practices, with the understanding that it is not a language being added but the system

being changed” (Spiro & Crisfield, 2018, p. 8). Within bi/multilingual schools, heteroglossic

program models, language policies, and pedagogies leverage and expand students’

communicative repertoires while drawing awareness to issues of power that impact language

learning and use within each context. A heteroglossic ideology, according to García (2009),

“considers multiple language practices in interrelationship, and leads to other constructions of

bilingual education” (p. 7). To enact a heteroglossic approach, schools must acknowledge

students’ languaging practices occur not in isolation, but in interrelationship (Busch, 2014;

García, 2009). A plurilingual’s languaging practices reflect different norms than a monolingual

speaker as they draw from a wider repertoire (García. 2009).

Throughout this section, I discussed key contributions of the field of language ideologies

to a heteroglossic view of language which undermines hegemonic ideologies which valorize

certain languages over others (García, 2013). I build on this review to discuss how an

individual’s language ideologies influence their creation and appropriation of language policies.

Language Policy

Within the field of language policy, I draw on critical approaches to focus on how

individual actors create and enact language policies within their local and global contexts. Then,

I consider two types of language policies, language allocation and language use, and how they

can function as implementational spaces within bi/multilingual programs.

 17

Since the late 20th century, there has been a movement toward critical approaches to

language policy which recognize the local and global context surrounding policies and the role of

actors in appropriating policies. Ricento (2000) notes how traditionally language policies were

viewed from a top-down perspective which emphasized the power of the policies themselves

while limiting the role of individuals. More recent critical approaches focus on the interaction

between the policy and the actors who enact it. Menken and García (2010) argue language policy

is a process by which a text is “interpreted and appropriated in unpredictable ways by agents who

appropriate, resist, and/or change dominant and alternative policy discourses” (p. 15). Gallo and

Hornberger (2017) emphasize the importance of making visible the interactions and negotiations

between the possible hegemonic nature of language policy and the agency of those involved in

enacting the policy. Levinson, Sutton and Winstead (2009) describe this process as policy

appropriation and emphasize the recursive nature of this relationship as actors influence the

policy through its enactment.

A critical approach highlights the role of teachers as “learners, not as functionaries who

follow top-down orders without question” (Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2011, p. 166); as

empowered professionals who engage in critical reflection about their own practice and

challenge oppressive policies. Recognizing the agency of actors to enact or resist a policy

demonstrates why students’ and teachers’ classroom languaging practices often do not

necessarily reflect the restrictive language policies in place in their schools.

Critical approaches to language policy place emphasize a holistic understanding of

policies within their broader local and global contexts (Gallo & Hornberger, 2017; Menken &

García, 2010). Canagarajah (2000) argues for an explicit link between policies surrounding

learning English in local contexts and larger global movements. Within a highly mobile world,
 18

Busch (2014) notes an individual’s linguistic repertoire is no longer tied to a stable geographic

local context. However, Busch argues school language policies are often seen as a tool to enforce

a unified and standardized state language, supposedly tied to the local context. School language

policies must account for students living in a world with increasingly permeable linguistic and

geographic borders. Language policies should be viewed as part of an ongoing and recursive

process of creation and appropriation while being examined critically for their position in local

and global contexts.

For my study, the field of language policy provides a framework to consider how policies

can function as implementational spaces to incorporate heteroglossic approaches. Within

bi/multilingual schools, language policies typically fall into two categories: language allocation

policies that govern program models and language use policies that are concerned with how

teachers and students use language inside and outside of the classroom. Language allocation

policies typically refer to how schools allocate languages by grade and by subject. They are often

determined by the educational authorities in the country who may require certain subjects, such

as social studies, be taught in the majority or official language(s) of the country (Sánchez,

García, & Solorza, 2018). In other cases, educational authorities may set guidelines for the

percentage of time permitted for each instructional language. However, within these guidelines,

there may be implementational spaces in which schools can soften the boundaries between

languages through their language use policies.

At times, government guidelines do not allow for a softening of boundary lines between

instructional languages, however schools can still incorporate a more heteroglossic approach

through their language use policies. Language use policies typically outline appropriate purposes

and times for teachers and students to use different named languages within classroom and out-
 19

of-classroom spaces. In recognition of plurilingual teachers’ and students’ diverse languaging

practices, schools can create language policies that open up implementational spaces which

reflect heteroglossic language ideologies by allowing students to engage in plurilingual meaning-

making as they discover their own voices (Busch, 2014). Menken and García (2010) note most

language use policies prohibit language mixing, although in a variety of global contexts, teachers

and students engage in translanguaging to make meaning in multilingual classrooms. Menken

and García highlight how teachers and students appropriate restrictive language policies to

reflect their own heteroglossic languaging practices.

While there has been a strong movement toward more flexible language policies within

multilingual contexts, some scholars emphasize the need for clear guidelines and consideration

of context. Swain and Lapkin (2013) outline guiding principles which should inform language

use policies within one-way immersion contexts, which traditionally follow strict guidelines for

language separation. While Swain and Lapkin agree teachers need to continue to place a high

priority on the use of the target language, they encourage more flexibility in terms of policies

that allow students and teachers to use their first language for specific purposes. For example,

policies could allow students to use their home language during collaborative dialogue, when

mediating understanding of a complex idea or to make metalinguistic connections. They call for

purposeful language policies with clear expectations for language use.

Other scholars have expressed concerns that policies of language separation are needed

within certain contexts to protect the minoritized language (Cenoz & Gorter, 2006). Ballinger,

Lyster, Sterzuk, and Genesee (2017) argue, “when learners are encouraged to draw on features

from the majority language during class time allocated to the minority language, this practice can

replicate, rather than resolve, an existing societal language imbalance” (p. 46-47). It is important
 20

to consider the context in which the authors promote this version of language use policies. The

authors are referring to French immersion programs in Canada, where both English and French

are official languages, but French has been historically minoritized, particularly outside of

Quebec. In international school contexts, English is often not an official nor societal language,

though one with a great deal of power.

The preceding section outlined key developments in the field of language policy and

more specifically how language allocation and language use policies are potential

implementational spaces for school actors to shift toward more heteroglossic approaches. In the

following section, I consider how classroom languaging practices act as implementational spaces

to further explore heteroglossic approaches.

Classroom Languaging Practices

While there has been a great deal of interest in heteroglossia in language education,

Busch (2014) argues for further documentation of how teachers and students use heteroglossic

practices within their classrooms. Classroom languaging practices refers to the ways in which

students and teachers engage with and through language to make-meaning. Ortega (2019b)

explains, “languaging transcends the barriers of meaning-making and becomes a process in

which bilingual/ multilingual teachers and students engage in complex discursive practices in

order to ‘make sense’ and communicate” (p. 159). Languaging, as opposed to language,

specifically highlights the active “multiple discursive practices that individuals use, which extend

beyond the sociopolitical constructions of a ‘language’ as proposed by states and used in

schools” (Menken & García, 2010, p. 259). Classroom languaging practices includes

instructional approaches, as teachers and students make meaning together through the language

of mathematics or science, as well as social interactions between students and between students
 21

and teachers. Recognizing the role of languaging practices pushes back against monoglossic

ideologies that positions monolingualism as the norm and language policies that require students

and teachers to suppress their fluid languaging practices.

To explore classroom languaging practices, I draw on translanguaging and critical

multilingual language awareness (CMLA) to demonstrate specific ways students’ and teachers’

classroom languaging practices function as implementational spaces to enact more heteroglossic

pedagogies.

Translanguaging.

Translanguaging is one of the most discussed concepts in recent years in the field of

bi/multilingual education. Originally introduced in Wales by Williams (1994), the concept was

translated into English by Baker in 2001. Translanguaging initially referred to a pedagogical

practice in Welsh bilingual schools where teachers and students moved between Welsh and

English for a variety of classroom literacy tasks. While this type of language "mixing" was

considered problematic at the time, Williams reframed these practices, arguing that the practice

provided students and teachers the opportunity to draw on their linguistic resources by

generating meaning together (Li, 2017).

Since Williams' original use of the term, translanguaging has been taken up in various

ways. Leung and Valdés (2019) note how in recent years, there has been an explosion of

conference presentations, scholarly articles and pedagogical conversations about

translanguaging. In a literature search using EBSCOhost in December 2021, I found over 900

articles published in 2020 and 2021 which mentioned translanguaging. While providing an

overview of this construct is daunting, I have found Hamman’s (2018) classification of three

main areas of thought within translanguaging very helpful. She classifies translanguaging as: 1) a
 22

theory of practice; 2) a theory of the mind; and 3) a pedagogical method. For each of the areas, I

provide an overview of some of the key literature, followed by a description of how this aspect

of translanguaging informs my study.

As a theory of practice, translanguaging describes the languaging practices of

plurilinguals and refers to the “deployment of a speaker’s full linguistic repertoire without regard

for watchful adherence to the socially and politically defined boundaries of named (and usually

national and state) languages” (Otheguy, García, & Reid, 2015, p. 281). While moving fluidly

back and forth between languages has been criticized as a sign of linguistic deficiency,

translanguaging reframes these practices as dynamic, natural, and legitimate.3 Translanguaging

moves beyond “the exclusive focus on the standard variety [that] keeps out other languaging

practices that are children’s authentic linguistic identity expression” (García, 2009, p. 36). For

example, Li (2017) describes how Chinese-English speakers create new words which follow the

morphological rules of English yet connect with the meaning of a Chinese word. García,

Johnson, Seltzer and Valdés (2017) argue translanguaging includes a recognition that schools

have not often valued the multiplicity and fluidity of plurilingual students’ languaging practices

and must include a commitment to challenge traditional language hierarchies. While there are

innumerable ways in which plurilingual speakers translanguage, the emphasis is always on the

speaker’s, not the listener’s, perspective of these languaging practices.

3
There is a great deal of debate about the relationship between translanguaging and codeswitching. Otheguy et al.
(2015) argue the terms are mutually incompatible as code-switching “constitutes a theoretical endorsement of the
idea that what the bilingual manipulates, however master- fully, are two separate linguistic systems” (p. 282) while
translanguaging argues the “mental grammars of bilinguals are structured but unitary collections of features, and the
practices of bilinguals are acts of feature selection, not of grammar switch” (p. 281). Others argue they are not
mutually exclusive, but instead have a different focus as codeswitching focuses more on language code and
word/concept development while translanguaging focuses primarily on the kind of context in which languaging
occurs (Baker & Wright, 2017).
 23

Translanguaging as a theory of the mind is more controversial. It refers to the mental

grammar of a plurilingual person and the debates center around how this cognitive collection of

features corresponds to named languages. On the one hand, Otheguy et al. (2015) argue there is

only one grammar that plurilinguals select from to communicate. This theory builds on cognitive

research about bilingualism showing “the overwhelming evidence … that both languages are

active to some degree when bilinguals are using one of them” (Kroll & Bialystok, 2013, p. 498).

Others, like MacSwan (2017), argue plurilinguals instead have an integrated multilingual

grammar with overlapping aspects of grammar from various languages but containing discrete

grammars associated with the different named languages. MacSwan argues that while

translanguaging is useful as a practice and pedagogy, he rejects it as a theory to explain the

plurilingual mind. In response to these critiques, Li (2017) clarifies that translanguaging as a

construct includes an awareness of named languages and an ability by plurilinguals to navigate

between these named languages. For Li and others, translanguaging considers languaging

practices from the perspective of the speaker and the speaker’s mind does not differentiate

between the languages. While the question of how translanguaging works cognitively remains

controversial, both sides of the debate agree there is some cognitive relationship between

languages within the plurilingual brain and critique the dual competence model of

multilingualism in which languages are seen as completely discrete linguistic systems.

Finally, translanguaging as a pedagogy includes the creation of a classroom environment

which fosters collaboration, especially through strategic groupings and projects that require

communication using different types of language and skills (García et al., 2017). The authors

posit the importance of a classroom that communicates that all of students’ languages are

important, through a multilingual ecology that makes multilingualism visible through its use of
 24

texts, visual resources, etc. García et al. (2017) call for teachers to plan for instruction through a

translanguaging lens by including objectives that reflect appropriate content, as well as

objectives for general-linguistic performance, language-specific performance and

translanguaging. Translanguaging includes an emphasis on students communicating at times in

one named language but also provides them with the space and support to draw on all their

linguistic repertoires throughout their thinking process.

It is important to note, as in the case of translanguaging as a theory of the mind, there

have been strong critics of translanguaging as a pedagogy. Some, like Leung and Valdés (2019),

note that while there is strong reason to believe that translanguaging is useful in contexts where

students and teachers share similar linguistic repertoires, they question whether translanguaging

is useful in all contexts, such as in linguistically diverse classrooms or when focused on the

development of an additional language. Cenoz and Gorter (2017) highlight the potential negative

impact of translanguaging pedagogies on minority languages which students may only engage

with in the language classroom. They argue in support of sustainable translanguaging which

emphasizes both the potential opportunities, as well as the threats, based on a particular

sociocultural context. Their work indicates the need for further studies to explore the viability

and impact of translanguaging across diverse contexts and based on the goals of instruction.

Others focus their critiques beyond the individual classroom applications of

translanguaging. Kubota (2020) contends translanguaging fails to address critical issues of power

or real-world problems which undermine the viability of linguistic diversity. She argues instead

for a critical engagement which not only focuses on restructuring conceptualizations of language,

but also examines structural barriers and ideologies of language as they intersect with the social

identities of language users. Vallejo and Dooly (2020) further this argument, noting while
 25

translanguaging has been promoted as an antidote to the one-language-only approach common in

many school contexts, its proponents fail to recognize that one-language-only is also a reality

students are likely to face in many contexts, from standardized tests to access to employment.

They argue for a pragmatic and critical stance which recognizes the societal restrictions with

which plurilinguals must continue to operate. While these are valid concerns and questions that

require further exploration, the various components of translanguaging as a pedagogy as outlined

by García et al. (2017) provide a framework by which schools and teachers can begin to consider

how to recognize and support the languaging practices of their plurilingual students within the

specific needs of context.

As a dynamic and evolving construct, translanguaging provide a lens by which to

understand plurilinguals’ languaging practices as fluid and unified, as opposed to static and

separate. While much debate surrounds this term, translanguaging as a pedagogy provides

various strategies which may help teachers move toward heteroglossic approaches. As noted by

García and Lin (2017), translanguaging in the classroom can be transformative as it resists the

hierarchy of languages so common in bi/multilingual programs while also allowing students to

engage in dynamic languaging practices which support the development of their linguistic

repertoires.

Critical Multilingual Language Awareness.

CMLA provides another alternative approach to understand how students’ and teachers’

classroom languaging practices can function as implementational spaces to enact more

heteroglossic pedagogies. Language awareness (LA) was originally introduced by Bolitho and

Tomlinson (1980), though it became more widely known through the work of Eric Hawkins

(1984). Hawkins originally proposed Language Awareness as a “bridging subject” to address a

 26

lack of coherence between various aspects of language education within the UK school system.

For Hawkins, the primary purpose of LA was to encourage students to ask questions about

language. He believed students were not often encouraged to question nor explore language, as it

was seen as something to be taken for granted. Outside of seeing the development of LA as a

bridge between various aspects of language education, Hawkins also saw LA as an avenue to

promote classroom discussions around linguistic diversity and prejudice.

In 1991, James and Garrett made a significant contribution to the field through their

description of five key domains of LA: cognitive, affective, performance, social and power.

Recently Prasad (2018) proposed to reconceptualize the domains of LA in relationship to

García’s (2017) call to foster Critical Multilingual Language Awareness in multilingual school

contexts. Prasad and Lory (2020) describe the domains of CMLA in the following way: a)

cognitive - metalinguistic awareness and metacognitive aspects of language learning; b) affective

- socio-emotional aspects of engaging with languages, language users and diverse language

practices; c) performance - language and literacy skills and communicative competence; d) social

- linguistic and cultural diversity and identities, and interactions between language learning,

language learners and language speakers; e) power - attention to power relations associated with

languages, language speakers and language learning. James and Garrett did not intend the

domains to be seen as mutually exclusive from each other nor position them in conflict with the

goal of learning a specific named language. Instead, they envisioned these five areas as domains

of competence in which all students could develop their language awareness which would in turn

support their plurilingual repertoire. For Prasad and Lory (2020), questions of power are at the

centre of developing CMLA.

 27

Attention to linguistic diversity and questions of power were present in both Hawkins’

(1984) and James and Garrett’s (1991) conceptions of LA. Fairclough (1992) pushed these ideas

further, calling for the development of critical language study which “highlights how language

conventions and language practices are invested with power relations and ideological processes

which people are often unaware of” (p. 7). Alim (2010) supports the development of a Critical

Language Awareness (CLA), arguing that researchers must first work alongside teachers to

uncover ideologies of linguistic supremacy which elevate certain language variety over others.

Alim argues beyond uncovering problematic ideologies of supremacy, researchers must engage

the educational and wider community in addressing the corresponding practices and policies

related to these ideologies as they consider how they influence issues of power. While

researchers such as Fairclough and Alim have put forth a clear call for centering power within

the field of LA, recent reviews have criticized LA scholarship for not paying sufficient attention

to issues of power (Fairclough, 2014; Svalberg, 2016).

García (2017) draws explicit attention to questions of power in her call for critical

multilingual language awareness (CMLA). García emphasizes that schools must become places

that recognize and draw students’ attention to the existence of multilingualism in societies and

how language has traditionally been constructed in schools in ways privileging certain groups.

By calling for teachers to become aware of linguistic variety both within and beyond their

specific classroom or school, García pushes for the inclusion of languages that may have been

excluded from the school setting. García specifically mentions her view that in Latin America,

“Spanish-speakers remain ignorant of the many languages of the Indigenous communities and of

the high language diversity of the region” (p. 5). García provides several methods that teachers

can draw on to learn about cultural and linguistic diversity within their classrooms and schools,
 28

but also in the larger society. For example, she suggests conducting a critical sociolinguistic

study of the linguistic landscape of their specific context.

Outside of a heightened awareness of linguistic diversity, García (2017) calls for a

recognition that schools often promote certain languages and practices as desired, and in turn,

delegitimize language practices which do not fit within this presumed norm. García argues

schools must first draw attention to these histories of inequality and then provide spaces for all

students to leverage their linguistic repertoires as they make sense of their multilingual worlds.

While recognizing that schools should help students develop standard varieties of named

languages, García also calls on schools to see students’ languaging practices as valid and as a

tool for learning and creativity. García and Lin (2017) argues that educators can foster

linguistically expansive learning spaces that support collaborative cross-linguistic comparison

across students’ different languages. Through both acknowledging histories of cultural and

linguistic exclusion and devaluing and then creating spaces for this type of diversity, García

(2017) argues teachers can:

Engage all students in developing a consciousness of language as social practice and a

voicing of their own multilingual experiences, thus generating not only a new order of

discourse, but also a new praxis, capable of changing the social order of what it means to

‘language’ in school. (p. 7)

While CMLA provides a great deal of opportunity for teachers to consider expanding

ideological spaces, it also can inform heteroglossic approaches to implementational spaces. One

example is Collaborative Learning through Multilingual Inquiry (CLMI) which is pedagogical

approach developed by Prasad (2019) in which teachers, students, families, and researchers

engage in collaborative, critical and creative multilingual project-based learning. CLMI

 29

recognizes and promotes the diverse languaging practices of students, while also providing space

to introduce languages that may have been marginalized within the school or community.

Through multilingual activities and project-based inquiry, students and teachers are provided

with opportunities to increase their metalinguistic awareness, as well as develop a heightened

awareness of the issues of power which surround languages.

CLMI draws heavily on Critical Multilingual Language Awareness (CMLA) by placing

power at the center of discussions about languages and languaging. As a pedagogical approach,

CLMI is a powerful tool to draw students’ and teachers’ attention to the opportunity for explicit

connections between instructional languages, as well as recognizing and incorporating other

languages which are present in the school and community ecology but have been excluded

because of questions of power and hegemonic language ideologies and policies.

Translanguaging and CMLA illustrate how classroom languaging practices function as

implementational spaces to enact more heteroglossic pedagogies. By placing these constructs in

conversation with the larger fields of language ideologies and language policies, I demonstrate

how monoglossic and hegemonic ideologies, policies and practices oppress students’ and

teachers’ diverse linguistic identities and languaging practices within bilingual educations.

Conclusion

In sum, in this literature review, I draw on the field of language ideologies, language

policies and classroom languaging practices to explore a movement away from monoglossic and

hegemonic approaches to bi/multilingual education. While each of these three arenas stand on

their own, I have chosen to bring all of them into conversation to explore how teachers and

students negotiate a move toward a more heteroglossic approach to bi/multilingual education.

 30

CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH CONTEXT

My study explores how school actors at an international school in Colombia engaged

with novel heteroglossic approaches to bi/multilingual education. To frame the context for my

study, I first provide an overview of the historical and current presence of colonialistic and

monoglossic language ideologies within the field of language education in Latin America and

more specifically, in Colombia. Then, I provide background on international schools in Latin

America and research documenting monoglossic and colonialistic ideologies and practices within

these schools in Colombia. I explore how these ideologies and practices within international

bilingual schools in Colombia have been taken up by the national government and expanded to

public schools throughout the country (Usma Wilches, 2009). Finally, I discuss recent research

which highlights promising heteroglossic approaches to bilingual education in Colombia.

Colombia

Colombia is the 5th largest country in Latin America with a population of approximately

50 million people. The population of Colombia consists primarily of Indigenous groups and

descendants from Spain, Africa, and other parts of Europe and the Middle East. Even though

Colombia has experienced extremely high levels of internal violence, prior to the COVID-19

pandemic, it had demonstrated positive economic growth. Some refer to Colombia as an

economic miracle, highlighting the passage of the Free Trade Agreement with US in 2011 and an

invitation to be part of OECD (Usma Wilches, 2015). Nevertheless, as Usma Wilches notes,

Colombia continues to suffer extremely high levels of inequality between the richest and the

poorest. The COVID-19 further exacerbated these inequalities, highlighted in the significant

social protests throughout the country in 2021.

 31

The Colombian population is linguistically and culturally diverse, while at the same time

experiencing ongoing patterns of linguistic and cultural genocide. Colombia has approximately

65 Indigenous languages, in addition to varieties of Creole, Romani and sign languages (Usma

Wilches, Ortiz Medina, & Gutiérrez, 2018). Beginning at the time of colonization in 1492,

Spanish became the official language of Colombia and for most of the population, it is their first

and only language. While Indigenous languages were oppressed during the colonial period, other

foreign languages were present, such as Greek and Latin, primarily promoted by Catholic

missionaries. After Independence from Spain in 1810, Colombian elites began sending their

children to Europe for educational purposes, which led to the introduction of other foreign

languages in Colombia, including French, German, and English. These foreign languages were

further entrenched with the establishment of elite international schools in Colombia in the early

20th century. In the 1930s, Spanish was consolidated as the language of education for Indigenous

groups which led to the loss of prestige for Indigenous languages, as well as the consolidation of

Spanish as the language of power.

In 1991, Colombia passed a new national constitution, which recognized the country as

multiethnic and plurilingual. While Spanish was deemed the official language throughout

Colombia, minority languages were recognized as co-official only in the regions where those

languages were traditionally spoken (Guerrero-Nieto & Quintero-Polo, 2021). While these new

constitutional protections marked an important step for Indigenous languages, they were still

given less status in comparison to Spanish and not recognized outside of limited regions which

failed to recognize the dynamic nature of languages and language users which cannot be

demarcated by solid geographic boundaries.

English Language Education in Colombia

 32

Within the Colombian context, Guerrero (2009) argues the current emphasis on teaching

English reflects problematic ideologies demonstrated first by colonial powers and then by

national governments, explicitly valuing Spanish over Indigenous languages. From the Spanish

colonization to educational policies set in the 1930s which consolidated Spanish as the language

of education for Indigenous groups, minority languages continue to be seen as less prestigious

(Usma Wilches, 2015). Guerrero (2008) points to the powerful influence of organizations like

the British Council who have promoted English as further evidence of ongoing colonial

practices. Since World War II and the emergence of the United States as a global power, English

has risen to prominence as the preferred foreign language in Colombia (de Mejía, 2020). Other

foreign languages, such as French and German, have been promoted at various times in

Colombia’s history, but they are also associated with the elite, as local Indigenous languages

remain on the periphery.

Over the past thirty years, English has strengthened its position of privilege within

language education in Colombia (Fandiño-Parra, 2021; de Mejía, López Mendoza, & Peña Dix,

2011). In 1994, the General Law of Education mandated the teaching of foreign languages to

begin in elementary school. For the Ministry of Education, foreign language “was conceived as

synonymous with the English language because…the conception of bilingualism for [them] was

equivalent to speaking English, not another foreign language (Guerrero-Nieto & Quintero-Polo,

2021, p. 121). De Mejía et al. (2011) link the emphasis on English to the increasingly prominent

role of Colombia in the global market such as through the signing of Colombia’s Free Trade

Agreement with the United States in 2011 and the invitation to join the Organization for

Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) in 2012. With this new presumed position in

the global market, English holds a more important role as it is considered essential for
 33

international commerce (Guerrero-Nieto & Quintero-Polo, 2021; de Mejía et al., 2011), a trend

reflected across Latin America where there has been an increase in teaching English at all grade

levels (Howard et al., 2016). While English is promoted as key in allowing Colombians to

effectively participate in a globalized labour market, the exclusive promotion of English further

entrenches social inequity.

While Indigenous languages fought for their place within Colombian society against the

imposition of Spanish, now English plays an increasingly powerful role in the competition for

resources and prestige (Guerrero, 2009). As noted by de Mejía (2020), not all bilinguals are seen

as equal in Colombia, as Spanish-English bilingualism is celebrated and other types of

bilingualism are invisible. Ortega (2019a) states the current Colombian approach to language

teaching “perpetuates the problematic hegemony of the English language in Colombian

educational policy and society and marginalizes Spanish and Indigenous languages” (p. 1) and he

calls for the colonialist elements of these policies to be dismantled. Indigenous languages are

further at risk, as foreign languages, primarily English, are officially promoted through national

language policies and through various international organizations, such as the British Council

(Branschat, 2019; Fandiño-Parra, 2021; Usma Wilches, 2015). For example, for Indigenous

students seeking post-secondary education, English proficiency functions as a gatekeeping

mechanism. While multilingualism in Indigenous languages is supposedly protected by the

national constitution, all university students are required to demonstrate English-Spanish

bilingualism for entrance and graduate requirements (Usma Wilches, Ortiz Medina & Gutiérrez,

2018). One must interrogate these language ideologies and policies from a critical lens,

acknowledging the ongoing detrimental impact on Spanish, and increasingly English, as

imperialist languages of colonization in South America (Brovetto, 2017).

 34

National Bilingual Program

In 2004, the Colombian government implemented the National Bilingual Program4

(NBP) which included the development of various Spanish-English bilingual programs

throughout the country in both public and private schools (Valencia, 2013) with the original

stated goal for all Colombian citizens to be bilingual by 2019 (Usma Wilches, 2009). The plan

follows a multi-pronged approach, including the development of standards for language teaching

and learning, a more consistent approach to language assessment and an emphasis on

professional development for teachers (Mora, Chiquito, & Zapata, 2019). While the goals for the

NBP were very ambitious, and the teaching of English has become increasingly important in

Colombia, the country ranks amongst the lowest in overall levels of English proficiency in Latin

America (Usma Wilches, Ortiz Medina & Gutiérrez, 2018).

The Colombian Ministry of Education oversees both public and private education

throughout the country, but implementation occurs at the departmental level, including for

foreign language education. As a result,

In Colombia, there is no specific approach stated or suggested from governmental entities

to reach this objective [learning English as a foreign language]. What is more, not all

institutions act in a unified and uniform way to address approaches and methodologies.

Most of the time the decision-making concerning the design and implementation of the

language curriculum relies on teachers themselves. (Torres-Rincón & Cuesta-Medina,

2019, p. 111).

4
The National Bilingual Program (Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo) has undergone a number of name and policy
changes, as well as regional modifications, since its inception in 2004 up to the present (see Bonilla Carvajal and
Tejada-Sanchez (2016) and Gómez Sará (2017) for overviews of the various iterations of the policies). I use the
abbreviation NBP throughout as an umbrella term as all iterations have focused on the development of a bilingual
Colombia.
 35

The authors further state that, “the majority of Colombian schools create their own curricula and

choose the competences and foci that they are required to develop during the academic year” (p.

112) which may or may not align with the language standards set by the Ministry of Education.

While most elite international schools already follow some type of language immersion

program, under the NBP, hundreds of bilingual programs have been implemented in public and

private schools. While there has been a significant increase in the intensification of English

language instruction, there has been very little oversight and evaluation of the effectiveness of

these programs (Rodriguez-Bonces, 2017). Camargo Cely (2018) notes at times there are schools

that “claim to be bilingual regardless of not having a bilingual curriculum” (p. 120). While the

number of bilingual programs in Colombia continues to grow, doubts remain regarding their

effectiveness.

In addition, the NBP reproduces monoglossic and colonialistic ideologies, policies, and

practices through bilingual programs in public schools throughout Colombia. In terms of a

monoglossic approach, Gómez Sará (2017) argues the separation of languages is apparent

throughout the program which emphasizes the learning of Spanish and English as two separate

linguistic codes, without consideration of how these codes interact. Bonilla Carvajal and Tejada-

Sanchez (2016) further contend that NBP positions bilingualism as equivalent to speaking

English, with no regard for the multilingualism present in Colombia, nor the interaction of

English with languages already spoken by students. Usma Wilches (2015) posits that many local

scholars, “question the very adoption of the term ‘bilingualism’ in a country like Colombia

where Spanish has been the dominant language and English is learned and used as a foreign

language” (p. 12).

 36

The NBP also reflects colonialistic ideologies, as it valorizes languages, expertise, and

relationships from outside the Colombian context. First, the NBP reflects colonialistic ideologies

as it privileges English as a foreign language at the expense of local Indigenous languages and

Spanish (Gómez Sará, 2017; Usma Wilches, 2015). As noted by Guerrero (2008), the NBP’s

valuing of English at the expense of other languages is a direct descendant of the oppressive

ideologies demonstrated by colonial powers who explicitly valued Spanish over any Indigenous

languages. Since 1991, the Colombian Constitution explicitly recognizes the rights of Indigenous

communities to use their own languages in schooling, yet the NBP values Spanish-English

bilingualism at the expense of any other types (Guerrero-Nieto & Quintero-Polo, 2021).

Second, the NBP was based primarily on foreign expertise and models. The NBP uses the

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) as the standard by which to

measure teacher and students’ English language proficiency, stating students should have a B1

level of competency in English by the time they graduate from high school (Maturana Patarroyo,

2011). Many scholars dispute the use of the CEFR, as the NBP did not take into consideration

whether it was appropriate for the Colombian context, nor recognize key issues of power which

must be considered when implementing an external instrument (Bonilla Carvajal & Tejada-

Sanchez, 2016; Camargo Cely, 2018; Correa, 2013; González, 2010; Claudia Lucía Ordóñez,

2008; Usma Wilches, 2009; Usma Wilches, 2015). In addition, the extensive local expertise of

researchers within Colombia was excluded from this process. According to Correa and Usma

Wilches (2013), the voices of English teachers, scholars, school administrators and Indigenous

community leaders were all discounted in the design, planning and implementation of the NBP.

Finally, the NBP prioritizes relationships outside of the local context through

emphasizing the role of English in providing access to the global market (Camargo Cely, 2018;
 37

Guerrero, 2009). According to Usma Wilches (2015), “the emphasis in Colombia on specific

language policies associated with English responds to international agreements on the

educational models required at times of economic globalization and transnational transactions

and interactions” (p. 27). These relationships are also noted within the realm of transnational

power relationships between organizations like the World Bank, the United Nations and the

OECD, as these organizations require countries to apply their policies to receive political or

financial support (Usma Wilches, 2015).

The importance of language in helping Colombians gain access to the global market was

frequently used as a key rationale for NBP, as shown in the following quote from a Ministry of

Education document:

To communicate in a foreign language is an indispensable ability in the world today. Not

only does it allow for academic and laboral mobility; it is also one of the bases on which

to build the competitive capability of a society and a tool to open oneself to new cultures

and new experiences. (Vision 2019 Educación, 2006, p. 54)

Rodríguez-Bonces (2017) describes one of the NBP’s stated goals as the acquisition of at least

one foreign language for all citizens for them to become active and productive participants in the

globalized world. The NBP promotes language learning from “a utilitarian perspective which

justifies learning English on the basis of economic competitiveness and improved quality of life”

(p. 222), regardless of the detriment to Indigenous languages and local cultures. Guerrero-Nieto

and Quintero-Polo (2021) state, “For the [NBP], English or bilingualism represent capital and as

such for them it is worth of investment, promotion and incentives” (p. 123). Instead of a focus on

the various other goals for learning a language, including humanitarian, social or cognitive goals,
 38

the NBP narrowly associates languages with competition within the global market (Usma

Wilches, 2015).

Ortega (2020) claims public school teachers often reflect this focus on the teaching of

English for its economic benefits, as also shown by de Mejía and Montes Rodriguez (2008)

within the private school context. Ironically, Guerrero (2008) notes Spanish has the third highest

number of speakers in the world, yet Spanish is “not enough for Colombians to have access to

the ‘current world’” (p. 33). According to the NBP, and various other national and international

policies and organizations, only English will provide access to the global market.

In sum, the NBP reproduces monoglossic and colonialistic ideologies, policies and

practices through valorizing languages, expertise, and relationships from outside the Colombian

context. As described by Usma Wilches (2015), the NBP,

Decided to borrow a global discourse about ‘bilingualism’, embraced a European model

for language teaching and learning, enforced internationally sound standards and tests,

and commissioned transnational organizations such as the British Council and Cambridge

University Press for the local implementation. (p. 77)

These problematic imported ideologies, policies and practices are evidence of the larger logic of

coloniality which underlies both public and private language programs in Colombia.

International Schools

In the late 19th and 20th centuries, private international schools were established to educate

students of globally mobile families whose parents were employed by multinational companies,

universities, or diplomatic missions. Hayden and Thompson (2008) provide a broad, conceptual

definition of international schools: a) curriculum that differs from that of host country; b)

teachers and administrators who tend to be non-citizens of the host country; c) unique structures
 39

of governance or ownership which are distinct from national schools; and d) students who are

frequently not nationals of the host country. However, in recent years, there has been a

significant shift in the student demographics of international schools (Obiko Pearson, 2022).

Tanu (2018) notes, "While international schools catered mainly to the children of expatriates,

who made up 80 percent of the study body more than thirty years ago, rather than to local

children, the trend has been reversed in recent years with local students making up 80 percent of

the student demography" (p. 3). Hallgarten et al. (2016) describe the emerging

diversity among international schools, stating: “some schools (such as those backed by their

local embassy) are focused on a specific migrant nationality, others multinational (with more

than 50 nationalities, commonly) and others mixed, with national and international students side

by side” (p. 8).

Tanu (2018) further notes that the definitions of national and international education are

merging, with both the growing popularity of international schools, as well as the

internationalization of national schools. Bettney and Nordmeyer (2021) refer to schools in the

middle of this spectrum as glocal5 schools that provide an English-medium or bilingual

education using an international curriculum for a majority population of local students. ISC

Research, a research organization and database focused on international schools, lists over three

thousand “local IB” (International Baccalaureate) schools out of its total of fifteen thousand

“international” schools worldwide ("ISC Research," 2022). These glocal schools reflect, in many

cases, several of the characteristics of international schools discussed above: a global curriculum,

a diverse faculty and unique school structures; however, glocal schools cater almost exclusively

5
The term ‘glocal’ describes how ideas, languages or practices circulate or diffuse from one place to another,
becoming adapted and situated to their new local context (Mizrahi-Shtelman & Drori, 2016; Robertson, 2014;
Roudometof, 2014). The process of glocalization has economic roots and Robertson (1995) used the term to
describe global ‘micro-marketing’ advertising campaigns that were contextualized to local and particular markets.
 40

to local host-country families and often utilize multiple languages for instruction (Nordmeyer &

Wilson, 2020). This emerging category of glocal schools represent a hybrid identity along a

continuum of national and international schools, providing a way to conceptualize the process of

glocalization in education as language becomes deterritorialized; both ideas and people become

increasingly mobile.

Historically, bilingual schools in Latin America were created by European immigrant

communities to meet the needs of their children and the choice of instructional language(s)

depended on the immigrant community itself (Hamel, 2008). Typically, these schools were

reserved for either direct members of the immigrant community or members of the economic and

social elites of this region (Hamel). In Colombia, international bilingual schools, also called elite

bilingual schools, are normally founded by non-nationals (de Mejía, 2002; 2013). They often

have close contact with the founder’s foreign country, including curriculum, accreditation, and

staff. These schools typically follow an early partial one-way immersion model with a British,

US or unified international curriculum (such as the International Baccalaureate), instead of or in

addition to the national curriculum.

The same shift in demographics noted within other international school contexts is

occurring within Latin America. There has been a significant growth of international schools

established primarily by Colombians and for Colombian families who want their children to

study at foreign universities and strengthen future employment opportunities (de Mejía, 2020).

Currently, most students attending international schools are Colombian and Spanish-speaking,

yet according to Usma Wilches (2015), they represent a very small percentage of the overall

student population in Colombia.

 41

International schools in Colombia have been heavily criticized for monoglossic

orientations that separate instructional languages and for colonialistic views which prioritize

English at the expense of other languages (de Mejía, 2013). Students’ languages are often

positioned as separate, as opposed to seeing the languages as part of students’ unified linguistic

repertoires (de Mejía, 2013). The majority of schools separate languages to the point of having

two distinct language programs operating within one school, with disconnected staff, curriculum

and at times conflicting pedagogical approaches (Hamel, 2008; de Mejía, 2005).

While international schools often describe themselves as following a bilingual model,

many follow a primarily English-medium of instruction model, with the teaching of only Spanish

language and Colombian social studies in Spanish (de Mejía, 2020). In other cases, schools teach

additional classes in Spanish, such as art and physical education. Dividing up subject areas by

instructional languages often dictates certain academic subjects, such as math and science, are

only ever taught in English which positions English as more suitable for talking about scientific

and abstract concepts (Gómez Sará, 2017; de Mejía & Montes Rodríguez, 2008). de Mejía and

Montes Rodríguez contend schools could consider teaching a subject using both languages,

while still following the school’s model for the overall breakdown of time in each instructional

language.

This approach of strict language separation reflects Canadian French immersion

programs which have heavily influenced bilingual schools in Colombia (Ordóñez, 2008; 2011).

As noted in Chapter 2, Ballinger et al. (2017) explain these French immersion programs were

designed for the Canadian context, where both English and French are official languages, but

French has been historically minoritized, particularly outside of Quebec. Within the context of

Colombia, the same model has been applied to discourage students from drawing on Spanish
 42

during English instructional time, with the idea that English needs protected instructional time.

Nevertheless, should English, with its oppressive colonial history and present, be considered a

minoritized language in need of protection? In addition, Canadian French Immersion programs

have faced increasing criticism for failing to adapt their instructional approaches to more recent

understandings of the malleability of language (Cummins, 2014; Roy, 2020; Swain & Lapkin,

2013). While initial Canadian French Immersion programs were shown to be effective in a

variety of ways, they have been at times adopted within the Colombian context without

consideration for the different sociopolitical, historical, and linguistic context, nor modified to

reflect the strong body of research shifting away from strict language separation within

immersion programs (de Mejía et al., 2012; Ordoñez, 2011).

Hamel (2008) argues monoglossic approaches that attempt to separate instructional

languages are often based on a lack of understanding about bilingualism and folk theories about

the potential dangers of language mixing. Hamel states simply:

A bilingual program that raises barriers between languages, which fails to organize its

syllabus in an integrative way and to build multiple transfer routes of knowledge and

competencies between them, is destined to fail in the long run, no matter what other

advantages it may offer on a daily basis. (p. 83)

Ordoñez (2011) argues most students learning English in Colombia are learning it as an

additional language and therefore bilingual schools should encourage students to draw on their

knowledge of Spanish.

In contrast, some scholars and practitioners argue for policies of language separation to

protect the target language. For example, within the Colombian context, where English is

generally not spoken within society, they argue if students are allowed to draw on Spanish during
 43

English instructional time, the practice may not allow for sufficient time in the target language.

In a pilot study I conducted in 2019 in preparation for my dissertation, I interviewed ten teachers

and school administrators at various international schools in Latin America. When asked about

their school’s language policies, many participants were open to more flexible language policies,

yet they questioned the potential negative impact on students’ English proficiency. Concerns

regarding the English and Spanish development of students at bilingual schools have occurred in

scholarly research throughout Latin America (Ordóñez, 2004; 2011). In a study about fifth grade

students in a private bilingual school in Colombia, Ávila (2010) argues for an approach that

discourages students from moving freely between languages to avoid a supposed negative impact

on students’ English proficiency skills. Both scholarly discussions and anecdotal evidence

indicate the need for further consideration of how classroom language policies are created and

appropriated, as well as the language goals of the actors within each school context.

Along with the NBP, many private schools in Colombia also exhibit colonialistic

ideologies, policies, and practices. First, school programs often prioritize English over other

languages and administrators prioritize the hiring of foreign English teachers. Within this

established linguistic hierarchy, English teachers, particularly so-called native English speakers

from certain countries are seen as more valuable than their Colombian counterparts (Camargo

Cely, 2018; Guerrero, 2018). Foreign teachers are often paid more and given less

responsibilities, even if they are teaching the same types of classes (de Mejía, 2002). Ordóñez

(2008) argues bilingual education in Colombia is often “mostly education for the learning of a

foreign language without sufficient regard for the development that Spanish has to undergo in

school” (p. 158). She calls instead for education for bilingualism which focuses on the
 44

intentional and interconnected support of both home and foreign languages for the purpose of

communication and learning.

This emphasis on teaching English in bilingual schools is often tied primarily to its

perceived economic value (Camargo Cely, 2018; de Mejía & Montes Rodríguez, 2008). In her

study of a private school in Bogotá, Rodriguez-Bonces (2017) surveyed parents and teachers

regarding their personal beliefs about bilingualism and bilingual education. The results indicated

parents believed the primary advantage of a bilingual program for their children was future

competitiveness in the global market. When asked the primary purpose of becoming bilingual in

Spanish and English, both parents and teachers selected being prepared to work abroad over

developing interpersonal skills or valuing a different culture. While scholars debate whether or

not learning English actually leads to increased social mobility and opportunities (Fandiño Parra,

2014; Usma Wilches, 2009), parents “continue to associate knowledge of the English language

with economic competitiveness” (Rodríguez-Bonces, 2017, p. 239).

In sum, monoglossic and colonialistic language ideologies are common within the

context of international bilingual schools in Colombia. These ideologies position students’

languages as separate and valorize English at the expense of national and regional languages.

Through their program models and hiring choices, international bilingual schools “continue to

propagate the idea that English is best” (Ortega, 2020, p. 41). In the following section, I explore

how this instrumental valuing of English within private schools matches the government’s push

for teaching English for economic reasons.

Public and private schools

In recent years, the Colombian national government has made a concerted effort to

increase English instruction in public schools, under the guise of English proficiency being a
 45

necessary global skill and one which promotes social mobility. In reality, the push for more

English in Colombia has further advantaged elite bilingual schools as their programs and their

graduates benefit from educational policies and requirements focused on English teaching

(Ortega, 2019a).

The significant gap between public and private education has been noted by various

Colombian scholars as “the quantity and quality of education [depends] largely on the conditions

of teachers and students in a particular school, and the financial resources available” (Usma

Wilches, 2015, p. 18). In general, as is common across Latin America, students in lower

socioeconomic groups attend public schools which spend on average, between 5 to 10 times less

per student compared to private schools (Noel, 2008). Regionally, there is an underinvestment in

public primary and secondary education, as government’s focus spending on higher education

because of “the greater political clout of universities, which receive students who are more

highly represented in the elite sector of society” (Noel, p. 145).

According to Usma Wilches (2015), 85% of students attend public schools while 15%

attend private schools in Colombia. Usma Wilches notes these numbers are shifting, as an

increasing number of students attend private schools, particularly in urban areas. All students in

public and private schools take national standardized exams. Students in public schools tend to

have lower scores across the various measures of math, Spanish, etc. For English, students take

the Prueba SABER exam in Grades 5, 9 and 11. In general, the lower a students’ economic

status, the lower their score on the Prueba SABER 11 exam prior to high school graduation

(Usma Wilches, 2015). In 2013, Usma Wilches notes only 10% of students attending public

schools reached the government’s goal on the Prueba SABER exam, compared to 27% of

students in private schools. As well, all of the 50 schools with the best institutional scores on the
 46

Prueba SABER exam were private schools. English has therefore become a marker for the most

privileged who attend private schools.

This utilitarian positioning of English simply as means to access the global market is

more than simply a problematic ideology; enacted through the NBP, these ideologies impact the

lives of students and their families across Colombia. Usma Wilches (2015) argues the NBP

exacerbates social inequality by perpetuating the advantages of an elite group of Colombians

who attend international schools, are fluent in English and have access to various forms of

capital. Usma Wilches notes:

In the context of globalization and competitiveness, and when the government is setting

the stage for those who speak two languages, being able to speak English will represent

an asset, while being monolingual will become an enormous drawback for those who lack

social and economic capital (social connections and money)….This is why not granting

all students within the private and public system the same education quality and the

possibility to be proficient in English is placing them into different tracks with the global

and national job market. (p. 51)

While presented as opportunity to equalize social inequity, English proficiency has become

another barrier to educational and employment opportunities for most Colombians (Fandiño-

Parra, 2021).

The implementation of the NBP led to a further “breach between public and private

institutions…as a consequence of the uneven conditions in which English as a foreign language

is taught in Colombia” (Usma Wilches, 2015, p. 10). While in theory the NBP applies to both

public and private schools, elite private schools often operate outside of its guidelines because

they already have higher standards for language acquisition. For example, international schools
 47

often employ foreign teachers who are not required to demonstrate or attain any level of Spanish

proficiency. Yet according to the NBP, all Colombian teachers, not just English teachers, must

receive a CEFR Level A2 English certification for the school to be classified as a bilingual

program (Rodríguez-Bonces, 2017). Private schools already designed with intensive English

language programs and the associated resources benefit as they match the government’s plan for

bilingualism. The narrow definition of Spanish-English bilingualism through the NBP further

entrenches the privilege of Colombian elites and leads to increased social inequality as not all

schools have the resources available to implement the plan successfully (Rodriguez-Bonces,

2017). As noted by Ordóñez (2008), “The educational decisions related to bilingualism in

international language…have favored a very small minority of children in especially positive

socio-economic conditions in private schools” (p. 356).

This widening gap between public and private education in Colombia reflects the impact

of neoliberal policies implemented across South America since the 1990s which emphasize

individualism, competition, private capital, and capitalism (Díaz Maggioli, 2017). According to

Usma Wilches (2015), the emphasis on the universal need for English and the failure to provide

the resources and support to public schools to enact the NBP, further undermined the public

school system in Colombia as it positions the public school system as unprepared for the global

market and in need of reform, compared to the private system. This leads to the consolidation of

the private system, especially for those within the upper socioeconomic strata. This enacts a

problematic cycle in which,

Neoliberal regulations are enforced, teachers react against them, quality in the public

system is affected, parents find attractive responses in the private sector, and the states

finds new motivations to continue to cut public expending and exert stringent control
 48

over school and teachers by adopting more top-down policies (Usma Wilches, 2015, p.

48).

These neoliberal policies are seen within the context of the economic market for English

teaching resources in Latin America where foreign publishers also often exhibit a strong

influence in language education. Throughout the region, foreign publishers develop materials

used in public and private schools which are not designed for the specific country, but instead for

easy replication (Banfi, 2017). Torres-Rincón and Cuesta-Medina (2019) note that most books

used in Colombian schools, “do not generally fit the guidelines suggested by the Ministry of

Education, as they were not designed for the Colombian context” (p. 112). Banfi notes how

foreign publishers are involved in the development of programmes and teaching materials to the

point of there being an open bid process, evidence again of the influence of neoliberal ideologies

of privatization and competition on the field of language teaching.

The teaching of English for its assumed economic power and the rapid spread of English

is closely linked to the shifts toward globalization being experienced around the world (Ricento,

2010). From the outsourcing of cheaper labour to the development of communication and

information technologies, the learning of English is now seen by many, and promoted by

governments around the world, as an essential skill. Throughout South America, English

continues to be positioned by many as primarily a tool to facilitate economic and technological

exchange at a global level (Pozzi, 2017). According to Kamhi-Stein et al. (2017), governments

promote English teaching for economic reasons, without providing the necessary

contextualization of programs, policies and resources which would allow disenfranchised groups

to benefit. Banfi (2017) argues national governments throughout the region continue to support

the idea promoted by international organizations that English language skills are essential for all
 49

citizens to “fully participate in the economic benefits derived from the more fluid exchanges

made possible by the process of globalisation of the economy and wider access to information

technologies” (p. 14). She notes there is an increasing push for English language teaching in

younger grades and in public school contexts, yet the necessary conditions for the successful

teaching of English are not present. However, the policies themselves give the impression that

students have access to language instruction, a perceived improvement from the past, while they

often do not have access, or the access is very limited compared to the private sector. While

English is often promoted as a means to provide access to all for the global market, the South

American governments’ “linguistic policies that aim to provide access to global forces do not

always successfully include local populations in globalizing processes or grant them equal

treatment across socioeconomic lines” (Pozzi, p. 142).

This promotion of English skills as a universal requirement within a globalized world

obscures the reality that globalization has not provided equal access to the learning of English for

all (Usma Wilches, 2015). Instead, while neoliberal ideologies “have favoured the consolidation

of English as the new imperial language” (Usma Wilches, p. 29), the spread of English has not

led to more equity either between or within nations. Even so, Kamhi-Stein et al. (2017) argue the

teaching of English in South America could play a role in empowerment and the repositioning of

countries if it is seen both as a cognitive skill and as a tool in the “promotion of a more socially

just approach to our understanding of the world” (p. 3). The extensive critiques of the NBP’s

emphasis on external expertise, languages and relationships and its ongoing positioning of

English simply as a tool to access the global market, without addressing the ongoing inequities

perpetuated by this approach, indicate the NBP is not yet promoting a more socially just world

but instead further perpetuating social inequities.

 50

Hegemonic and monoglossic language ideologies, policies and practices are seen across

the spectrum of private and public bilingual programs in Colombia. Their presence connects to

larger questions about power and access within our globalized society. Ordóñez (2008)

convincingly argues, bilingual school administrators and national policy makers “have adopted

educational models …and applied policies that have been designed for socio-linguistic contexts

and phenomena foreign to us, and they should not” (p. 356). While these issues must continue to

be interrogated, there is promising evidence of shifts occurring within bilingual education as

Colombian teachers and students resist these problematic narratives.

Shifting Toward Heteroglossia

While monoglossic and colonialistic language ideologies are common, there is a growing

recognition of the need to shift toward heteroglossic approaches that affirm and leverage

students’ communicative repertoires while bringing attention to questions of language and

power. Within the context of public schools in Colombia, emerging research indicates how

public-school teachers work to resist the monoglossic ideologies of the NBP. In an article about

the creative use of pedagogical strategies by English teachers in rural Colombian schools, Cruz

Arcila (2018) notes how one teacher encouraged her students to move freely between Spanish

and English during her English class. The teacher believed it was important for students to be

able to see how the learning of English was connected to their language resources, and not view

English as a separate entity. Cruz Arcila notes how the teacher’s instructional choices coincide

with translanguaging as a pedagogical approach, without the teacher necessarily tying the

practice to the specific term. She argues for further research to recognize how some English

teachers in Colombia are engaging in heteroglossic teaching practices, whether they are in line or

not with the government’s official approach to English language teaching.

 51

Some research has highlighted the advent of heteroglossic pedagogies within private

bilingual schools in Colombia as well. In their case studies of eight Spanish-English bilingual

schools, de Mejía et al. (2012) note some teachers use a strategy called, Preview/Review in which

they first introduce a topic to students in Spanish and have them participate in several activities

and then present the next related lesson in English and focus on activities to demonstrate and

expand their understanding. In a science class, a teacher adapted a group presentation that was

supposed to be taught solely in English through encouraging students to freely move between

languages as they discussed and prepared for their presentation. While research about

heteroglossic pedagogies is limited within the region, de Mejía et al.’s study indicates the

possibility of such practices within bilingual schools. While there is evidence of ongoing

problematic ideologies and practices within bilingual schools in Colombia, these few studies

highlight the possibility of more equitable approaches.

The creation and implementation of monoglossic and exclusionary policies and practices

within bilingual education in Colombia oppress students’ and teachers’ diverse linguistic

identities and languaging practices. These policies and practices reflect a logic of coloniality

which underlies both private and public contexts which places English as a foreign language, and

those associated with English, as superior. At times, within the Colombian context, international

schools are criticized for being the epitome of foreign imposition, yet, through the lens of

coloniality, it becomes clear how international schools operate according to the same colonial

hierarchy. In particular, international schools exhibit a powerful influence over education

because of their association with the foreign (Ortega, 2019a; Ordóñez, 2011; Usma Wilches,

2009), yet international schools function under the same hierarchy of coloniality by holding up

foreign language, English, and foreign educators as most valuable. International schools must
 52

recognize their role in perpetuating coloniality, while recognizing they, like those schools

following the NBP, both perpetuate and themselves are oppressed by systems of coloniality.

A critical lens highlights the need for deep engagement with decolonizing ideologies,

policies and practices in order to shift toward a heteroglossic understanding of language. While

most scholarship has focused on the presence of monoglossic and colonialistic approaches within

Colombia, recent studies point to individual teachers shifting away from these oppressive

ideologies and practices. Further empirical studies, at the classroom, school, and national level,

are urgently required to explore how actors within both public and private bilingual programs in

Colombia might engage with more heteroglossic and equitable approaches to bilingual

education. As I demonstrate through the structure of this dissertation, moving from national to

school to classroom context, studies at each level provide new opportunities to document both

the agency and impact of individual school actors, as well as the need to address systemic

oppression across the levels.

Colegio Colombiano

With an understanding of the complexities of language education in Colombia, I now

describe the specificities of my research site, Colegio Colombiano. CC is a K-12 international

school, located in a large city in Colombia. It has a long history of providing a US-style

education, with instruction in both English and Spanish. Most students at CC come from

Spanish-speaking Colombian families with high socioeconomic status, though there are other

languages, nationalities and economic backgrounds represented. 99% of the CC student body

identify as Colombian and 94% use Spanish as a home language. There are three main grade-

level divisions at CC: elementary (Preschool-Grade 5), middle school (Grade 6-8), and high

school (Grade 9-12). The school integrates the Colombian and US curriculum, with students
 53

receiving high school diplomas from both countries. At the time of my research, CC followed a

Spanish-English immersion program model, the most common program model within

international schools in Latin America. Outside of the first year of kindergarten, which was

taught almost exclusively in Spanish, at all grade levels there is a range of instruction in both

languages.

Administrators at CC are in general either from Colombia or from the United States, with

few exceptions. Some of the Colombian administrators attended international schools themselves

in Colombia. All administrators were classroom educators and have advanced educational

degrees. Some administrators have a particular background specifically in language education,

such as training as an English or Spanish teacher, while others were content area teachers. In

total, there are about 180 teaching staff at CC. The teaching staff are primarily from Colombia

and the United States, with teachers representing a few other countries, such as Canada and the

United Kingdom.

Language at CC

A few years before my study, CC began an “English Excellence” campaign in response

to a concern that the level of English proficiency for students at the school needed to be

addressed. While previously CC was viewed as one of the top schools in the country for English

instruction, with the rapid growth of English-medium and the introduction of the national high-

stakes English exams, Prueba SABER, the school experienced a new sense of pressure to

perform well in English. The need to remain competitive within a growing private school market

in Colombia, led to the identification of language, particularly “English Excellence”, as a critical

initiative at the school. A school administrator at CC explained:

 54

It's something that you hear in all the bilingual schools, "We've gotta improve the

English, we've gotta improve the English". It was all about excellence in English but

from a very, from a relatively blinkered viewpoint…I do believe that excellence in

English had been identified because this school had spent years and years at the top of the

(SABER) list and then all of sudden, all these other schools were overtaking them. And

everybody is saying, ‘How can that be if we're paying all this money? And this is the

English school. Why is another school down the road getting better English results?’

The administrator believed there was a distinct difference between actual language proficiency

and ability to perform well on a standardized test, but the school needed to justify to parents their

pedagogical approach and student achievement. The need to remain competitive in an expanding

market brought the importance of language instruction at CC to the forefront.

A teacher also indicated the Prueba SABER English test played a significant role in the

ongoing push for English. She explained her perspective in an interview:

Here's my understanding. Funding wise, we are top notch in Colombia, I mean in [city],

aka, we're the most expensive in [city]. In Colombia, we might be the most expensive

school in Colombia, I'm not sure6. Last year, we performed 11th on the high school

English tests that they have to take. So all these schools are outperforming our high

school students.

The teacher added a further level of complexity to this explanation when asked how she thought

students were doing on the Spanish portion of the test. She responded:

I think it's been mentioned in class that our students don't care about that test. The way

that they get into schools here in Colombia is based on money, rather than academic

6
Based on discussions with teachers at CC, as well as other international schools in Colombia, CC is the most
expensive school in the city, but it is not the most expensive school in the country.
 55

success, and the academic success is only for public schools. Public universities. So, what

I hear about high school is that our students are not motivated to do much at all, including

in English and in Spanish.

This teachers’ response points to the complex factors that influence the perception of the

importance of the test. While some used a seemingly lackluster performance on the test as a

reason to further emphasize English instruction, others believed it was more about the prestige

associated with the test, as the test itself did not determine whether a student would be accepted

to the private universities of their choice. My understanding of the role of the test was further

informed when a Colombian university professor visited the school. The professor indicated his

belief that graduates from schools like CC did not pick private universities because of their

superior educational programs; instead, they did so because they would have difficulty being

accepted at public universities because of their results on the Prueba SABER. In the private

university sector, admission standards were lower though costs were significantly higher.

Teachers indicated several other reasons which brought questions around language to the

front and center of discussions at the school. Most participants in my study indicated a clear

movement, both in their personal ideologies and practices, as well as at the official school level,

away from an English-only focus and growing realization of the need to prioritize Spanish. Most

participants did not identify one specific event or decision that led to this significant shift, but

instead identified several factors which contributed to the impetus for this shift, including the

economic need to redefine themselves as a bilingual school, new understandings of the benefits

of being bilingual, ongoing professional development and an influx of new teachers with a

background in teaching in bilingual schools.

 56

In the past, CC had been known as the school where parents sent their children to learn

English from native teachers or as the American school. While the school had been serving

bilingual students and providing teaching instruction in both English and Spanish throughout its

history, one teacher believed, "We don't have the identity of being bilingual", as the emphasis of

the school had been primarily on promoting its reputation for high standards in English or

“English Excellence”. Some teachers indicated the school seemed to be undergoing an “identity

crisis” as it began to identify and position itself in new ways. Questions about school identity and

whether they were shifting toward a bilingual school model, in which English and Spanish would

be positioned as equally valuable instructional languages, were influenced by the increasing

number of options for English instruction across private schools. Some teachers felt the school

was no longer being primarily defined by linguistic or cultural components, but instead was

beginning to position itself and have a reputation for being an innovative school, instead of just a

school focused on English excellence. Some teachers would refer to what one teacher called,

“the new way,” which impacted not just language instruction, but shifts across instructional

models. For example, the school had recently made significant shifts in pedagogical approaches

within elementary literacy and numeracy. These shifts were often in line with shifts within the

US context, as well as a reflection of changes within other international schools.

Teachers identified language-focused professional development at the school as a major

impact on a shift away from an English-only approach. In particular, the school subsidized a

Master’s program in which both national and international faculty were taking courses, generally

taught by US faculty but hosted at the school. While some participants were critical of the

program for its perceived disconnect from the Colombian context, many mentioned the positive

impact of the program’s emphasis on teaching plurilingual learners. The hiring of new teachers
 57

with a background in bilingual schools also propelled the shift toward supporting bilingualism.

One teacher noted, “We get a lot of teachers from bilingual schools. We had a big draw from the

Midwest and most of those teachers are coming from bilingual classrooms…with a much wider

and deeper background in bilingualism education or dual language.” In the years leading up to

my study, language had become an important issue of discussion and debate at CC, based on a

variety of internal and external factors.

In March 2019, I travelled to Colombia to visit several possible schools as potential

research sites. As part of my visit at CC, I was able to meet with various school administrators.

Through these conversations, it became clear that CC was at a pivotal moment in their history

regarding language. They indicated to me that they had very recently hired a new administrator

who would focus on many of these same questions around language. I left Colombia and

returned to Madison, recognizing both the fortuitous nature of my path crossing with CC at this

time and the privilege and responsibility of engaging in research with school actors based on

their identified concerns and questions.

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CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY

Introduction

In the previous chapters, I discussed how the creation and implementation of

monoglossic and hegemonic language ideologies, policies and practices in bi/multilingual

schools oppress students’ and teachers’ diverse plurilingual languaging practices and identities.

Yet relatively little is known about alternative critical approaches from the perspective of

students and teachers in international school contexts. My study begins to address this gap by

exploring how teachers and students at an international bilingual school in Colombia engaged

with critical approaches to language education. The research questions guiding my study are:

1) Where do international schools fit within the landscape of K-12 foreign language

education in Colombia?

2) What language ideologies influenced language policy creation and appropriation at

Colegio Colombiano?

3) What obstacles and opportunities did Colegio Colombiano teachers and students

encounter as they engaged with translanguaging pedagogies?

To address these research questions, I draw on two primary methodologies: case study

and Social Design-Based Research (SDBR). In this chapter, I discuss each methodology and the

affordances and challenges of each one. I provide a detailed description of my research design,

including an overview of participants, data generation and data analysis. I finish with a

discussion of limitations of my study and a critical reflection on my own positionality.

Case Study

To explore my research questions, I conducted a single case study at Colegio Colombiano

(CC), an international bilingual school in Colombia, through “detailed, in-depth data collection
 59

involving multiple sources of information” (Creswell, 2013, p. 97). Duff (2008) notes both the

growth and the usefulness of case studies in investigating language learning and education. The

emphasis of case studies on thick description is especially useful when discussing complex

issues within cultural context (Dörnyei, 2007). In the following section, I provide an overview of

some of the key components of case studies, including their strengths and weaknesses as they

apply to my study.

For my study, I draw on Stake’s (1995) description of an instrumental case study, in

which “we start and end with issues dominant” (p. 16). My primary focus is not on the specifics

of CC, but instead on the broader issue of how international schools explore critical approaches

to bi/multilingual education. While an instrumental case study is not about the specific case, the

selection of the case itself is still important. Stake (1995) argues that each case should be

selected for a specific reason and the first consideration should be selecting a case that allows the

researcher to maximize what can be learned. An instrumental case study must not only focus on

a compelling issue, but also on a context in which the compelling issue connects to local actors

and practices to learn about the issue under study (Compton-Lilly, 2013). For example, in their

multiple site case studies focused on linguistic diversity, Spiro and Crisfield (2018) selected five

schools who indicated they were on a journey of transformation in their understanding of

linguistic diversity. The schools were chosen as they provided a context to explore successes and

challenges around linguistic diversity. For my study, CC provides a context in which to explore

my central research problem and questions.

While case studies can draw on a variety of different methods, one hallmark of quality

case studies is the inclusion of multiple sources of data - methodological hybrids as described by

Compton-Lilly (2013). Creswell (2013) notes the following methods are common in case
 60

studies: interviews, direct and participant observations, physical artifacts, and documents. Due to

this variety and complexity of methods, case study researchers must be explicit about their

methods (Compton-Lilly). As well, as noted by Stake (1995), the role of the researcher itself can

be complex, shifting and at times, quite personal, over the course of a study. Therefore, the

researcher must be explicit and reflective about how their own personal backgrounds and

experiences impact their interpretations.

In case study research, the analysis and interpretation of various forms of data lead to

learning about the central issue. According to Dörnyei (2007), this deep understanding of a

particular context provides insights on how complex social issues interact with the set of

circumstances that surround them. For example, Spiro and Crisfield (2018) note while each of

the schools in their collective case study “sits within local systems, beliefs, and attitudes toward

language and culture…(and) mirror the specifics of their own locality, as a collective set of

narratives, there are overarching lessons to be learnt” (p. 185). Dörnyei indicates case studies are

especially useful in providing insight into phenomenon that is not yet understood or extremely

complex. Duff (2008) emphasizes the importance of case studies being “contextualized within

other relevant research or literature, and supported by systematically collected, analyzed, and

interpreted data with representative evidence for claims” (p. 10).

Certain debates are common within the complex field of case studies, including the

question of whether a case can or should be bound. Some, like Merriam (1998), strongly

emphasize the need for boundedness, stating the bounded system is “the single most defining

characteristic of case study research” (p. 27). Others, like Bartlett and Vavrus (2017), are less

convinced by strict bounds of time and space and recognize the impact of other contextual

factors. They argue that cases cannot be bound a priori but instead are likely to shift over the
 61

course of a study. For my study, while I am identifying CC as my primary case, I recognize the

tension noted by Compton-Lilly (2013) “between a case as bounded and a case as contextualized

within larger structures and institutions” (p. 55). The emphasis I have placed on the educational

context in Colombia and the impact of international schools’ practices and policies on public

school policy reflects my recognition of the larger structure in which I situate my case.

Scholars also debate whether researchers should play an active or passive role in case

studies. Some, like Stake (1995), argue that case studies should be non-interventive to not

“disturb the ordinary activity of the case, not to test, note even to interview, if we can get the

information we want by discrete observation or examination of records” (p. 12). I, on the other

hand, argue that my critical stance requires that I engage not in just theorizing, but in action,

alongside the teachers and students in my study. My active participation and collaboration with

school actors was informed by Design-Based Research which I explain in the following section.

Within the field, single case studies have been criticized at times for their narrow focus.

Some, like Dörnyei (2007), argue that single case studies are more vulnerable to “idiosyncratic

unpredictability and audience criticality” (p. 155). For this reason, my original plan had been to

conduct a Comparative Case Study (CCS) (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) with the intention to

compare how three different schools in Colombia engaged in critical approaches to language

education. CCS is a process-oriented approach to case study in which “one constantly compares

and contrasts phenomena and processes in one locale with what has happened in other places and

historical moments” (p. 19). According to Bartlett and Vavrus, explicit comparison has been

under-utilized in qualitative research, and has been notably scarce within case study research.

They argue that comparisons across sites and scales are important as they allow the researcher to
 62

see both how processes are influenced by unique contexts and how different contexts can at

times produce similar outcomes.

The unexpected COVID-19 pandemic forced me to significantly alter my research

design. While I was not able to conduct a CCS, I still drew on Bartlett and Vavrus’ (2017) socio-

cultural understanding of how processes are culturally situated and produced, as well as their

critical approach which emphasizes the role of power and inequality in social constructions. As

well, I consider how factors outside of the specific school context influence the case and how

these processes are historically situated. While the change in my proposed study came with

certain challenges, my approach to my research followed a relatively loose design, as defined by

Miles, Huberman and Saldaña (2014). On their spectrum of tight and loose designs, I fit within

their description of researchers who:

Consider social processes to be too complex, too relative, too elusive, or too fluid to be

approached with explicit conceptual frames or standard instruments. [I] prefer a more

loosely structured, emergent, inductively grounded approach for gathering data…the

important research questions will become clear only gradually; meaningful settings and

participants will not be selected prior to fieldwork but only after initial orientation to the

field site. (p. 19)

While there are significant challenges to a looser research design, I agree with Miles et al. (2014)

that looser designs make sense with research conducted in unfamiliar cultures, of which I found

myself in Colombia. As well, Stake (1995) notes the qualitative researcher must continuously

adapt their approach as they focus in on the central issue. A more adaptive design is also in line

with my experiences as a classroom teacher and now classroom researcher, in which I have come

to expect the unexpected and embrace the learning that comes hand-in-hand with letting go.
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Design-Based Research

Within the overall methodological framework of a case study, I drew heavily on Design-

Based Research (DBR) methods. DBR emerged as a methodology over the past three decades

from the learning sciences. It is a form of iterative, collaborative research which aims to refine

and generate educational theory. The purpose of DBR is to inform, test, and generate theory

through a collaborative process in which the researcher and collaborators are full participants in

the research process. DBR is a methodology which allows understanding of educational

innovations and interventions by blending traditional educational research methods with theory-

driven learning environment design.

In a seminal text by the Design Based Research Collective (2003), the authors outline key

principles for DBR, including a continuous cycle of design, enactment, analysis, and

redesign. Along with this cycle, the authors argue that DBR should take place in authentic

settings and should document both successes and failures. DBR explores how specific

interactions within these authentic settings influence the outcomes. Through considering the

specific features of each authentic setting, DBR can produce shareable theories with relevant

implications for practitioners and other researchers across various contexts.

Various scholars have identified some of the key affordances and constraints of DBR as a

methodology. For example, Collins, Joseph and Bielaczyc (2004) note DBR allows researchers

to address theoretical questions about learning in real-world contexts, as they look to address the

divide between research and practice often noted within the field of educational research. DBR

draws on broad measures of learning, as opposed to a narrow focus on test-taking measures often

seen in other methodologies. In terms of challenges, the authors note how the complexity of real-

world situations brings their own set of obstacles, as variables cannot be controlled like they
 64

could be in a laboratory. Design researchers are required to constantly modify their design as

they respond to their research context, though this refinement is viewed as an important part of

the design process.

Like all methodologies, debates are present in DBR scholarship. In their systematic

review of DBR, Anderson and Shattuck (2012) analyze highly cited DBR articles from the

previous decade. Their analysis highlights how DBR is increasingly being used within K-12

contexts and how there appears to be some promising evidence of positive impacts on students’

learning and attitudes. While DBR is a potential tool to bridge the gap between research and

practice, the authors note there is not yet sufficient evidence to support whether or not DBR

leads to large scale or school level change, as most studies looked at impacts on individual

classrooms. They also note the iterative nature of DBR complexifies how to measure impact, as

studies are often published as the iterations are ongoing. In a critical response, McKenney and

Reeves (2013) argue Anderson and Shattuck fail to pay sufficient attention to the complexity of

the problems addressed by DBR in the studies they reviewed. They question how to measure the

impact of DBR as a newer methodology still finding its place in educational research.

Within the field of DBR, my study draws specifically on Social Design-Based Research

(SDBR). SDBR calls on design researchers to focus their theory development on addressing

historical injustices and innovations that provide equitable opportunities for students. Barab et al.

(2007) argue that the DBR community should be as explicit as they can about sharing the critical

social agendas connected to their work. They state the field could make a stronger contribution to

transformative models by moving away from a focus on students accomplishing specific learning

tasks to critical design work that develops “sociotechnical structures that facilitate individuals in

critiquing and improving themselves and the societies in which they function” (p. 264). The
 65

authors draw on Freire’s definition of a critical agenda which can disrupt inequitable power

structures, division of resources, and disempowerment. According to the authors, this type of

critical agenda can be addressed through SDBR, as “designing curricula that change classroom

practices...has rich potential for advancing a critical agenda” (p. 265). The authors propose key

social commitments for SDBR: personal agency, diversity affirmation, healthy communities,

social responsibility, environmental awareness, creative expression, compassionate wisdom.

Gutierrez and Jurow (2016) further argue for a social focus that includes an explicit

“commitment to transforming the educational and social circumstances of members of non-

dominant communities as a means of promoting social equity and learning” (p. 1). For my study,

SDBR provided a framework to engage with participants in a critical agenda focused on

disrupting monoglossic and hegemonic approaches to bi/multilingual education.

Research Design

In the following section, I provide an outline of the research design for the study,

including an overview of the participants, methods for data generation and steps for data

analysis. This section finishes a discussion of the study’s limitations and my own positionality as

the researcher.

Participants.

Gaining access to research sites can be one of the greatest challenges of conducting

research (Creswell, 2013). In recognition of this challenge, in March 2019 I travelled to

Colombia to visit potential research sites. Drawing on connections through the local university

and the WIDA International School Consortium, I visited and spoke to administrators at six

potential schools. The purpose of these visits was to select three schools to approach for a

comparative case study: one international school, one private school with Spanish-English
 66

instruction and one public school with a Spanish-English bilingual program. For all three

schools, the primary criteria for a potential collaboration was an expressed interest by

administrators and/or teachers to reflect upon and explore novel critical approaches to

bi/multilingual education. For the international school specifically, I looked for a school which

followed a full or partial one-way Spanish-English immersion program model, the most common

program model in international schools in Latin America.

Based on this initial visit in March 2019, I identified three schools which met the criteria

outlined above. I approached these schools and we agreed upon a tentative schedule to conduct

three consecutive case studies, from September 2019 to June 2020. As I had the opportunity to

teach a graduate class at CC in early September 2019, I selected CC for the first of three case

studies.

In September 2019, at the conclusion of the intensive 2-week graduate course at CC,

teachers from the course were invited to participate in the study through an email invitation. I

took this approach to participant selection criteria based on the direction of the school

administrator who had originally extended the invitation to conduct my research at CC. They felt

it was important to build on the momentum of this group of educators who were already

demonstrating their interest in language instruction, based on their enrollment in the course.

While this selection criteria was in line with my intention to work with teachers who expressed

an interest in exploring new approaches to language education, it significantly limited my

interaction with teachers at CC who were not interested or even against new critical approaches.

Of the 18 students in the graduate class, nine participated in my research study. They

represented a range of grade levels, from Grades 1 to 12. Three of the teachers were from

Colombia or another South American country, and six were from the United States or Canada.
 67

Only one participant taught in the Spanish program, which reflected the demographics of the

class. While seven Colombian/South Americans were enrolled in the class, only four were

classroom teachers. In addition, three administrators participated in the study through interviews

and assistance with collecting policy documents. Once a teacher participant signed a consent

form, consent forms were sent to all students in their classes.

Not all teachers participated to the same extent in the study. Two teachers, quite late in

the project, expressed their interest in participating. While it became a scheduling challenge, I

felt it was very important to include them to the extent possible, as they were both Colombian

teachers, who would otherwise have been underrepresented in my study. While I was able to

conduct their interviews, I was not able to visit their classrooms as many times as teachers who

participated from the beginning of the study.

While I gained initial access to CC through a school administrator, I considered how to

build trust and credibility with my participants (Creswell, 2013). As I collaborated with

teachers, I positioned myself as a critical friend. Costa and Kallick (1993) define a critical friend

as one who:

Asks provocative questions, provides data to be examined through another lens, and

offers critique of a person’s work as a friend. A critical friend takes the time to fully

understand the context of the work presented and the outcomes that the person or group is

working toward. The friend is an advocate for the success of that work. (p. 49)

Ortega (2020) draws on the idea of a critical friend in his collaborative action research project

with an English teacher, Maria, in a Colombian high school. While Maria collected the data,

Ortega met with her virtually on a regular basis to discuss the data, plan and reflect on classroom

activities and provide feedback and questions in response to her audio journals. Their work
 68

provides an example of how a researcher can position themselves as a critical friend through

asking questions and providing feedback, while supporting the teacher in their role in the

classroom. This type of critical approach, “allows the researcher to become participant and the

participant to become researcher” (Kincheloe, McLaren, & Steinberg, 2011, p. 173), a key

component of critical research.

Data generation.

As part of my SDBR-informed case study, I engaged in four main types of data

generation: 1) school language policy documents; 2) classroom observations; 3) student, teacher

and administrator interviews; and 4) teacher questionnaires. I use the term data generation

intentionally as opposed to the more traditional term, data collection. Data generation refers to an

alternative approach to research in which data is generated alongside participants, as co-

researchers. In her work with children as co-researchers, Prasad (2013) notes:

The difference between collecting data from children and generating data with children is

more than semantic; this distinction necessitates a paradigm shift that regards the research

process as iterative, in which engagement in the creative process of data generation builds

knowledge and understanding that in turn deepens students’ creative processes, reflection

and engagement in the inquiry. (p. 9)

Prior to the four main stages of data generation (see Table 2 below), I engaged in

professional learning with teachers through teaching a graduate course on multilingualism at CC.

I designed the course in coordination with Lisa, the recently-hired CC administrator focused on

leading the school in exploring new bilingual models. We designed the course to guide teachers

to reflect on their own language ideologies and examine how language policies set by the school

and their own classroom languaging practices were in line (or not) with their ideologies.
 69

As part of the course, I introduced novel critical approaches to language learning,

including translanguaging pedagogies, activities for developing Critical Multilingual Language

Awareness and multilingual assessments. Whenever possible, I drew on scholarship relevant to

the CC context. For example, nine of the thirteen articles we read during the course were written

by Colombian scholars. In some cases, we considered key principles, such as García et al.’s

(2017) three goals of translanguaging as a pedagogical practice, then looked for examples of

these principles in the articles written within the Colombian or international school context.

Prior to the course, some of the teachers had not yet been exposed to critical approaches

to language education. On the first day of class, we completed a warm-up activity to break down

some key terms from the syllabus, including heteroglossia and translanguaging. In the sticky

note responses by teachers shown in Figure 3, it is clear how some of these terms were brand

new for teachers.

Figure 3 Teachers’ Responses to Exploring Key Terms

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Over the course of the intensive 2-week class, teachers were exposed to critical issues of

language and power. On the final day, we did a reflective activity in which teachers wrote on the

whiteboard some of their most important takeaways from the course. One teacher wrote, “Power

and privilege are inherent in language. Teachers have a responsibility to consider how these

impact their students,” underlining the words power and privilege for emphasis. Another teacher

wrote, “We are all language teachers”, reflecting on our class discussions about making language

explicit for all students. Teachers were at different journeys in their stances about language

learning and critical approaches but the course was designed to encourage teachers to examine

their own ideologies and how these beliefs impacted their practices.

Throughout the course, teachers took a step-by-step approach to designing a unit plan

drawing on the topics discussed and applying them to their own classroom. For their unit plans,

teachers either adapted the critical approaches we discussed in class or included other approaches

they were aware of from other course work or professional development. As part of the unit plan,

teachers identified how their lesson plan was different than their previous instruction (if they had

taught similar content before). As their instructor, I provided constructive feedback on the unit

plans. Teachers were not required to implement their unit plan as part of the assignment. After

the course finished, the teachers were invited to participate in the research project in which we

would focus on implementing some of the pedagogical approaches outlined in their unit plans or

other approaches, as fit their current classroom context (see Appendix A for examples of

excerpts from unit plans).

Prior to teaching the course and during my initial discussions with CC administrators

from March-August 2019, I imagined I would engage with teachers in the design and creation of

multilingual projects, based on my experience with a similar project in a dual language

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immersion school in Wisconsin. As part of a Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) led by Dr.

Gail Prasad, our research team collaborated with teachers to co-investigate, co-design, and co-

shift (Tian & Shepard‐Carey, 2020) flexible educational spaces which affirmed and leveraged

bi/multilinguals’ full linguistic repertoires as resources in learning. We explored how teachers

created linguistically expansive spaces through the creation of multilingual class books related to

grade-level content. However, during the teaching of the course at CC and through initial

conversations with teachers, it became obvious that teachers would not have the professional

autonomy to engage in this type of project. Teachers worked closely in grade-level teams with a

heavy emphasis on alignment across the classes and use of a uniform curriculum, such as the

scripted Readers and Writers’ Workshop. As well, there was a substantial focus on shared

assessments, both those internally developed by teachers for their grade-level, and those

externally designed, by US-based curriculum or assessment providers. In addition, through the

hiring of Lisa, the school had begun a significant focus on recognizing and developing their

Spanish-English bilingual model but were not yet considering a multilingual approach. I

reflected on this realization in my research journal:

One of the things I've been wrestling the most with is that I am not really engaging with

multilingualism as I thought originally that I would be. At least at [CC], there’s really not

space, nor an interest in including other languages. They are just still wrestling with how

to celebrate/engage with bilingualism and move away from an English-only approach -

this is great, but they are not yet at a place really to engage with the idea of other

languages and the role that they play – so where does this leave me?

Therefore, while I still introduced various critical multilingual approaches within the

context of the course, I shifted my research plan from designing new multilingual projects with
 72

teachers to follow the teachers’ lead in designing and implementing unit plans which drew

primarily on Spanish-English translanguaging pedagogies, which matched their current reality

and Lisa’s initial movement toward a dual language model. This shift impacted the role of SDBR

in my study. While my initial research design followed a more formalized SDBR structure which

included distinct design cycles with teachers, my final design instead reflects a case study in

which SDBR principles informed engagement with teachers and allowed for an analytical

analysis of what I observed.

I had also imagined I would engage in research across both the English and Spanish

programs, in particular since my original impetus for the study was the separation of instruction

which commonly takes places across these programs within bilingual school contexts.

Unfortunately, as only one of the participants taught in the Spanish program, my research within

this program was limited. Though Spanish teachers were underrepresented in my study, I

actively engaged whenever possible in gathering contextual school data from them, participating

in meetings and visiting their classrooms at their invitation and through various staff room

conversations. In addition, while there was a strong emphasis during my time at the school in

expanding spaces for translanguaging within the English program, there was not yet significant

discussion about what this might look like within the context of the Spanish program.

Pre-Phase 1 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4

Early Sept 2019 Sept 2019 Oct-Dec 2019 Jan-Feb 2020 May 2020
Engaged in a) School Policy a) Ongoing a) Individual a) Teacher
professional Documents Classroom Teacher and Questionnaires
learning with CC b) Initial Observations Administrator
teachers through Classroom b) Collaborative Interviews
teaching a Observations Design Meetings b) Small Group
graduate course c) Initial Teacher Student
Interviews Interviews
Table 2 Stages of Data Generation
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In Phase 1 of data generation, I collected a variety of school policy documents. School

policy documents refers to any type of artifact which provided insights into the intersection of

language ideologies and policies at CC, including written school language policies, classroom

schedules, teacher training materials, teacher and parent information bulletins, visual artifacts

such as posters, etc. For classroom observations, I started with visiting each of the nine

classrooms for approximately forty minutes. I conducted my observations as an active

participant-observer in the classrooms, depending on the norms established by each individual

teacher. I engaged in informal conversations with students about their work during class time if

the opportunity presented itself and if approved in advance by the teacher. The primary purpose

of these observations was to document what languaging practices teachers and students engaged

in during their classes. I wrote extensive field notes, used audio recording devices and took

photos of student work as allowed by IRB. I also conducted initial individual interviews with all

participating teachers, focused on their perspectives and experiences with heteroglossic

approaches to teaching, as well as their understanding of the school’s language policies and

program model. We also discussed their unit plans, the feedback I had provided as part of the

course, and their initial thoughts on implementing the plan in their classrooms.

In Phase 2, I began to conduct more regular classroom observations with each teacher

and to conduct collaborative design meetings, whenever possible. Depending on the teacher and

their schedule, I normally visited their classrooms 1-2 times/week for a 20-40 min observation.

In total, I conducted 63 classroom observations (See Appendix C for Classroom Observation

Protocol). I was as an active participant-observer in the classroom, assisting the teachers and

students as needed. These observations followed a very similar format to the initial classroom
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observations, as I wrote extensive field notes, audio recorded and collected copies of student

work as artifacts when possible.

I also engaged in collaborative design meetings with teachers to discuss their

implementation of their unit plans. While I had originally imagined the collaborative design

meetings to be structured and audio recorded, the time-pressed reality of teachers’ schedules

generally did not allow for scheduled meetings. Instead, the meetings were informal, as we

would catch a few minutes before, during or after my classroom observation or in the staff room.

For example, two middle school science teachers had outlined in their unit plan (see Appendix

A) their idea to have students compare the creation of a data table or laboratory report in English

versus in Spanish. They wanted students to develop their understanding of this genre of reports

in both languages. However, after introducing the idea to their students, they noticed their

students did not know how to create a data table or lab report in Spanish because all their Science

classes since Grade 1 had been taught in English. During a break between classes, one of the

teachers asked me my thoughts. We discussed why the students did not yet have these academic

language skills in Spanish and how the teachers could support them moving forward, such as

asking their friends who had studied science in Colombia universities for examples of reports.

We also talked about how in the meantime, the teacher could highlight specific uses of language

in English lab reports, such as using imperative verbs in the directions, to draw students’

attention to language. The teacher noted they would like to share their experience in an

upcoming middle school meeting, as they felt this was an important area of growth for students

to be prepared for future university studies in Colombia. In these collaborative design meetings, I

served as a critical friend and as a sounding board for teachers as we celebrated new ideas and

classroom shifts, as well as shared disappointments and struggles with obstacles they faced in
 75

their classrooms or in the school context. While I generally did not audio record these meetings,

whenever possible I would take field notes during and after the meetings.

In Phase 3, I engaged in reflective semi-structured interviews with teachers and students.

The purpose of these interviews was to explore the types of classroom languaging practices that

students and teachers perceived to support students’ learning, with a specific focus on practices

they engaged in during the research project. Prepared questions were considered a general guide,

as opposed to a set of structured questions that must be uniformly addressed.

While I prepared the interview guides in English, I encouraged all participants to speak

freely without being constrained to one named language or another. As participants themselves

were at a range of proficiency levels in English and Spanish, I attempted to mirror participants’

language choices in my own language use in the interviews. In most cases, participants

demonstrated a preference to speak with me primarily in English. For teachers, this likely

reflected that our original interactions within the graduate course were primarily in English,

based on the instructional requirements of the course. In addition, the majority of teachers and

administrators who participated in my study spoke English as their primary language and worked

within the English program. For students, even when I spoke to them in Spanish, they would

often respond in English, which reflected the language norm of the school for students to speak

in English with foreign adults. Students would often speak to each other in Spanish in my

presence and then speak in English when addressing me. While English was the primary

language of our interactions, students, and to some extent teachers, regularly engaged in

translanguaging, drawing on specific Spanish words or phrases, throughout our interactions.

Interviews were conducted with all teachers who participated in the research project. All

interviews lasted between 40-90 minutes and were audio-recorded. Selected sections were later
 76

transcribed. These interviews focused on teachers’ experiences engaging critical approaches to

language education (See Appendix B for full protocol). I also conducted initial interviews with

three school administrators which lasted between 50-60 minutes. The interviews focused on their

perspective of the larger shifts happening at CC regarding language policies and program

models. In total, between initial and follow-up interviews with teachers and administrators, I

conducted 17 individual interviews.

With students, I conducted small group interviews with six groups of students, ranging

from Grades 4 to 12. Each group contained between five to seven students. All consenting

students were given the choice to participate or not in the interviews. At times, certain logistical

considerations, such as class attendance and schedules or other concurrent group work also

informed the participation of students. The interviews took place during regular school hours and

were between 30-40 minutes. The interview questions focused on students’ understanding and

experiences of language learning at school (See Appendix B for full protocol). It was especially

important when working with students to allow the protocol to be flexible and for the

conversation to be guided by what participants considered important as opposed to strictly

controlled (Clark, 2011). The use of open-ended questions, related to the students’ experiences,

promoted engagement (Fargas-Malet et al., 2010).

In Phase 4, which occurred near the end of the school year, I sent teachers who

participated in my study an online questionnaire (See Appendix D for the full questionnaire).

The questionnaire asked teachers to reflect on their experiences from the end of the classroom

observations until the end of the school year. This questionnaire provided further insights into

the ways in which teachers engaged (or not) with heteroglossic approaches after the project, as

well as the barriers and opportunities they faced over the second half of the school year.
 77

Data analysis.

Analysis occurred concurrently with data generation and then more intensely after I

finished data generation. According to Miles, Huberman and Saldaña (2014), concurrent data

generation and analysis provides several key advantages to the researcher, including the

collection of higher-quality data as potential blind spots and new data sources can be identified

during the data generation stage. While the following section is written as if analysis took place

in discrete, consecutive stages, analysis was instead ongoing and iterative, as different stages

blended into each other and data generated informed ongoing analysis.

My overall approach to analysis draws on Creswell’s (2013) Data Analysis Spiral. This

approach includes four main steps: data managing; reading/memoing; describing/

classifying/interpreting; and representing/visualizing. In the first step, I organized the various

data sources primarily through Nvivo, a Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software

(CAQDAS) program. During the second step, I read the data on multiple occasions and wrote

memos in response to my reading. For the third step, I drew primarily on the coding methods

outlined in detail by Saldaña (2016). Saldaña recommends deductive and inductive coding in two

major stages: first cycle and second cycle coding. In the first cycle, I drew on the eclectic

approach, assigning various types of codes to chunks of data. I used this approach as I was not

yet ready to be limited to a specific set of codes. I began by coding the complete set of data from

one teacher: two interviews, various classroom observations and questionnaire. I coded the data

chronologically, to provide an overall sense of the progression. For interviews and observations,

I did not transcribe verbatim, but instead re-read all my initial notes, listened to the recording,

and took listening notes. I then coded my listening notes, stopping throughout to write analytic

memos about key codes or sections from the recordings. Whenever possible, I used in vivo codes
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to capture the voices of the participants. If this was not possible, I often included a direct quote

within the definition of the code to keep it grounded in the data.

After I finished the first cycle coding of the data from the first teacher, I began to define

my codes. I began with a total of 72 codes and 462 references (pieces of data associated with a

code). First, I exported the code book so I would have an original version of all the codes. Then,

I deleted any codes with no references and renamed any codes which had been mislabelled to aid

in later organization of the codes. Then, I went code-by-code and read the coded data and

defined the code. During this process of defining the codes, I also checked the data associated

with each code for accuracy in coding. In some cases, the data no longer fit within the defined

parameters of the code, in which cases I re-coded or added a new code.

I paid particular attention to any codes that had very few references (1-3) or many

references (20+). For the low number of references, I checked the references to see if these were

unique examples that were important, as outliers, or if I may have missed associating data with

this code at the initial stages of my inductive coding. I made note of these codes and then

checked their applicability when I returned to recode the first teachers’ data.

For the codes with numerous references, I determined whether the associated references

should be re-coded under a separate code (or created new codes) and whether the original code

should instead be classified as a pattern. Miles, Huberman and Saldaña (2014) define four types

of patterns, which are often interrelated: categories or themes, causes/explanations, relationships

among people and theoretical constructs. For example, in my research log I note how I adapted

my original “English Excellence” code to a pattern, writing:

I recoded all data at this code because I think it is actually a theme. This in vivo code

comes from a phrase that was on the school’s letterhead and the name of a previous
 79

faculty committee tasked with improving English acquisition at the school. I am using it

to refer generally to a language ideology refers to the prioritization of English over

Spanish, but the individual references themselves fit under other codes.

I recoded any data associated with these overpopulated codes and then either deleted the code or

marked it as a pattern. At the end of this process, I still had 72 codes, but I had identified that 68

were actual codes and 4 were patterns which were no longer associated with specific references.

I had a total of 442 references, as I had deleted several simultaneous codes. The deletion of

simultaneous codes is an important process, as Saldaña (2016) notes simultaneous codes often

indicate a juncture where a particular code is not yet clear or well defined. Throughout this

process, I continued to write analytic memos to document my thinking about both the content, as

well as methodological memos to clarify my analytic choices. I also began to see the

relationships between codes and to put codes into larger categories or patterns through visual

mapping. Based on this visual mapping, I created an initial code tree (see Appendix E for an

example of a code tree showing relationships between codes).

Upon finishing this initial process of defining and refining codes, I continued coding

other data sources. Throughout the process, I added more codes as needed. After coding the data

from each teacher, I checked and updated the code tree and code books, always saving the

previous versions to allow myself to compare at what point I added new codes. After completing

the coding of two teachers’ data sets, as well as various sections of my research journal, I began

to describe the codes. For this process, I reviewed data associated with each code and began to

write analytical memos about the associated data.

In the final stage of analysis, I visualized the data through various matrices and networks

(Miles et al., 2014). These types of visual displays allowed me to represent data in a more
 80

condensed way and ensure a clear focus on the key findings (see Appendix F for examples of

visual data displays).

Limitations

While my study makes a significant contribution to the field of language education, I

recognize certain limitations. First, whenever research is conducted in a new country and in a

multilingual context, there is a risk of linguistic and cultural misunderstandings. While I consider

myself proficient in Spanish, I know that I, at times, misunderstand an utterance. I have found

this especially challenging when working with children, who are both forgiving of my linguistic

mistakes but also not necessarily aware of my need for them to speak slowly or use vocabulary

that is familiar to me. While I was at times self-conscious about my perceived inadequate level

of Spanish proficiency, especially as one committed to multilingual education, I began to

reframe my thinking by drawing on Phipps’ (2013) notion of linguistic incompetence. Phipps

notes how much is “masked by claims to competence and by the strength of the competency

concept in driving forward certain projections of academic professionalism” (p. 330). I no longer

see my proficiency as evidence of a lack, but instead an opportunity to see the world in a new

way, to position myself as a learner, and to value my own plurilingual competence as “a natural,

temporary state in the developing linguistic (and cultural) repertoire of each individual”

(Piccardo, 2019, p. 188). As I accepted my own linguistic limitations, I related more readily to

teachers and students in my study who wondered whether their languaging practices were

accepted and valued at CC. Questions of who defines linguistic competence and of who decides

the validity of certain languaging practices became a key part of my research, as I pushed back

against ideologies of balanced bilingualism or native speaker norms. As my research advocates

for expansive linguistic spaces for students and teachers, I must be willing myself to embrace
 81

vulnerability and accept that my own linguistic incompetence is not a limitation but part of my

plurilingual repertoire that continues to grow and expand.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on my research design and generated some

unexpected limitations. While I originally planned on conducting a comparative case study, the

pandemic hit Colombia right at the time I was beginning visits to my second school. The school

shifted, like so many others, to remote learning, which was not part of my initial design or IRB

approval. At the same time, the University of Wisconsin-Madison forbid any further in-person

data collection for the foreseeable future. With all these factors in mind, as well as the strong

advice of the Canadian government, I returned to Canada with my family. With the support of

my committee, I made the decision to shift to a single-case study. There are significant

limitations of a single case study that I discussed in my methodology section. While I lost a

certain sense of breadth as I could no longer make comparisons across school sites and school

models, a single school case study provided depth of analysis which I may not have been able to

engage in across three school sites.

One potential limitation of single case studies, compared to comparative case studies, is a

more limited understanding of the context surrounding the case. I addressed this limitation

through an extended time living in Colombia (August 2019-March 2020, January-June 2021,

January 2022-present). This time allowed me to deepen my understanding of the surrounding

educational context in Colombia through various personal and professional experiences even

when I was limited in collecting additional official school data. For example, my children attend

a private school in Colombia. In contrast to CC, my children’s school does not employ any

foreign teachers and our children are some of the very few students who are not from Colombia.

All classes are taught exclusively in Spanish, outside of one English language class per day. As
 82

the school came to know more about my background, they asked me to provide some

professional development to their English teachers, which included regular visits to various

English classes. Through this experience, I observed how ideologies, policies and practices about

English language teaching and learning looked significantly different in a national private school

compared to an international school.

I also learned a great deal about the educational context in Colombia through my

ongoing partnership with Dr. Jaime Usma Wilches at the Universidad de Antioquia. Dr. Usma

Wilches invited me to various professional events and talks related to language policy and

education in Colombia, as well as regularly provided feedback on my research. While my

involvement was limited by the pandemic, my ongoing conversations with Dr. Usma Wilches

and his research group provided important insights into the larger educational context.

While the pandemic greatly altered my research plans, my extended time living in

Colombia has been extremely helpful. Through supporting my own children in their online and

hybrid school experiences, providing support to English teachers across various schools, and

involvement with various local university activities and professional organizations, I further

expanded my understanding and addressed some of the limitations inherent in a single case

study.

Positionality

To engage in this critical work, I consider my own positionality as a white English-

speaking Canadian associated with a prestigious US university. In Colombia, I am an outsider

endowed with layers of privilege based on my skin colour, my passport, and my educational

background. This tension is not entirely new, as I have lived most of my professional life in this

space. As an English teacher in Honduras, I was recruited primarily for my native speaker status
 83

and my Canadian degrees. I was quickly promoted to the leader of the English program, in

charge of other Honduran English teachers who had many more years of experience than I did

and who were bilingual, which I was not. Later, I was asked to become the director of the school,

yet as the only white foreigner on the leadership team, I felt uncomfortable accepting this

promotion and so I declined.

While I was at times uncomfortable with my leadership position in Honduras, I also

worked with, learned from, and developed deep relationships with Honduran educators, families

and students who were increasingly committed to a bilingual language model designed for the

Honduran context. As I had worked at the school from the beginning of my teaching career, I did

not realize at the time the school’s concern to avoid being unduly influenced by outside

perspectives was somewhat rare within the field of “international schools”.7

When I left Honduras to pursue my PhD in Wisconsin, I again arrived as an outsider with

privilege, an international student but one protected from the discrimination endured by some of

my peers because of the colour of my skin, the country of my passport, the language of my

family. For example, my Canadian teaching credentials and my years teaching English

internationally were seen as valid, while the equivalent degrees and experience of my South

Korean friend were not. While some of my international classmates struggled to find university

funding to stay employed, as a white Canadian English-speaking international student, each year

I was offered multiple assistantships, including one that allowed me to be remote, before the

pandemic began. I was an outsider, yet as I was told by a staff member at International Student

7
I use quotations around international school in this particular context to draw attention to the problematic nature of
this phrase. In our recent article, Jon Nordmeyer and I discuss the shifting definitions of international schools and
propose the use of glocal schools, which would be a better description for the school where I worked in Honduras
(Bettney & Nordmeyer, 2021).
 84

Services, “Well you’re from Canada, so it doesn’t really count”. An outsider but one with

privilege.

Within the context of Colombia, my positionality played a significant role in the literal

opening of CC’s gates for my visits. Prior to my first visit in March 2019, I used my connections

through the WIDA International School Consortium, as well as my US and Canadian university

contacts, to reach out to several schools, asking if it would be possible to visit. Based on insights

from various Colombian scholars, I recognize it would have been virtually impossible to arrange

an initial visit with certain schools without these foreign connections.

The privileging of northern academics over local scholars is a common phenomenon

within language education in Colombia (Usma Wilches, 2015), as the “knowledge and

experience of some northern elites are privileged over local practitioners” (p. 50). For example,

the presence of “international” speakers, or in other words, speakers not from Colombia, are

often highlighted at academic conferences, their countries’ flags prominently displayed on

promotional materials. This reality of prioritizing foreign academics is not unique to Colombia.

Popkewitz (2000) uses the term Indigenous foreigners to refer to the tendency of certain nations

to look outside to foreign scholars to inform educational progress within their own country,

while pretending as if the knowledge and reforms they propose are Indigenous to the country.

Usma Wilches (2009) refers to this international faculty club as,

promoting notions of autonomy, professional development, reflective practice,

multiculturalism, and now, bilingualism. They have become indispensable references in

academic papers like this one, and are usually invited to teacher and research conferences

quite frequently organized with the economic support of US and U.K. government

educational institutions. (p. 34)

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As a white Canadian English-speaking researcher associated with a prestigious US

university, the doors to conduct my PhD research in Colombia were wide open to me. The colour

of my skin, the country of my passport and the language of my upbringing opened doors for me

that were closed for others.

As I began my research at CC, my focus was still primarily on exploring hegemonic and

monoglossic approaches to language education, without a broader understanding of the historical

ties between colonization and language education in Colombia or in international schools. As I

began to engage in data generation and concurrent analysis, I began to deeply wrestle with

questions of coloniality and began to draw on this literature to explain what I was observing. For

example, in November 2019 I wrote the following in my research journal:

How would you even begin to move toward a more heteroglossic approach when students

themselves have been steeped in internal colonialism to the point where they say they

prefer the US over Colombia? They say they don’t need to learn about tildes…Somehow,

I need to have a framework for thinking through all of these issues and I am not sure if

my current framework provides enough for this. Does CMLA explain this? Or, within the

context of Colombia, what frameworks can I be drawing from?

During my time at CC, I wrestled with how to acknowledge my privileged position as an

outsider and my own potential to act or be seen as an Indigenous foreigner (Popkewitz, 2000). In

an early research journal entry, I wrote: “How have I been positioned at CC and how am I

positioning myself? How does my role as a course instructor automatically position me as some

sort of "expert”?

As I wrestled with these questions, I began to seek out critical scholars focused on

language education in Colombia and practitioners calling for change in the international school
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contexts and began to consider more deeply how my study could be contribute to conversations

about decolonizing these spaces. As I have struggled with this tension, key Colombian scholars

have been influential in acknowledging both how my privilege has opened doors, while urging

me to walk openly into these spaces and use my privilege to engage critically alongside school

actors in exploring new ways of teaching, learning and being. As my understanding of

decoloniality deepened, along with my analysis of the generated data, I began to see the logic of

coloniality which operated at CC and within language education in Colombia, as well as my own

complicity as an outside scholar studying language education in elite private schools in

Colombia.

Conclusion

In sum, informed by principles of Social Design-Based Research, I conducted a case

study at international school in Colombia to explore how teachers and students engaged with

critical approaches to multilingual education. Specifically, through collaborative methods of data

generation, I developed a critical understanding of the relationships between language

ideologies, policies, and pedagogies. In the following three chapters, I present key findings from

my study and how they contribute to the field of critical language education. In Chapter 5, I

document how a how a logic of coloniality underlies key actors in K-12 foreign language

education in Colombia. In Chapter 6, I move to the school level to consider how faculty’s

language ideologies influenced the creation and implementation of language policies. In Chapter

7, I explore how teachers and students at Colegio Colombiano engaged in translanguaging

pedagogies.
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CHAPTER FIVE: LOGIC OF COLONIALITY

Introduction

In this chapter, I explore my first research question: Where do international schools fit

within the landscape of K-12 foreign language education in Colombia? To answer this question,

I analyze data generated throughout my case study, as well as contextual data about K-12 foreign

language education in Colombia. Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, I show how a logic of

coloniality informs both public and private K-12 foreign language education in Colombia which

I illustrate through four main findings. I build on these findings to reframe an argument proposed

by Colombian scholars focused on how international schools’ English-dominant approaches

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were perpetuated by the National Bilingual Program (NBP). Instead, through recognizing a

shared logic of coloniality, I decenter international schools and bring them into current scholarly

conversations about decolonizing language education in Colombia.

Literature Review

Within the broader framework of critical theories, I draw on decoloniality to further

document and critique oppressive language ideologies, policies, and practices within Spanish-

English bilingual education in Colombia. Coloniality refers to the ongoing impact of colonialism

once the actual physical presence of the colonizer no longer remains. As described by Castañeda-

Londoño (2019), “Geographic colonialism [has] already finished but intellectual coloniality

remains” (p. 225). While decolonization refers to the historical process in which former colonies

became independent nation-states, decoloniality is “a communal project of critique toward the

European Modernity born in Latin America that exposes the colonial effects on the Latin

American cultures” (Castañeda-Londoño, p. 225).

Decoloniality and postcoloniality both consider the ongoing impact of the colonial

project within decolonized spaces. However, decoloniality comes from the scholarship of Latin

American intellectual in diaspora while postcolonial thinking arose from Middle East and South

Asians scholars in diaspora, building on the work of poststructuralism (Bhambra, 2014). Based

on my research in Latin America, I draw primarily on decoloniality, aligning myself with

Mignolo and Walsh’s (2018) argument that the process of decolonization did not lead to a

postcolonial state as, “in the hands of minority elites, the patterns of colonial power continued

both internally (i.e. internal colonialism) and with relation to global structures” (p. 6). Mignolo

and Walsh contend as colonies underwent decolonization, the ongoing impact of coloniality was

revealed, as was the need to engage in decoloniality.

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Quijano’s (2000) seminal work on coloniality outlines a matrix of power which controls

four key areas of society: economy, authority, gender/sexuality and knowledge. My research

focuses primarily on the control of knowledge, which encompasses both education and language.

In terms of the coloniality of knowledge, Mignolo (2017) compares coloniality to a virus that

“infects our minds and makes us ‘see’ what the rhetoric of Western modernity wants us to see”

(p. 39). Mignolo further ties coloniality and modernity, arguing coloniality is the logic of

oppression and exploitation that must be seen alongside modernity.

Decoloniality is often traced back to the work of Peruvian scholar, José Carlos

Mariátegui, who in the 1920s, pointed to the ongoing colonial nature of his country through the

paternalistic oppression of Indigenous people as inferior. In the 1950s, Frantz Fanon’s work in

the Caribbean highlighted the physical and cultural impacts of colonization and highlighted the

role language can play in the internalizing of a colonized culture. Since then, decoloniality has

been developed by Latin American and Caribbean intellectuals to interrogate the “dominant

European and North American lines of thought that have set agendas, discourses and practices

for millions of people and communities [by] imposing their world views, knowledge and ways of

doing, feeling and being in the world as the only valid choices” (Usma Wilches et al., 2018, p.

233).

Castañeda-Londoño (2019) posits, “Decoloniality exposes how European/North

American ideas and peoples imposed themselves as cognitive models to be followed” (p. 224). In

this dynamic, all other cultures are seen as unequal and inferior. As foreign scholars are

positioned as sources of knowledge, they are the seen as the legitimate knowledge producers

while those on the periphery are seen as knowledge consumers. Decoloniality calls for liberation

from this dynamic (Quijano, 2007) by recognizing how “coloniality normalizes” (Asher, 2013, p.
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834) the view of outside knowledge and expertise as more valuable. López (2016) argues that

decoloniality calls for the deconstruction and reinvention of both history and the current global

economic order, which are based on Western hegemony and have not “resulted in benefits for the

underprivileged sectors of society and income gaps – has increased and become impossible to

breach” (p. 299). Decoloniality seeks to liberate and redeem while dismantling foreign ways of

thinking and being through mechanisms of control.

Decoloniality and English Language Education

From a critical perspective, English language teaching operates at the intersection of

coloniality and globalization. Since colonization, foreign languages have been promoted as

superior, and at times enforced as the language of formal education, because of their association

with the colonizer or other foreign powers. Now within the context of a globalized world,

English increasingly plays a central role. Phillipson (1992) proposes the term linguistic

imperialism in which English is associated with domination in various forms (ie. economic,

political, linguistic, and educational) across the world. Phillipson (2009) argues that while

globalization had led to the Americanization of the world, it has also led to the Englishization

through “linguistic capital dispossession as English takes over space that earlier was occupied by

the national language or the mother tongue” (p. 338).

Pozzi (2017) argues within the framework of globalization, consumerism is transported

from the US to other countries through a process of Westernization. Pozzi notes this same

process occurs with language teaching methods, which typically flow from the West to the rest

of the world, including through international organizations. It is not just teaching methods but

also language policies which spread by “copying from economically developed countries”

(Usma Wilches, 2015, p. 26). This flow occurs through a variety of means, including through
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international organizations, like the British Council, who are heavily invested in language

teaching and programs within those countries. Pozzi draws on the term glocalization to recognize

how these methods and policies are not simply adapted in each country, but instead interact with

the local realities and languages present, yet often as an unequal exchange of ideas and

distribution of resources.

In a globalized world, knowing English is positioned by foreign organizations and some

national governments as an essential skill to provide access to the global market. Situated as a

universal skill, English is often promoted as social equalizer but, in many contexts, policies that

govern the teaching of English further perpetuate social inequity. Phipps (2019) contends

individuals across the globe experience the teaching and learning of languages as a colonial

practice as Western democracies benefit from the exclusive teaching of certain colonial

languages and language policies and pedagogies which exclude local and Indigenous languages.

This erasure of languages reflects the colonial project's push for "coherence, transparency,

efficiency and control" (p. 15), yet she argues languages should not be seen as the property of a

particular group, such as in the preference for native speakers. She calls for inclusive language

policies and pedagogies that include languages outside of colonial languages of power, as

"decolonizing, then, is fundamentally about changing the human relationships of power around

speech and language" (p. 26).

Decoloniality and Education in Latin America

Over the past 60 years, there has been great interest in the decolonization of education in

Latin America. While most countries in Latin America became independent from Spain in the

early 1800s, scholars recognized formal political independence did not allow for:
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The recuperation of ideological and intellectual freedom since Eurocentrism prevailed to

the detriment of the multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual makeup of the region and

particularly of its Amerindian heritage. With notable exceptions, such pretension of

Europeanism developed into intellectual practices of copy, mimicry, and simulation.

(López, 2016, p. 298).

López (2016) outlines two key movements which occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, which

led to an ongoing focus on decolonization within educational spaces. First, interculturalism and

intercultural bilingual education programs were developed to address the ongoing colonialistic

positioning of European knowledge and languages in school. In the 1970s, informed by

Mariátegui’s work, the Peruvian government recognized Quechua as an official language and

began to introduce bilingual education. At the same time in Colombia and throughout various

countries in Latin America, Indigenous groups called for their right to school instruction in their

languages. These various projects highlighted the need to address the role of schooling in the

mental colonization of students, especially for Indigenous students.

Second, López (2016) points to Freire’s work as a key founder in the field of critical

pedagogy and the recognition of education as a political project. Freire (1970) is best known for

his work with marginalized peasants in revolutionary literacy programs in Brazil. In the

Foreword to Freire’s seminal book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Shaull (1970) summarizes

Freire’s work as focused on how an individual, “acts upon and transforms his world, and in

doing so moves towards ever new possibilities of a fuller and richer life individually and

collectively” (p. 13).

While there has been a scholarly commitment to the decolonization of knowledge in

Latin America since the 1960s, most of the practical application of decoloniality theory in
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education has been limited to bilingual education projects within Indigenous communities. For

example, in the early 2000s, Bolivia and Ecuador engaged in projects related to interculturalism

and Indigenous bilingual education (López & Sichra, 2017). These projects focused on how

education could be used to decolonize the mind of both the colonized and the colonizers. The

projects included both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and teachers engaged in shared

decolonization. This approach is rare though, as de Mejía (2005) notes a clear divide throughout

South America between bilingual education programs designed for minoritized Indigenous

groups and those focused on majority language speakers learning another prestigious language.

The commitment to decolonizing of language education remains limited in most countries to

Indigenous bilingual programs. However, the rapid growth of English language teaching

throughout Latin America, in both public and private education, as well the role of English

within the larger structures of globalization, necessitates an engagement in decolonizing

practices in English language education in Latin America as well.

Nevertheless, the question remains: Can English language education in Latin America be

decolonized? I contend it is possible to decolonize these spaces through unveiling logics of

coloniality and creating new ways to critically engage. First, many critical scholars agree

decolonizing begins with the unveiling of structures of coloniality. Mignolo (2012) argues,

“Thinking and doing decoloniality means unveiling the logic of coloniality” (p. xviii). He further

explains these logics of coloniality are often expressed through global designs which,

Hide the local history from which they themselves emanate and are presented as if they

were a natural unfolding of history…global designs respond of the logic of coloniality,

but they are described and promoted in the image of progress and development for the

local histories whose actors and institutions benefit from global designs. (p. xvi).
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Within the context of language education in Latin America, the promotion of English as an

essential skill to access the global market functions as a global design. The teaching of English

for economic purposes is seen as inevitable, as essential for the progress and development of the

country and its citizens (Fandiño-Parr, 2021). However, by unveiling this global design,

individuals can examine and decide whether this discourse should be “adapted, adopted, rejected,

integrated [or] ignored” (Mignolo, 2012, p. xxv). Fandiño-Parra (2021) calls for English

language educators and scholars in Colombia to engage in this work of unveiling and

deconstructing these colonial ways of thinking, in order to construct alternative discourses and

practices.

Guerrero (2018) argues decolonizing should be an integral part of professional reflection

for English teachers in Latin America. She calls for an examination of current assumptions about

language teaching which are based on a foreign top-down model and instead to move toward

approaches based on a “dialogical relationship among different types of knowledge” (p. 129).

Guerrero contends the field must embrace diverse perspectives and ways of knowing, especially

those from the South. Even so, critical language scholars from the South,

Often times validate current knowledge production from other places that may not reflect

local realities. Consequently, the continuous backdrop of our local intellectual work in

Anglo-American or European authors, in my view, entails a lack of detachment from the

North-Colonial-Modern mindset. (Castañeda-Londoño, 2019, p. 226-227)

After examining and unveiling colonial discourses, decolonizing requires the creation of

new ways of engaging through “moments which ‘interrupt’ existing dominant framings of

education. Such moments have the potential to open ‘spaces’ for doing education otherwise”

(Pirbhai-Illich et al., 2017, p. 8). Within the context of English language education, decolonizing
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includes a shift toward contextualized practices and the promotion for learning languages other

than English.

While many critical language scholars are advocating for the decolonizing of language

education, most are not calling for a moratorium on teaching English. Instead, scholars argue for

practices which are intentionally created or adapted for the local context. To create

contextualized practices, the field must “mobilize the knowledge and the culture of teachers,

students, and institutions of the global south” (Fandiño-Parra, 2021, p. 168). For example, Le Gal

(2019) criticizes four key areas of English language teaching in Colombia which rely heavily on

foreign importation: methodologies, linguistic policies, curricular materials and teachers

themselves. Le Gal argues “Colombian educational institutions should not just adopt foreign

methodologies but adapt, contextualize them or, better, develop their own methodology based on

local research and context analysis” (p. 162). Le Gal employs the concept of glocality to argue

for a balanced approach which allows for a positioning of English teaching within the context of

global movements, while adapting and modifying the approach based on the needs of the local

context. Colombian scholars strongly criticize the foreign importation of English teachers,

teaching materials and teaching approaches and their proposed solution to intentionally

contextualize practices provides a path forward to decolonize the field.

Further, decolonizing language education in Colombia must include the promotion and

teaching of other languages, especially Indigenous languages. As noted previously, since 1994

the Colombian Constitution protects the linguistic rights of Indigenous communities, including

their right to education in their own languages. However, this constitutional protection is

undermined by other national language policies, such as the English language requirement for all

students applying to study at universities in Colombia (Murillo, 2009). Branschat Florez (2019)
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argues the emphasis on English as a high market value language fails to consider the impact on

the linguistic capital and the linguistic human rights of Colombians.

Currently, there is a great deal of discussion in the region about the need for decolonizing

of language education, particularly within the context of public universities and their

corresponding research groups (Fandiño-Parra, 2021). Nevertheless, debates and publications are

not enough as “colonial perspectives still prevail, circumscribing and limiting the nature and

scope of educational reforms and curricular projects” (Fandiño-Parra, p. 165). A theoretical

understanding of decolonizing is not sufficient, as, Mignolo (2012) notes: “What kind of

knowledge do decolonial thinkers want? We want knowledge that contributes to eliminating

coloniality and improves living conditions on the planet” (p. xvii). Decolonizing must prioritize

practical application to classrooms through examining problematic language ideologies and

creating and enacting liberating and just language policies and classroom languaging practices.

As noted by López (2016), “Conceptually there are numerous contributions regarding

decolonization and its emancipatory potential in multicultural and multilingual contexts.

Notwithstanding, the field is practically virgin regarding recommendations for action and

particularly concerning the school and the classroom” (p. 302). Decolonization is further limited

within the context of international schools in Colombia, as their teachers are often not involved

in professional development or graduate level programs at Colombian universities and therefore

have even less exposure to current national conversations about decolonization.

International Schools

There is a growing global interest by some scholars and practitioners to decolonize

international schools. For many, this work must begin with an explicit recognition of the colonial

histories of international schools and the ongoing coloniality inherent within their structures.
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Molnar (2020), an international educator and school administrator, states that “international

schools, although they are poised to provide connections between national and racial groups, are

inherently colonial in nature. International schools represent a colonial legacy through their

linguistic, financial, and curricular positioning, especially in post-imperial countries” (p. 13). She

further states that international schools as legacies of imperialism continue to reinforce social

inequities and power structures established during colonial times. Molnar outlines three key

justifications often used for the existence of international schools which point to their colonial

nature: 1) local schools are not an acceptable option for international expatriate families; 2) local

teachers are provided with an opportunity to strengthen their skills through access to Western-

style education; and 3) graduating students often study outside their home country in a European

or US university, which is assumed to be superior to their local post-secondary options. Molnar

argues these assumptions are not innocuous and “they play into the way that human beings in

school systems are treated, paid, and silenced” (p. 10). She argues this positioning of

international schools as superior also encourages bubble-making in which the international

schools and their graduates are seen as separate from their local context.

The role of language within international schools plays a key role in their enactment of

coloniality. According to Bokhorst-Heng (2007), international schools frequently choose English

as a medium for instruction and often fail to support students’ home languages, a significant

indicator of their colonial nature. Within international schools, “English as a marker of privilege

is often desired at the expense of the national language” (Tanu, 2018, p. 65). Molnar (2020)

argues this focus on English further exacerbates the advantages and prestige of students and

teachers from English-speaking countries over local students. Tanu argues while students within

international schools are not being colonized, “being educated in a language seen as superior to
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their own still has a similarly powerful influence” (p. 65). I agree with Tanu’s description of the

impact of this hierarchy of languages on students, but I posit students are being colonized as

teachers and administrators enact language ideologies, policies and practices dictated by

coloniality.

In the case of international schools, students are colonized through failing to support the

development of their complex cultural and linguistic identities through an exclusionary focus on

foreign culture(s) and language(s). In their case study of an international school in Argentina,

Gottlieb and Noel (2019) describe the inextricable connection between students’ educational

experiences and the development of their multilingual identities. They argue international

schools must shift to value the cultural and linguistic resources of students and families and

adjust their approach so “multilingual learners’ voices are heard, respected, and incorporated into

the fabric of schooling” (p. 371). While certain characteristics of privelege, such as race and

social class, are shared by many students in international schools and provide unearned

advantages in many aspects of their lives, I draw on Swalwell’s description of privilege not as “a

set of clear-cut, fixed characteristics, [rather], privilege represents a context-dependent, mediated

process by which fluid dynamics produce complex, sometimes contradictory, identities” (p. 6).

Within the context of international schools, privileged students are colonized as they are

continuously influenced by ideologies, policies and practices that uphold the foreign languages

and cultures as superior.

In a recent exposé of racism in international schools, journalist and international school

alum, Obiko Pearson (2022), reflects on her own experience as a Japanese-Australian who

attended an international school in Japan from kindergarten through high school. The author

notes a problematic emphasis on US culture at the school, as she graduated knowing all the states
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and capitols, but not the prefectures of Japan. During her studies, Japanese was an elective

subject and “some students spent more than a decade in the country learning barely a lick of it”.

Obiko Pearson ends by stating, “I was colonized before I had a say in the matter.” While there is

still a lack of extensive empirical research about decolonizing within the context of international

schools, there is a growing awareness of how students are negatively impacted by an exclusive

focus on foreign languages and cultures, particularly as approximately 80% of students in

international schools are now local students (ISC Research, 2022; Tanu, 2018).

There is an emerging movement within the context of international schools to engage in

decolonizing. For example, the recently established Organisation to Decolonise International

Schools (ODIS) is a student-led organization which exists to “create a movement within all

international schools and the expat community at large to expand the scope of international

education beyond current Western values, to be intersectional and inclusive of all marginalised

groups” (ODIS, 2022). Xoài David and Anna Clara Fontoura Fernandes Reynolds (2020), two

International Baccalaureate (IB) alumni, started ODIS in 2020. After repatriating to their

passport countries for university studies, they realized “the international school culture in which

we were raised is generally synonymous with “white” culture—the assimilation of it and

consequent “othering” of everything non-white”. Based on their developing awareness, they

started a petition to the IB demanding significant reform of the curriculum, calling for inclusive,

diverse, intersectional and anti-racist teaching practices. They soon recognized the issues were

larger than IB itself, noting how the “very foundations of International education are racist,

beginning with missionary and UN schools, developed in the West and established in the Global

South, perpetuating Eurocentric values, neo-colonialism, and white supremacy”. The students
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began to host webinars, develop a database of alumni-led initiatives at over 25 international

schools and publish articles, blogs, and podcasts.

ODIS outlines various commitments to action, such as no longer prioritizing the hire of

native English speakers, which align with the Association of International Educators and Leaders

of Colour. AIELOC founder, Kevin Simpson (2022), notes, “International schools place western

culture, whiteness, and the English language at the top of the hierarchy” calling for a recognition

of international schools as “as a colonizer’s tool to systematically elevate and render superior the

culture of the dominant minority”. At times, engagement in decolonizing work in international

schools, seen as part of commitments to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) work,

may only function as “a new way to dominate the voiceless, diversify the elite and disempower

learners from fully understanding and expressing their consciousness”. While there is a lack of

published empirical research on decolonization within international schools, these organizations,

along with other multimodal practitioner publications (i.e. podcasts, blogs, etc.) indicate

significant discussion about decolonizing within international schools. However, publications by

both ODIS and AIELOC clearly question whether these discussions will lead to systemic change

or if they are simply performative. Yet all schools, including international schools, can “serve as

spaces to transform oppressive policies and foster social justice and democracy” (Ortega, 2020,

p. 39). Recognizing the role of international schools as corridors of power (Phipps, 2019) and

their expansive influence on public and private education further strengthens this call for the

decolonization of these spaces.

Methodology

In this chapter, I explore my first research question: Where do international schools fit

within the landscape of K-12 foreign language education in Colombia? To answer this question,
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I analyze data generated in my case study, including school policy documents, interviews

conducted with faculty and students, classroom observations, and a teacher questionnaire. While

I do not focus here specifically on the process of data generation which occurred through SDBR,

much of the data which informs this chapter, such as the classroom observations, were generated

with teachers and students as part of the design process. In addition, I analyze information about

key actors within the field of K-12 foreign language education in Colombia, found primarily on

publicly available websites.

Findings

Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, I found a logic of coloniality reflected in K-12

foreign language education in Colombia. This logic of coloniality is demonstrated through the

valorization of foreign languages, language users and language scholars over local counterparts. I

demonstrate this logic of coloniality through the imbalanced relationship between actors in

language education in Colombia as illustrated in Figure 4. The diagram is designed to be

hierarchical, with external international organizations at the top. The red arrows demonstrate a

relationship between the actors, as well as the primary directionality of influence between them.

A solid arrow represents a strong influence while a dotted arrow represents a weaker relationship

and influence.
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Figure 4 Key Actors in K-12 Foreign Language Education in Colombia

I illustrate this identified logic of coloniality through four primary findings: 1) Within the

hierarchy of actors in K-12 foreign language education in Colombia, external international

organizations sit atop with the most influence; 2) International schools have weak relationships

with local educational authorities and language education scholars; 3) International schools have

a strong influence on language education in other private schools; 4) International schools and

external national organizations have heavily influenced government educational policies, as seen

in the National Bilingual Program.

First, within this hierarchy of actors, external international organizations are the most

powerful actors as they exercise significant influence over both international schools and those

designed by the Colombian government. International schools are influenced by external

organizations in various categories, including: accreditory bodies, educational organizations

related to international schools, testing organizations, curriculum and pedagogical developers

and publishers, US graduate programs, etc. For example, of the 14 international schools in

Colombia listed in the Council of International Schools (CIS) database, 10 schools follow a
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foreign curriculum (i.e. Advanced Placement (AP), Cambridge International General Certificate

of Secondary Education) ("Council of International Schools Membership Directory," 2022). At

CC, they implemented Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards, Advanced Placement

courses, Readers and Writers Workshop, etc., all US-based standards and curriculum. Eight

schools in Colombia are members of AMISA (American International Schools in the Americas).

AMISA specifies various requirements for membership, including English as the primary

language of instruction, an American or International curriculum, and accredited by either a

recognized US regional accrediting agency or the Council of International Schools ("School

Membership," 2022). Thirty-one schools in Colombia are accredited by Cognia, the world’s

largest school accrediting body, based in the US (Cognia, 2022) ("Accreditation Registry,"

2022). According to one international school in Colombia, accreditation by Cognia “allow[s] the

school to bestow an American high school diploma on students who have completed an

American curricular program” ("Acreditaciones," 2020).

International schools in Colombia often depend on external organizations for professional

development, linked to the foreign accreditation or curricula they offer. Additionally, some

international schools promote and host graduate programs from US universities for their national

and foreign teachers. In many cases, schools bring instructors from the United States to teach the

courses, such as through the SUNY-Buffalo International Graduate Program for Educators

("International Graduate Programs for Educators," 2022). In sum, while international schools are

often described at the top of the hierarchy of K-12 foreign language education in Colombia,

international schools hold external international organizations as superior, exhibiting the logic of

coloniality in which foreign expertise is seen as superior.

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Within the context of CC, the valuing of foreign organizations and knowledge as superior

was reflected at various levels, including by students. For example, during a series of

presentations in elementary school on student-selected topics, I was struck at how frequently

students picked topics unrelated to the local context. For example, students presented about trips

they had taken to foreign countries and events which had occurred in other places, such as the

destruction of the Twin Towers in the US. In one striking example, a student presented a well-

researched presentation on the evolution of trains and highlighted examples of train systems

throughout the world yet failed to mention the history of trains in Colombia nor the renowned

metro systems which had transformed a local city. When I asked the teacher later about this

exclusion, she simply said, “Honestly, he’s probably never been on the metro. It’s not really

something our students would do.” A disconnect between students and their local context was

both demonstrated and perpetuated at school, from using the Imperial system in math class to

analyzing CNN newscasts in their journalism class. The reliance on external international

organizations reflected a valuing of foreign over local expertise consistently exhibited in various

aspects of school life.

Second, while external international organizations heavily influence many aspects of

teaching within international schools in Colombia, international schools often have a very weak

relationship with educational authorities and language scholars within Colombia. In my study, a

CC administrator explained international schools were required to follow certain regulations set

by the Colombian government regarding English language education and curriculum. Since

international schools already had much higher requirements for English instruction based on the

requirements of external organizations, they often did not need to concern themselves with the

Colombian government’s relatively lower standards for teaching English. While the
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administrator stated in the past that the Colombian Ministerio de Educación had stricter

guidelines and oversight, increasingly international schools had a great deal of freedom in terms

of language instruction.

The disconnect between the Colombian educational authorities and private schools has

been confirmed by other research conducted in Colombia. For example, Rodríguez-Bonces

(2017) notes minimal oversight and evaluation of the effectiveness of English language

instruction in private schools in Colombia, even though this sector has seen significant growth

since the introduction of the NBP. Camargo Cely (2018) further questions the oversight of many

private schools in Colombia who “claim to be bilingual regardless of not having a bilingual

curriculum” (p. 120). Interestingly, within many countries in South America, national

governments have played an increasingly involved role in language education, as “after decades

of laissez-faire policies, the state is regaining control as regards what, when and how languages

are to be taught” (Banfi, 2017, p. 21), a pattern seen in Colombia through the growth of the NBP.

However, private schools in Colombia, and in particular international schools who generally

already had a robust English program, often operate largely outside of the national government’s

guidelines for language education.

International schools in Colombia are often disconnected from local universities and their

scholars. As part of the graduate course I taught at CC, I shared various articles written by

Colombian scholars, including articles about international schools. Several teachers approached

me after the session to share their surprise as they previously were unaware of any research about

international schools or bilingual education in Colombia. They noted that professional

development sessions at the school were almost exclusively conducted by experts brought in
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from the US who drew on research and resources developed in the US which they felt did not

necessarily fit the Colombian context.

In another example, Dr. Jaime Usma Wilches, Director of the Escuela de Idiomas at the

Universidad de Antioquia, explained how he had not been able to access international schools for

the sharing of resources or research, prior to my invitation to visit one as a guest speaker

(personal interview, Jan. 2020). The corridors of power (Phipps, 2019) of international schools

remain closed, even though Usma Wilches oversees undergraduate and graduate degrees in

language education, including certification for English language teachers, at one of the largest

public universities in Colombia ("Escuela de Idiomas," 2022).

Further, as noted above, international schools in Colombia often contract US universities

to offer graduate education for their foreign, and at times Colombian, teachers, as opposed to

subsidizing graduate programs within Colombia. In a survey administered by school leadership

during my time at CC, teachers were asked to describe their professional training related to

teaching multilingual students. In the summary of the findings, the study notes, “Close to 40% of

the staff who teach in English have at least twelve credits addressing the specific needs of

teaching multilingual learners. We do not currently have a way to interpret the equivalent type of

degree within the Colombian context.” The study later highlights how 54% of staff surveyed

were local Colombians, yet their professional training for teaching multilingual students was not

deemed as valuable through its exclusion from the study itself. The survey later recommended a

possible solution would be for local teachers to enrol in the US graduate program promoted at

the school.

Pursuing university studies outside of Colombia was also promoted to CC students.

Through both implicit and explicit messages, pursuing higher education in an English-speaking
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country was often seen as the most prestigious path for CC graduates. For example, as show in

Figure 5, US and Canadian university flags were prominently displayed in the high school

guidance counsellors’ room.

Figure 5 Foreign University Flags

Middle and high school students often mentioned their plans to study outside of

Colombia. According to school statistics though, at the time of my study, between 80-85% of CC

students enrolled in Colombia universities upon graduation. The promotion of educational

opportunities outside of Colombia indicated their valorization of these institutions by CC faculty,

regardless of whether or not this matched with the reality of most students’ educational paths.

Each of these examples from the CC context demonstrate a pattern of looking outside of

Colombia for educational expertise even though it is both present and likely more suitable within

the country. This disconnect from local universities and scholars further enacted hierarchies of

coloniality which place foreign knowledge and expertise above local.

Third, while external international organizations rank higher than international schools in

the established hierarchy, international schools themselves still have a strong influence on
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language education and policies within the country. For example, both teachers and students

commented on the perceived impact of CC on other schools, particularly regarding language

education. In a small group interview with elementary students, one student commented, "This

school is making lots of other schools, close schools here in the city, they are changing to

bilingüe. But it’s good, because it means big opportunities for kids.” During our final interview a

teacher reflected on what she felt were positive shifts away from English-only approaches at CC,

noting, “If it's happening here, in the most expensive and prestigious school in [the city], it's

going to impact other schools.” Both these examples point to a perception that shifts at CC, and

likely other larger international schools, impacted other schools within the country.

Teachers at CC noted the impact of international schools’ hiring policies on private

schools who were increasingly looking to hire foreign or native English teachers. For example,

the CC website highlights the high number of foreign teachers at the school, noting “these

native-English speakers are critical to our goal of making our students excellent in English by or

before graduation from High School”. Like many international schools,

CC follows a two-tiered approach to compensation for teachers. In addition to factors like

qualifications and teaching experience, teachers’ compensation packages are largely determined

by their nationality. Foreign teachers are paid more than local teachers and their compensation

packages include other benefits, such as flights and housing. While several Colombian teachers

noted they felt their compensation was competitive compared to teaching at other schools in the

city, they shared their frustration and resentment regarding the discrepancy between their

compensation packages and those offered to foreign teachers. One CC teacher shared her story

with me, describing how she grew up in the United States, but returned to Colombia as her

professional options were limited in the US because of her undocumented status. While she had
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extensive teaching qualifications and experience, including a US graduate degree, she was paid

significantly less than her US counterparts, as her compensation was determined by her

Colombian passport. This two-tiered practice is extremely common in international schools,

though it has come under increasing scrutiny, particularly as it tends to intersect with preferential

hiring of white teachers (Chapuredima, 2020; Obiko Pearson, 2022). Increasingly, national

private schools also market their school through an emphasis on native or foreign teachers,

following the model traditionally set by international schools.

Finally, international schools and external national organizations influence national

language educational policies in Colombia. The scope of influence of international schools

expands beyond other private schools to the policies set by the government itself. According to

Usma Wilches (2009), the national government drew on the policies set within international

schools to develop the NBP, including problematic ideologies which prioritized English over

other languages. In addition to the influence of international schools on the NBP, the program

itself has been heavily influenced by external organizations as I describe in the previous chapter.

The NBP was based primarily on recommendations made by foreign consultants working for the

British Council (Guerrero, 2008; Usma Wilches, 2009). As well, the NBP uses the Common

European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) as the standard by which to measure

teacher and students’ English language proficiency. Many scholars, including Bonilla Carvajal

and Tejada-Sanchez (2016), are heavily critical of this decision, arguing the NBP did not take

into consideration whether CEFR was appropriate for the Colombian context, nor recognize key

issues of power which must be considered when implementing an external instrument. As

summarized by Usma Wilches, “The national government adopts a complete package of North

American and European discourses, frameworks, scales, standards, tests, scores, certification
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models, and timelines that do not necessarily reflect or respond to the actual needs, conditions

and possibilities of local stakeholders” (2015, p. 133). In the development of the NBP, the

extensive local expertise of researchers within Colombia was excluded (Correa & Usma

Wilches, 2013). While external organizations are positioned as essential in providing necessary

expertise to language education in Colombia, universities and scholars within the country are

ignored as they are not perceived as valuable within the hierarchy of coloniality. This exclusion

of local expertise is common throughout the development of language education policies in

South America as “teacher education institutions are not central, or even have marginal

participation…they are not viewed as possessing the collecting expertise to advice on

policymaking processes” (Banfi, 2017, p. 25). This exclusion of local expertise within the NBP,

mirrors the exclusion of local expertise within international schools, discussed above. Both

international schools and the NBP rely on imported ideologies, resources, curriculum,

assessments, and scholars based on a logic of coloniality.

While Kamhi-Stein et al. (2017) indicate a shift toward more socially just language

education is occurring throughout South America, my study contradicts this proposition. Instead,

my study found coloniality continues to influence key actors within K-12 foreign language

education in Colombia, evidenced by a hierarchy which places foreign ways of thinking as

superior. While international schools are criticized as examples of foreign imposition in

Colombia, they operate according to the same hierarchical valuing of foreign knowledge and

educators, as other actors within this system. Though Colombian scholars argue English-

dominant approaches from international schools have been problematically taken up in the

National Bilingual Program, I reframe this argument to show a shared logic of coloniality

informing both public and private language education. Within this guiding logic, international
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schools exhibit a powerful influence over public and private education because of their

association with the foreign, yet international schools also function according to this same logic

of coloniality by valorizing foreign expertise, languages, and educators. While international

schools must recognize their role in perpetuating coloniality, like other actors within language

education in Colombia, they both perpetuate and operate under systems of coloniality.

Discussion

In this previous section, I drew on data from my case study, as well as contextual data

about international schools and K-12 foreign language education in Colombia, to reveal a shared

logic of coloniality underlying both contexts. Now, I consider how recommendations by critical

decolonial scholars regarding English language education in Colombia can be applied to the

international school context. By engaging with debates currently occurring in Colombia to the

international school context, I provide a pathway for a cohesive approach to decolonizing

language education within Colombia.

I began this chapter by asking: Can English language education in Latin America be

decolonized? Now, I push the question further to consider: Can elite Spanish-English

international schools in Colombia be decolonized? Some might ask whether the question itself is

valid, as they doubt whether international schools, one of the most elite educational contexts in

Latin America, are legitimate places to engage in critical work. Swalwell (2013) provides three

compelling reasons for the importance of social justice education based on her work in privileged

educational spaces in the US: “to better understand how inequalities persist, to be strategic about

harnessing the power they inherit, and to demonstrate concern for them as sufferers of

dehumanization” (p. xx). Swalwell builds on Freire (1970) who brought both the oppressed and

the oppressor together in their mutual need for liberation, arguing it is not only the oppressed, but
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the oppressors, that need liberation. Freire posits that dehumanization, which is the opposite of

the vocational work of becoming more fully human, “marks not only those whose humanity has

been stolen, but also (though in a different way), those who have stolen it” (p. 28). As an

emerging scholar, committed to engaging in research and practice that pushes back against

colonialistic ideologies, policies, and practices, I argue it is possible, and necessary, to

decolonize international schools by engaging in the same process of unveiling logics of

coloniality and creating new ways to critically engage.

Within the context of international schools in Colombia, an unveiling must include a

recognition of the ongoing colonization of students. As shown in my findings, students are

implicitly, and at times explicitly, told the determination of their success is measured by their

achievement of the linguistic and cultural ideal presented by the school – a native English-

speaker seeking educational opportunities outside of the US. Success in an international school

means “speaking English, preferably like a native speaker, and being Westernized” (Tanu, 2018,

p. 6). An unveiling both recognizes the message students have been told while also recognizing

the impact. For example, as international schools in Colombia valorize the foreign, there is little

space for the celebration of the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Colombia. Instead, there is

a hierarchy in which the foreign is seen as more valuable than the local and US passports,

accents, degrees, and educational approaches are seen as superior. Most students at international

schools possess the economic and cultural capital to enact significant influence across various

sectors in Colombia. What is the ongoing impact of the most privileged students in Colombia

being told to be successful they need to focus on a foreign language and culture? How could an

unveiling of these implicit and explicit colonialistic messages allow for decolonized approaches

which celebrate and leverage students’ plurilingual repertoires and identities?

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However, an unveiling of problematic and colonialistic messages is not enough.

International school communities must go beyond an unveiling and make space for new ways to

engage through contextualized practices. For example, at CC, most curricula, professional

learning, accreditation, and assessments were based on US norms. To move toward

contextualized practices, the school community must first recalibrate toward a recognition of

who and where it serves – primarily Colombian students living in, and likely continuing their

studies in, Colombia. Based on this recalibration, the school community could identify priorities

for language learning and develop a program which aligned with these priorities, as opposed to

one dictated primarily by external international organizations. To develop contextualized

practices in language education, CC could engage with local Colombian scholars and universities

by participating in local professional learning opportunities and graduate programs. They could

recognize the expertise and education of local Colombian teachers and provide opportunities for

them to lead the school in developing contextualized practices, as opposed to relying on foreign

school leaders.

As part of the movement toward contextualized practices, decolonizing international

schools in Colombia must address the current exclusion of Indigenous languages within their

classrooms. International schools must recognize the historical role they have played in

promoting English and use their privileged position of influence to call for spaces for Indigenous

languages which are at risk of extinction in Colombia. The question is not whether international

schools influence other private and public schools in Colombia. Instead, the question is how can

international school actors use their influence to open up new spaces for contextualized practices,

including the protection of Indigenous languages? International schools must be brought into the

current critical conversations about English language education occurring in Colombia and in
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Latin America and they must recognize and address the social responsibility which comes with

their privileged position.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I analyzed data from my case study, as well as contextual data about K-12

foreign language education in Colombia and international schools, to demonstrate a shared logic

of coloniality which positions foreign language, knowledge, education, and scholars as superior

to local counterparts. While international schools are often criticized for their powerful influence

at the top of a perceived hierarchy of language education in Colombia, I instead show how a

shared logic of coloniality which places international schools above other public and private

schools, places external international organizations even higher. Then, by applying the work of

critical language scholars in Colombia and Latin America, I propose a pathway to bring

international schools into current conversations around decolonizing language education in

Colombia. In the next chapter, I shift from the national context to the school level, focusing on

how language ideologies influenced language policy creation and enactment at CC.

CHAPTER SIX: EXAMINING LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES AND POLICIES IN AN

INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL IN COLOMBIA: FROM ENGLISH EXCELLENCE TO

DEVELOPING CRITICAL AWARENESS

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Introduction

Language ideologies and policies in international schools which valorize English at the

expense of home and local languages are a central concern for many within the field of

international education. While international schools are often upheld as examples of linguistic

and cultural diversity, in practice, school administrators and teachers often create and enact

language policies which reflect colonialistic views of English as a superior language (Spiro &

Crisfield, 2018). Spiro and Crisfield note schools may include various instructional languages,

yet they often emphasize developing proficiency in high-status or power languages and not

necessarily on valuing linguistic diversity or students’ languaging practices. Oppressive language

ideologies and policies limit teachers’ and students’ freedom to draw on their linguistic

repertoires and cultural backgrounds in their school experiences. As noted by Cummins et al.

(2005), “It is hard to argue that we are teaching the whole child when school policy dictates that

students leave their language and culture at the schoolhouse door” (p. 39).

Currently, English is the most common language of instruction in international schools.

English is often valorized over other home and societal languages through an English-based

curriculum and primarily Anglophone teachers (Tanu, 2018). Within international schools, Tanu

notes English is seen as a marker of privilege and associated with elite education and

opportunities in the international market. She notes, “The willingness of parents to pay the high

tuition fees to ensure that their children have not only a good command but also a natural

command of English attest to the economic value of the English language.” (p. 57)

Bettney and Nordmeyer (2021) employ Ruiz’s (1984) seminal model of language

orientations to illustrate three potential views of multilingualism within international schools:

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1. as “a problem” which must be eliminated through English immersion and, ultimately,

subtractive bilingualism with English replacing home languages;

2. as “a right” for which students can be given special, but separate, classes to acquire

English through additive forms of bilingualism which maintain home languages but still

privilege English;

3. as “a resource” where the school recognizes multilingualism as the goal for all

students, and staff.

Some international schools demonstrate an increasing recognition of students’ languages

as a resource, shifting away from positions which exclude students’ home languages and the host

country’s local languages. For example, in their case study of an international school in

Argentina, Gottlieb and Noel (2019) outline seven beliefs about language development

articlulated in the school’s language policy, including the importance of validating students’

home languages, promoting the transfer of learning across languages, and supporting language

learning in all subject areas. The authors note how the school sees the 25 languages present

within the school community as a strength.

This shift toward valuing linguistic diversity in international schools requires language

policies that allow students and teachers to leverage their communicative repertoires across a

variety of languages, as they selectively draw on features according to the context (Blackledge &

Creese, 2014; Prasad, 2014). More flexible language policies allow learners to “utilize the

totality of their linguistic repertoires as learning resources” (Beeman & Urow, 2013, p. ix), as

opposed to attempting to suppress one or more of their languages to match a language policy.

Additionally, a shift away from monoglossic and hegemonic ideologies and policies

allows space for students to navigate their own linguistic identities. Linguistic identities refer to
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“an individual’s skills and social practices associated with language and linguistic communities

in which they identify and participate” (Bettney, 2020, p. 272). In a study I conducted at an

international school in Honduras, Grade 11 students indicated their school experiences played a

significant role in the development of their linguistic identity. Participants described their

identities as dynamic and hybrid, an ongoing negotiation in which they created new hybrid

identities. While some students were still struggling to come to terms with seemingly competing

aspects of their identities as bilingual Hondurans, other students confidently described the role of

languages in defining themselves. My findings echoed Carder’s (2013) research with

international schools in which students at times experienced tension as they navigated the

various linguistic influences within their school context. While students within international

school contexts may feel conflicted as they develop their own linguistic identities, schools should

serve “as a third space in which [students] engage in cultural encounters and navigate their own

views on their individual national identities” (Bettney, p. 283). To function as a third space8

however, international schools must intentionally embrace ideologies and policies which allow

and encourage students the opportunity to engage with all aspects of their linguistic identities,

and not oppress students’ identities through restrictive English-only spaces.

Beyond the individual impacts on multilingual students, the emphasis on English

instruction within international schools has been “detrimental to the development and/or use of

local languages in education in many regions. English becomes the priority status language and

the delivery of international curricula in English only reinforces this paradigm” (Spiro &

Crisfield, p. 57). Oppressive language ideologies and policies enacted within international

8
The term “third space” is primarily attributed to Homi Bhabha (1990, 1994) a postcolonial scholar who used the
term to describe the productive space in which different cultures interact, defined by strangeness, hybridity and
liminality.
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schools often both reflect the presence of these ideologies within their local contexts, and often

have a trickledown effect on educational policies outside their individual schools. Such is the

case within Colombia where problematic ideologies and policies within international schools

both reflect broader narratives within the national context, as well as impact educational policies

throughout the country.

Guerrero (2009) argues the current teaching of English in Colombia over any other

languages is a continuation of the problematic ideologies demonstrated first by colonial powers

and then by national governments who explicitly valued Spanish over any Indigenous languages.

From Spanish colonization over 500 years ago to educational policies set in the 1930s which

consolidated Spanish as the language of education for Indigenous groups, minority languages

continue to be seen as less prestigious compared to colonial languages (Usma Wilches, 2015).

Since World War II and the emergence of the United States as a global power, English has risen

to prominence as the preferred foreign language in Colombia (de Mejía, 2020). Guerrero (2008)

points to the ongoing powerful influence of organizations like the British Council who have

promoted the use of English and the teaching of English from the beginning of the 19th century

as a continuation of colonial practices.

While oppressive ideologies have been tied to the colonial project, the presence of these

ideologies and policies within international schools has furthered the problematic emphasis on

English. Usma Wilches (2015) notes international schools in Colombia often prioritize English

over other instructional languages and hire foreign English teachers. de Mejía (2020) argues

while international schools often describe themselves as following a bilingual model, many

follow a primarily English-medium of instruction model, with the teaching of only Spanish

language and Colombian social studies in Spanish. Within this established linguistic hierarchy,
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so-called native English teachers from particular countries are more valuable than their

Colombian counterparts (Guerrero, 2018), being paid more and given less responsibilities (de

Mejía, 2002). International schools in Colombia “continue to propagate the idea that English is

best” (Ortega, 2020, p. 41).

Private schools emphasize the learning of English over the learning of any other

languages, tied primarily to its perceived economic value (de Mejía & Montes Rodriguez,

(2008). As this instrumental valuing of English matches the government’s push for teaching

English for economic reasons, international schools become further entrenched in these

hierarchies, as they benefit from educational policies and requirements focused on English

teaching (Ortega, 2019a). As well, Usma Wilches (2009) argues that problematic ideologies first

present within international private bilingual schools have expanded to the public education

sector through the National Bilingual Program. He further argues linguistic diversity within

Colombia is disappearing and he makes a clear connection to this stark reality and the current

exclusive focus on Spanish-English bilingualism. As noted by de Mejía (2020), not all bilinguals

are seen as equal in Colombia, as Spanish-English bilingualism is celebrated and other types of

bilingualism, including Indigenous languages, are invisible. Clearly, the teaching of English at

the expense of local and Indigenous languages, in Colombia, points to hegemonic ideologies

both traced back to colonial times and further perpetuated through international schools.

While oppressive language ideologies and policies in international schools are a central

concern for critical education scholars, relatively little is known about international schools that

are negotiating a shift toward a more heteroglossic approach. A heteroglossic approach

emphasizes the interconnectedness and fluidity of plurilinguals’ languaging practices and

linguistic identities while undermining hegemonic ideologies which valorize certain languages or
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language variations over others (García, 2013). In this chapter, I address this identified research

gap by examining how language ideologies influence language policy creation and appropriation

within an international school in Colombia. As part of a larger case study at CC, I collected

various forms of data, including school policy documents, classroom observations, interviews,

and questionnaires to explore how faculty’s language ideologies influence language policies.

Drawing on Pennycook’s (2000) critical framework of ideologies underpinning the global spread

of English to frame my study, I ask: What language ideologies influence language policy

creation and appropriation at CC?

Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, I found many teachers and school administrators

exhibited a significant shift away from an exclusive focus on English to an emphasis on English-

Spanish bilingualism. Yet faculty continued to enact colonial ideologies through failing to

address critical issues of linguistic inequity and power. Oppressive language ideologies and

policies persisted which valorized English, denigrated Spanish, and completely ignored other

societal and home languages.

Literature Review

In this chapter, I examine the interaction of language ideologies and policies at Colegio

Colombiano. Language ideologies are sets of attitudes or beliefs about languages, language use

and language users, while language policies are a mode by which ideologies are demonstrated or

enacted through governing the use of language in various contexts. The consideration of

language ideologies and language policies together brings into focus opportunities for the

opening of ideological and implementational spaces, as defined by Hornberger (2002).

Hornberger (2005) describes a symbiotic relationship between these two spaces, stating:
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It is essential for language educators and language users to fill up implementational

spaces with multilingual educational practices, whether with intent to occupy ideological

spaces opened up by policies or to prod actively toward more favorable ideological

spaces in the face of restrictive policies. Ideological spaces created by language and

education policies can be seen as carving out implementational spaces at classroom and

community levels, but implementational spaces can also serve as wedges to pry open

ideological ones. (p. 606)

Through considering the interaction of language ideologies and language policies, this

paper considers how school actors can push open both ideological and implementation spaces

which allow teachers and students to critically develop their linguistic practices and embrace

their plurilingual identities. To explore these two interconnected concepts, I employ Pennycook’s

(2000) ideological framework which examines the global spread of English from colonial-

celebration to post-colonial performativity.

Language Ideologies

Language ideologies draw into focus how individuals view languages, how and why

hierarchies of languages are constructed and enacted in certain social spaces and why certain

languaging practices are considered more valuable than others. For this study, I focus on

hegemonic language ideologies which denote a hierarchical positioning of languages where

particular languages or language varieties are seen as more valuable. Within the context of many

school systems worldwide, this often refers to the assumed superiority of English as an

instructional language. Drawing on Gramsci’s use of hegemony, Ives (2013) discusses the

hegemonic position of English in language teaching, illustrating that “whether or not individuals,

institutions or states ‘choose’ (seemingly freely) to learn, teach or facilitate English, the spread of
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English is part and parcel of unequal power relationships” (p. 662). In other words, the ongoing

rapid spread of teaching English worldwide is not neutral, as it cannot be removed from the

power relations that both propel and govern its spread. Indeed, there are serious consequences for

this spread in terms of linguistic diversity, as the heavy emphasis on English language teaching

can lead to linguistic capital dispossession in which English takes the place of either the national

language or the students’ home languages (Phillipson, 2010).

Building on this understanding of hegemonic language ideologies, I turn to Pennycook’s

(2000) description of six different ideological frameworks to understand the spread and teaching

of English globally.

1. Colonial-celebration views the spread of English as inherently good and “trumpets the

benefits of English over other languages, suggesting that English has…qualities superior

to other languages” (p. 108).

2. Laissez faire liberalism posits that English should coexist and complement other

languages, but that the spread of English is beneficial and natural, or at the very least

neutral.

3. Language ecology recognizes the potential harm of introducing English into multilingual

contexts.

4. Linguistic imperialism sees a clear relationship between the spread of English and global

capitalism and brings attention to the presence of global homogenizing trends facilitated

by the teaching of English.

5. Language rights pushes farther than recognizing the relationship and argues that there is

a moral imperative to protect languages from the imposition of English.

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6. Post-colonial performativity centers questions around local contexts and particular

configurations of language, culture, knowledge, and power. This ideology recognizes

both the cultural baggage that comes along with teaching English in postcolonial contexts

and a consideration of how to change and resist the negative impacts.

While Pennycook provides a helpful framework to understand language ideologies which

underlie the global spread of English, it is important to recognize its limitations. Primarily,

ideologies are beliefs held by individuals that influence their behaviours, yet individual people

do not fit neatly into boxes or categories. Additionally, while it is important to analyze how

language ideologies inform language policies, the ideologies of another person, like any other

held belief, can never be fully known, but instead presumed based on their associated actions and

statements.

Language Policies

While language ideologies focus on how one thinks about or represents language, the

field of language policies explores how actors use language within various contexts. In this

paper, I highlight critical approaches to language policy which focus on how individual actors

create and enact language policies within their specific local and global contexts (Gallo &

Hornberger, 2017). I consider two specific types of language policies - language allocation and

language use, and how they can function as implementational spaces (Hornberger, 2002) within

bi/multilingual programs.

Critical approaches to language policy recognize the role of actors in creating and

appropriating policies and the importance of considering the local and global context

surrounding these policies. While traditional views emphasized the power of the policies

themselves, critical approaches focus on the interaction between the policy and the actors who
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enact it (Gallo & Hornberger, 2017; Ricento, 2000). Menken and García (2010) argue language

policy is a process by which a text is “interpreted and appropriated in unpredictable ways by

agents who appropriate, resist, and/or change dominant and alternative policy discourses” (p.

15). Levinson, Sutton and Winstead (2009) describe this process as policy appropriation and

emphasize the recursive nature of this relationship as actors influence the policy itself through its

enactment. Levinson et al. note that policies should be recognized whether they are official or

authorized or not, as “Policy may also develop in more spontaneous and informal fashion,

outside the agencies or offices that are constitutionally charged with making policy” (p. 770).

They note policy appropriation still occurs with unofficial policy as local actors interpret and

adapt both official and unofficial policies to their local contexts.

In the case of school and classroom language policies, a critical approach highlights the

role of teachers as empowered professionals who can engage in critical reflection and challenge

oppressive policies. This space for policy negotiation within classrooms is important, as

classroom teachers are often the final arbiters of language policy implementation. Just as

language policies can either open up or restrict ideological and implementational spaces in

schools for multilingualism (Hornberger, 2002), so too can educators either carve out or close off

these spaces through their appropriation of the policies.

Within bilingual schools, language policies typically fall into two categories: language

allocation policies that govern the program model and language use policies that are concerned

with how teachers and students use language inside and outside of the classroom. Language

allocation policies typically refer to how schools allocate languages by grade and by subject and

are often determined, at least in part, by the educational authorities in the country, who may
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require certain subjects, be taught in the majority language of the country, or set guidelines for

the percentage of time permitted for each instructional language.

Language use policies typically outline appropriate purposes and times for teachers and

students to use different named languages within the classroom, and at times out-of-classroom

spaces. Menken and García (2010) note that most language use policies prohibit language

mixing, yet in a variety of global contexts, teachers and students engage in translanguaging as

they make meaning in multilingual classrooms. Menken and García therefore highlight how

teachers and students appropriate restrictive language policies to reflect their own heteroglossic

languaging practices. Language allocation and use policies are important opportunities for school

actors to consider the amount of time and space given to home and societal languages and how

these decisions are influenced by language ideologies.

Methodology

This chapter fits within the larger case study I conducted at Colegio Colombiano as I

examine my second research question: What language ideologies influenced language policy

creation and appropriation at CC? For this chapter, I draw on school policy documents,

interviews conducted with faculty and students, classroom observations, and a teacher

questionnaire. While I do not focus here specifically on the process of data generation which

occurred through SDBR, much of the data which informs this chapter, such as the classroom

observations, was generated with teachers and students as part of the design process.

Findings

Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, I found faculty endorsed a spectrum of language

ideologies and policies during my study. In Table 3, I summarize my findings in which I

highlight three positions along the spectrum: 1) English Excellence; 2) English-Spanish

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bilingualism; and 3) Developing Critical Awareness. Many faculty demonstrated a significant

shift away from espousing hegemonic ideologies and enacting oppressive language policies

through an increasing recognition of the importance of Spanish. However, while explicit

messages about English as superior were no longer officially promoted, colonial ideologies and

policies persisted which valorized English, denigrated Spanish, and completely ignored other

societal and home languages.

English Excellence English-Spanish Developing Critical

Bilingualism Awareness
-English as the primary -Asset-based mindset -Identifying problematic
language of the school -More equitable and flexible ideologies at school and in
-Native English speakers as classroom language policies Colombia
the ideal teachers -Lack of recognition of -Advocating for addressing
- United States as the languages outside of English questions of systemic equity
linguistic and cultural model and Spanish at school
- Teachers as change agents
Table 3 Overview of Chapter 6 Findings
In this chapter, I highlight three points along the spectrum through a discussion of the

ideologies and policies associated with each category. In terms of ideologies, I focus on attitudes

or beliefs held by individuals about language, language use and language users. I consider how

these beliefs or attitudes were demonstrated, enacted or resisted through language policies, in

particular policies that govern language allocation and language use by teachers and students

within their classroom spaces.

The categories I describe along the spectrum are neither discreet nor mutually exclusive.

While they represent a progression of ideologies and policies from hegemonic and oppressive to

heteroglossic and dynamic, they are enacted by individuals who themselves shift between the

categories at different times and in different contexts. Individuals’ language ideologies and

practice are expressed in non-linear, and at times contradictory, ways. Clear patterns did not exist
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of where participants’ ideologies and policies fell along the continuum based on nationality,

language proficiency, or years of teaching experience.

As well, participants acted within the confines of their school contexts. While there is

clear evidence of many individual faculty members shifting away from hegemonic views and

practices, one teacher noted, “It’s not really that long ago that you would have seen English-only

posters or rules.” I describe a nuanced and complex picture which demonstrates both promising

shifts and the lingering presence of hegemonic ideologies and policies, often more hidden than

before.

In addition, an individual’s language ideologies and creation and enactment of policies do

not exist in isolation. For many teachers, a shift in their ideologies about language(s) led to a

change in their language policies. In contrast, other teachers first enacted more flexible language

policies, in response to the project or other external factors, while still being unsure of their

beliefs about these changes. For example, one elementary teacher experimented with allowing

her students to access Spanish texts for research. In a follow-up interview, she noted:

One thing that I did want to tell you. My lowest reader had an electronic English book on

China and a print book about China in Spanish. And that was my moment. Where I was

like this is worth it. This is worth it. Even if it’s just one.

While this teacher had already begun shifting her language policies by allowing students to

access Spanish texts, she still had reservations. As she observed a struggling student engage

across languages, she realized the shift was “worth it” as it allowed her student to more fully

engage in learning. This example demonstrates the iterative, symbiotic, and at times conflictive,

relationship of ideologies and policies.

English Excellence
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English Excellence refers to a committee, campaign, and slogan, established a few years

before my study at CC to address a perceived need to strengthen students’ English proficiency.

Here, I employ the term to describe three interconnected language ideologies held by several

faculty, and at times espoused as official school position, and the associated policies: 1) English

as the primary language of the school; 2) Native English speakers as the ideal teachers; and 3)

the United States as the linguistic and cultural model.

Teachers described an ideology that upheld English as the primary language of the

school. One teacher noted this ideology was often expressed as a view that all valuable

instruction and activities should take place in English. He described this valorization of English

as: “If you’re not doing it in English, you’re not doing anything worthwhile.” Susan, another

teacher, retold a recent interaction with this type of thinking:

I debated whether to tell you this or not, but I’m going to. So, Joe and I sat together…at a

staff assembly... There’s a teacher in front of (us) that has an English-only sign that he

put on his classroom that day, that day, in his classroom. This is English-only and then it

gave the history of English, like a paragraph, all written in bold, the prominence of how

English is now the most dominant language, and it said, “It is the language of this

classroom.” And he posted it on the door. And then Joe had the tact that I didn’t and was

like, “Hey, I think maybe the school is growing around that, like maybe that’s not the

only way to think about our students,” and I was like, “Grr…”.

She said the teacher was not open to Joe’s input so they had decided to not pursue the

conversation further. Susan said when she was first hired at the school, most teachers agreed

with promoting English as the language of the classroom. While there had been a significant shift
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away from this thinking, especially in elementary school, these beliefs were still present at the

school.

Language ideologies that valorized English were also reflected in implicit and explicit

language policies which prohibited, and at times punished, language speakers for using Spanish

within perceived English-only spaces. While teachers did not indicate a written language policy

existed which prohibited them from speaking Spanish, they believed they had been hired to be

English teachers, not bilingual teachers. A teacher who had been at the school for several years

indicated it was the school’s unofficial policy for teachers to only speak in English.

Unofficial language policies extended beyond the classrooms and further positioned

English as the language of value at the school. One high school student, in retelling an interview

she conducted for journalism class, described how she explained to the interviewee that she

could conduct the interview in English or Spanish. She said the interviewee, even though their

English skills were not strong, chose English because it was the more “official” language of the

school. She noted how in a follow-up interview, she approached the interviewee again, but

decided on a more casual approach, in hopes that the person would be willing to speak more

freely in Spanish. The student noted the change, saying, “When it was in English, he was

thinking, ‘Oh this is serious. They are going to quote me or something.’ But then when you start

just talking, natural, in their natural language, chatting, they start telling you things.” The student

observed how English was positioned at the school as the language in which to discuss serious

topics, while Spanish was reserved for more casual conversations. Parents played a significant

role in further strengthening these unspoken policies. One bilingual administrator noted that

parents asked her why she spoke in Spanish at times at school events. She believed part of the
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reason she had been hired was to be a native-English language model for students and parents

therefore expected her to speak in English in her role.

While teachers described an implicit policy prohibiting their speaking of Spanish,

particularly with students, they discussed evidence of explicit and punitive student language

policies. One elementary teacher described one punitive aspect of the student language policy

which had been designed by administrators and teachers and implemented across upper

elementary in the previous few years:

(Students) were given a certain number of sticks and (they) lose them if (they) speak in

Spanish. And that still could be happening here. It could have happened last year. I’m

going to give you 5 Spanish sticks and if you lose them all, you’re not going to get to go

out for Friday fun.

Another student described how her teacher from the previous year said, “If you don’t speak

English, I’m going to give you three warnings and if not a peace treaty9…[she] was like, English,

English, English, English, English.” Each time she said “English”, she pounded her fist into her

other hand to emphasize her point. Another elementary student described how these language

policies extended beyond the English classroom to social spaces and times as well. She described

how in early elementary, students were asked if they spoke English at recess and there was a

“sad face to mark if we didn’t and a happy face if we did.” Teachers confirmed recent punitive

language policies, describing consequences such as students losing out on classroom activities,

writing a note home to parents or a negative impact on grades. While English-only policies were

9
Peace treaty refers to a reflective document students would complete when they did not follow some type of
classroom rule. They were asked to reflect on the rule, why they did not follow it and what they would do
differently. Various types of elementary classroom management or value education programs promote the use of
peace treaties.
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no longer explicitly stated and enforced, many teachers noted the ongoing influence of the same

ideologies which informed these previous policies.

In addition to upholding English as superior, some faculty continued to uphold the native

English speaker as the ideal language model and the preferred teacher. This ideology was

demonstrated through stark disparities between Colombian and non-Colombian faculty in terms

of financial benefits, hiring practices and positioning within the school. Teachers were paid

significantly different wages and benefits based on their passport and their home language.

While these concerns often bubbled below the surface, at times Colombian teachers addressed

them directly. In a staff meeting about promoting a culture of bilingualism, conversation

primarily occurred in English, even though not all teachers felt comfortable expressing

themselves in English. One Colombian teacher commented on the irony that she felt isolated and

limited in her ability to participate in a meeting about bilingualism. While there was a growing

awareness of disparities between international and national teachers, discriminatory ideologies

and practices remained. As one Colombian teacher noted when discussing the school’s

preference for foreign teachers, “And the saddest thing is that it’s still happening.”

Both the view of English as the preferred academic language and the upholding of native

English speakers as the ideal teachers reflected a larger view of the foreign, and in particular the

United States, as the linguistic and cultural ideal. One administrator recognized this tendency to

ignore the Colombian context as simply: “We sometimes forget we are a Colombian school

teaching Colombian students.” The upholding of the US was enacted in various ways such as the

definition of the school as an “American” school, the flying of the US flag and singing of the US

anthem, the support of a US graduate program at the school, and the use of US curriculum,

textbook, and classroom resources. For example, the school community celebrated US
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Thanksgiving (a holiday I had otherwise never heard mentioned in Colombia) through various

celebrations and an extended break. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving, I noticed an early

elementary Spanish class cutting out coloured leaves to represent the changing of seasons – a

seasonal change unrelated to Colombia’s tropical, isothermal climate. I continued down the

hallway and stopped in front of a teacher-created bulletin board of Pete the Cat, shown in Figure

6, with Pete posed as a pilgrim, his speech bubble declaring: “I’m thankful for the brave pilgrims

that started this free new world.” While cultural holidays are often discussed in language

classrooms, this example points to a significant lack of cultural awareness in celebrating the

arrival of colonizers.

Figure 6 Pete the Cat Bulletin Board

Ideologies persisted at CC which positioned English, native English speakers, and the

United States as superior. These ideologies were taken up through language policies which

prohibited students’ use of Spanish within the English classroom and encouraged teachers to

speak English as the primary language of instruction.

English-Spanish Bilingualism
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While English Excellence was a dominant ideology held by many faculty in the past and

persisting for some into the present, the majority of faculty in my study indicated they were

already in agreement with an English-Spanish bilingualism approach or were shifting toward this

approach as they participated in the study. Within this category, faculty recognized the

importance of Spanish as the home language of most students at CC, while still placing a heavy

emphasis on academic English proficiency.

Within the context of English Excellence, languages were seen as separate, reflecting a

monoglossic ideology. In contrast, teachers embracing an ideology of English-Spanish

bilingualism, began to see English and Spanish in relationship to each other. For example, one

administrator criticized how the current approach of language separation was based on a

subliminal message of, “It’s either/or. There’s no sense of fluid bilingualism.” The administrator

instead argued for a recognition of the fluidity of languages and their relationship to each other.

Many teachers moved from viewing Spanish as a problem to be overcome in the English

classroom to seeing it as an asset. One teacher described this shift as: “My mindset has changed

(to an) asset-based mindset…Multilingual learners have so many gifts that we aren´t leveraging.”

In the teacher questionnaire, one high school teacher expressed how dramatically his ideologies

about language had changed:

[I have] changed...radically. I was a pretty hard core, English only, monolingual

classroom kind of teacher. Now, I have been reborn. I am Señor Spanglish. 12 years

teaching second language learners as if they were first language English seems

counterproductive for both teachers and students. While much of my attitude emanated

from the attitudes and priorities expressed by the school, my own ignorance of best

practices for second language learners did not serve anyone well…This is especially true
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in respect to the value placed on the L1 [first language], and its accompanying culture.

These were not visible parts of my practice. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what

students in my classroom experience today. It’s tough to claim that you value the home

language or the language assets of your students when you have signs reading “English

Only Zone” hanging prominently in your classroom. Was that really me?

The teacher later stated, “My most important take away [from this research project] is

approaching language development from a perspective of strengths instead of deficits. Students

bring tremendous language resources to the classroom and those resources need to be leveraged

to improve learning outcomes.” Both describe a significant shift toward a recognition of their

students’ bilingualism as an asset for learning, not a barrier to overcome.

As teachers participated in the study and were influenced by significant shifts happening

at CC regarding the current bilingual program model, they indicated a valuing of English-

Spanish bilingualism reflected through more equitable and flexible language policies. Many

teachers began to look for opportunities to draw on their own linguistic repertoires to support

students. For example, one bilingual teacher explained how prior to engaging in professional

development and participating in the research project, she had been very strict about speaking

only in Spanish with her students. She said often her students would not know that she was

bilingual for a long time and she had thought this was a good thing. Based on her growing

understanding of bilingualism, she began to use Spanish to explain difficult concepts to students,

to provide a direct translation for a new English word and to help students with personal issues.

Another teacher with more limited Spanish language skills still looked for ways to use

her own growing knowledge of Spanish to help students make connections. For example, after a

small conflict regarding two students sharing a desk space, the teacher praised the student for
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their use of a polite phrase, “Can you give me more space, please?” The teacher told the student

he could also use more informal language by saying “Excuse me” which she said would be more

like saying, “Discúlpame”. Another teacher said that students were now becoming accustomed to

her asking, “How would we say this in Spanish?”, particularly when they were learning new

phrases or clarifying directions.

Another teacher shared about how she would start using Spanish in a very intentional

way in a math class to support students’ understanding of content and their development of

academic language in both Spanish and English. She explained her approach:

I present all academic language in English and Spanish. In my lesson that I taught, I

taught percentages and said porcentaje and posted it on the board…I did all the language

things first and then I moved into content. Then we broke down the word, as “per” refers

to “for” in Latin, and we talked about cent as 100 and I asked them where they have

heard that before and they made the connection to centavos, and then we connected that

to century.

This teacher had altered her language use to draw on her own bilingual knowledge to support her

students’ cross-linguistic transfer and metalinguistic awareness.

While most teachers had begun to shift away from speaking only in English to using

Spanish according to their own linguistic profile, there appeared less clarity in terms of language

use amongst administrators. For example, while some administrators exhibited a clear preference

for one language or another in their communication with students, many administrators freely

adapted their languaging practices depending on the context and audience. However, some

administrators indicated a sense that certain implicit rules still existed about when they were

supposed to speak in one language or another. For example, one bilingual administrator told me
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that in staff or parent meetings, she adjusted her languaging practices to ensure all participants

were included and ensured translation when necessary. In public contexts with a large number of

parents, she felt pressured to speak in English. While many teachers were embracing a more

flexible language policy, some administrators still felt limited at times to freely draw on their

linguistic repertoires.

While the school did not yet have an official updated language policy, during my time at

the school English teachers were encouraged to establish classroom language norms which

encouraged the use of Spanish and English for specific purposes. In various elementary

classrooms, I either observed these initial classroom discussions about the norms or noticed the

posters created by the class which outlined the norms. Teachers and students discussed how

drawing on both Spanish and English could support their learning. For example, in one

classroom, the teacher summarized their goal for using Spanish in math class as: “use Spanish

when sharing thoughts to support our verbal and written explanations in English”. They listed

potential uses for Spanish in independent thinking time and when communicating with a partner

who needed additional support. English was encouraged during whole group discussions and

during reading activities. To ensure students saw the rules as flexible, the teacher asked

rhetorical questions like, “If you feel like your brain is automatically going to English, is that

ok?” to which the class responded, “Yes.” She asked, “When you’re working with a partner, are

you using English or Spanish”? and the students responded, “Both”. She then reiterated if a

classmate did not understand something, they were welcome to explain it in Spanish.

In another classroom, at the beginning of a unit, I observed a teacher make her

expectations for language norms very explicit for her students. As part of her introductory

instructions for a new unit, the teacher said:

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I am specifically letting you know in this unit we are working on connections between

English and Spanish in our brains and helping it connect between the two languages. You

have my permission, my blessing, my encouragement, to be reading in both languages.

Even though this teacher had already developed a more flexible language policy through

establishing classroom language norms, displayed prominently in a poster on the board, she

reiterated that students were not only allowed, but also encouraged to use Spanish to support

their learning. The teacher recognized this was a new policy for students and knew there was

room for confusion, so she was explicit in a language policy that welcomed Spanish.

Other teachers recognized how challenging it might be for students to begin using

Spanish in their classrooms for class work. While teachers knew that students regularly engaged

in one-on-one or small group conversations in Spanish, they believed it was important to set up

structures to reiterate that Spanish was welcome. One teacher described a participation structure

called, “3-2-1” which she regularly used with her students across content areas. After explaining

a topic to the whole class, the teacher would have the students split into pairs. For the first round,

the first partner would explain the topic in Spanish or English. The second partner would listen

and then respond by saying, “I heard you say…” but in the other language. Then, for the third

step, the partners would have a conversation to clarify and ask questions, with no restrictions

regarding language use. By explicitly giving students permission to use Spanish in the classroom

and setting up bilingual structures, teachers indicated students would no longer be punished for

speaking Spanish, but instead it was a valuable learning tool. In general, teachers collaborated

with students to set clear limitations for when it was appropriate to use Spanish, but it was no

longer forbidden in the English classroom.

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While many faculty were beginning to focus on English-Spanish bilingualism, this shift

was at times limited in a variety of significant ways. First, while many participants indicated a

change in their own ideologies as well as their classroom language policies, they believed these

shifts were not yet happening school-wide. For example, when describing the teachers

participating in this study and those engaged in professional development around language

learning, one participant said, “We are our own little pockets of change, but we are not changing

anything.” Participants were creating change within their own classrooms and for their specific

students, but on the larger scale of the school, she felt their efforts were not enough. Another

teacher kindly told me I had a “skewed sample” in my study as I was interacting regularly with

teachers already engaged in professional learning and choosing to participate in a research

project around language. Another teacher indicated she was looking for small opportunities to

“sprinkle in” a more heteroglossic approach. While there was evidence later in my study of

official policy shifts, many teachers indicated as sense of ineffectuality of the scale of changes.

Second, teachers felt restricted as they were unsure about the stance of the administrators

at CC. For example, a first-year teacher explained to me how she really was not sure what the

school expected of her in terms of language within her classroom as no one had told her one way

or the other. She had been given no guidance around classroom language policies for her or her

students. While veteran teachers noted there had been a clear policy in the past against the use of

Spanish, many were left with a sense of unease about whether they were truly allowed to move

away from these policies. This lack of clarity was also discussed by school administrators in their

discussions around changes to the school’s language policy. One administrator noted the school

was historically the place that teachers spoke to their students only in English and even in the

recent past, teachers were explicitly told their classrooms should be English only. Some students
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were still being told they were not allowed to speak Spanish in English class. Many teachers

assumed they were still to follow these policies, as, “No one is saying that it’s English-only, but

no one is saying that it's not either." One administrator noted in a recent classroom observation,

the teacher changed her lesson plan from her reading a text to students in Spanish, to asking the

students to read the text to themselves. The administrators wondered if the teacher switched

because she believed there was a rule that prohibited teachers from speaking in Spanish. They

acknowledged teachers were worried if an administrator came into the room while they were

explaining something in Spanish, it would look poorly on them. While many administrators

supported a shift to more flexible language policies, they had not yet taken a strong stance, nor

communicated a new policy to teachers.

Even teachers who expressed a strong commitment to more equitable approaches, still

seemed at times to hold on to remnants of the previous approach. In one classroom observation, I

sat and listened to several students give oral presentations on a topic of their choice. The teacher

had explained to me previously the assignment was a stalwart of their program, as each student

picked a topic every school quarter and worked with their parents to research and prepare a class

presentation. The topics were varied and many of the students were clearly very passionate about

their topic. As we listened, I reviewed the rubric for the assignment, shown in Figure 7.
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Figure 7 Presentation Rubric

At first glance, I was taken aback to see a direct reference to speaking in Spanglish. The

rubric gave students the highest score for speaking all in English and the lowest score if they

spoke in Spanglish. I was shocked to see a negative reference to Spanglish in a classroom in

which I had heard the teacher encouraging students to a flexible use of Spanish to support their

learning. In addition, as I listened to students present on their chosen topics, from dogs to trains

to the attack on the Twin Towers, virtually every student engaged in translanguaging. For

example, in a presentation about her family’s summer holiday in Turkey, a student used various

phrases in Spanish, including and number of religious and cultural terms, such as Islámica,

mezquita, and mal de ojo, which I assume she had not yet been exposed to in English. Another

student experienced technical difficulties during his presentation and after apologizing in English

to the teacher, leaned over to his friend at the computer and asked him in Spanish to restart the

slides. My observations of students drawing freely on their linguistic repertoires to effectively

communicate during the class seemed at odds with the message communicated in the rubric.
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After class, I asked the teacher about the rubric and was surprised that she felt the

reference to Spanglish was appropriate as the purpose of the projects was to practice oral

English. As we explored the topic more, she mentioned that she did not feel like this would be an

appropriate assignment to introduce a heteroglossic approach because parents were heavily

involved with the projects and she was not sure they would approve. This interaction left me

considering how one of the teachers I perceived to be the most committed to change was

struggling with how to navigate a shift toward more heteroglossic approaches which both

matched the linguistic objectives of her classes and the constraints of parents’ perceptions. As

well, the use of the term Spanglish, which is most often used in a derogatory way to criticize

plurilinguals’ fluid languaging practices demonstrated the need for ongoing conversations about

how to reframe languaging practices from an asset-based, as opposed to deficit lens. This

example demonstrated how shifts did not occur in straight lines, as teachers wrestled with

examining and enacting their own language ideologies.

While all teachers in my study rejected explicit English-only ideologies and policies,

many positioned Spanish primarily as a leverage to learn English, as a temporary scaffold needed

by students as they acquired English, and one that should be removed when they were proficient

enough in English. For example, in one classroom observation I listened to a class discussion in

which the teacher worked with students to create a set of language norms, defining when it was

appropriate to use English or Spanish in the classroom. For example, the use of Spanish was

promoted when learning about a new concept while English was expected during whole group

discussions. Contrarily, in a follow-up class discussion a few weeks later, the same teacher said

to students that they should be working toward being able to communicate their thinking only in

English. This message seems contradictory, to both tell students to draw on both languages,
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while also stating the goal is to only speak in English which undermined the value of Spanish

both as the home language of most students, as well as a valuable language to learn in and of

itself.

Some teachers believed allowing students to draw on Spanish would become a crutch,

noting if students were allowed to freely draw on Spanish, they would abuse this privilege and

their English language skills would suffer. While teachers felt confident that allowing Spanish in

their classrooms allowed students to access and make meaning of academic content, they also

questioned whether it was negatively impacting the development of English as well. Other

teachers positioned academic Spanish as a tool that students would need later in their lives. For

example, when discussing why it was important to learn math vocabulary in Spanish, and not

just in English, as had previously been done at the school, one teacher emphasized that students

would need to know these terms if they chose to study at a Colombian university once they

graduated high school. While encouraging students to use their home languages as a learning

resource was an important and positive step for the school, Spanish was still positioned by many

teachers as primarily or solely useful in their classrooms for the learning of English or for

students’ future lives.

While many faculty indicated a clear shift in support of English-Spanish bilingualism,

there was a lack of awareness or recognition of other home or societal languages. In every

classroom, there were students that spoke or were exposed to languages outside of Spanish and

English, yet these languages were mostly invisible. For example, one teacher mentioned that one

of her students was trilingual, but she did not remember the other language he spoke. While the

student was originally from another country, she felt he had assimilated very well and “felt

Colombian”. The teacher was aware of the student’s home language, but she ascribed less
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importance to the student’s home language because of his perceived cultural assimilation. Later,

in a classroom observation, the class discussed how they could sing songs in English and Spanish

to finish their day. One student said they could adapt the famous Baby Shark song to Baby

Tiburon (meaning ‘shark’ in Spanish) and the teacher laughed, saying that was great because

they were bilingual. The teacher then looked at the trilingual student, smiled and said, “We’re

trilingual!”. Clearly, this teacher was expanding her support of Spanish within her English

classes and beginning to develop an awareness of students’ home languages, but did not yet see

other home languages as an integral part of the academic nature of the class.

The invisibility of home languages was noted in a faculty meeting about language, where

two administrators noted the school had no awareness of students’ home languages other than

Spanish and English. They felt teachers often saw all students as a homogenous group of

Spanish-speaking Colombians and individual diversity was often hidden. As part of the ongoing

move to become more language aware, one faculty member began to encourage teachers to ask

students about their home languages and plans were made for a robust language profile to be

added to the admissions process for new students. While promising glimpses appeared in various

spaces, the current push for many faculty was the acceptance of student’s bilingual repertoires,

without yet space for plurilingual ones.

Additionally, there was very little awareness of linguistic diversity within the greater

context of Colombia or Latin America. While I had originally planned to engage with teachers in

multilingual research, it became obvious quite quickly that the school was struggling with first

embracing their identity as a bilingual English-Spanish school. Other languages did exist on the

periphery, but they were primarily other languages of power. For example, there were language-

based extracurricular activities at the school and some students took additional language classes
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outside of school, but I only was aware of Mandarin, French and Italian. One administrator told

me he felt that there should be a focus on Portuguese, another major language within South

America, yet there was no awareness or displayed interest in considering Indigenous languages,

regardless of the constitutional protection and recent promotion of them within the Colombian

context. While the school was actively wrestling with their bilingual identity, there was much

more limited awareness or demonstrated interest in other home or societal languages.

In sum, most participants in my study professed ideologies and enacted policies reflective

of English-Spanish bilingualism. They increasingly recognized the importance of Spanish as the

home language of most of their students and enacted language policies which provided space for

students to draw on their bilingual linguistic repertoire. While many teachers described a shift in

their own personal ideologies about language, they felt constricted at times in their ability to

enact change. Other teachers seemed open to the concept of shifting yet presented a very limited

view of its application and lacked a critical awareness of ongoing linguistic inequities which

continued to position Spanish as less valuable and other languages as invisible.

Developing Critical Awareness

The final category of language ideologies and policies was Developing Critical

Awareness which refers to a small, but significant number of faculty who exhibited a growing

critical awareness of questions of equity at CC. These faculty criticized ideologies and policies

which positioned English over Spanish, native English speakers with international passports over

Colombian bilinguals and US culture over Colombian. These faculty positioned themselves as

change agents within their classrooms and within the larger school context.

Within this group, teachers begin to identify colonialist ideologies which positioned

English as superior to Spanish, both within the school context, as well as within Colombia. A
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few teachers recognized that school still primarily positioned Spanish as a tool to serve the

greater purpose of learning English. In the final questionnaire, one teacher indicated there was

still a negative mindset about the use of Spanish: “We are following a pattern of traditional

learning where only one language prevails. We are still having a negative mindset about being

bilingual.” In a final reflection activity, teachers noted the need for, “espacios de reflexion de

conciencia sobre la importancia de ambos idiomas,” and “equality between Spanish and English

classes, without linguistic imperialism.” These teachers identified a significant need to examine

and reflect on the perceived value of both Spanish and English at the school.

A couple of teachers noted how the hierarchical positioning of English at CC reflected

the larger Colombian context. One teacher stated, “I think it’s cultural. And I don’t mean just

Colombia culture. I mean, yes, we know all the things here that try to promote that English is a

better language but I mean school culture. I mean that we punish when students speak in

Spanish.” This teacher had begun to make connections between problematic language policies

and larger issues of hegemonizing ideologies within the school and Colombian context. One

teacher problematized other issues of linguistic injustice within the Colombian context,

explaining how within Colombia, “Indigenous languages get cast aside in order to fulfill the

British Council ́s definition of bilingualism, meaning only English and Spanish.” While I found

sparse evidence of these types of broader critiques, a few teachers were identifying how policies

enacted at the school connected to national ideologies and policies of linguistic injustice.

Several teachers indicated a growing awareness of “systemic inequity” at CC which

positioned foreign native English-speaking teachers as ideal and discriminated against

Colombian teachers, including bilingual Colombian teachers within the English program. In

various contexts, teachers talked about the financial discrepancies that existed between national
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and international teachers. Some international teachers challenged these policies, as they

believed their Colombian counterparts should receive similar pay and benefits. While discussing

questions of gender equity with her class, one teacher noted that while in some work contexts

women are paid less because of their gender, at CC, Colombian teachers were paid less than their

US counterparts because they were Colombian. This comment reflects a school policy that

teachers mentioned in which teachers’ pay and benefits was determined based on their passport,

not based on their qualifications or experience.

Outside of issues of financial inequity, teachers indicated an increasing awareness of how

Colombian staff, particularly those who taught within the Spanish program, were marginalized

and excluded. For example, while translation was offered at many staff meetings, meetings were

still primarily conducted in English with Colombian staff without strong English skills feeling

language was a barrier to their more active participation and contribution in the meetings.

Teachers within the Spanish program noted their classes were seen as less important, pointing to

how more “academic” classes, like Math and Science, were taught in English, Spanish

elementary teachers were not given their own classroom spaces, and there were significantly less

resources in Spanish both in the classrooms and in the library. When I visited the elementary

library, I confirmed there were significantly less Spanish books and very few by Colombian

authors. Figure 8 shows the Colombian section of the library.

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Figure 8 Colombian Section of Library

I was surprised by this scarcity within an otherwise extensive library as the week before I

had visited a bookstore filled with shelves of Colombian children’s books. Further, some of the

books in this section were informational books about Colombia, written for a foreign audience,

as shown in the book cover in Figure 9.

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Figure 9 Cover of “Vamos a Colombia” Book from Library

Elementary Spanish teachers also did not have their own classrooms, and instead moved

between the English teacher’s homeroom classes. Often, within the classroom, they were

provided with a single bulletin board and a bookshelf to hold their materials. The lack of Spanish

resources, the designation of less prestigious classes into Spanish and the physical displacement

of the Spanish teachers were evidence of the marginalization and exclusion of Spanish teachers,

noted by participants.

In addition, Colombian teachers within the English program were often seen by parents

as less valuable and less desirable as teachers, compared to their international colleagues. For

example, one teacher noted that many parents were explicit in their desire for their children to be

taught only by native English teachers. This concern was corroborated by an administrator who

told me she regularly had to meet with parents who objected to their child being placed in an

English class taught by a Colombian teacher, regardless of whether they had even met the

teacher. While many of these issues were not new, some faculty indicated a growing awareness

and a push to address the ongoing systemic inequity, predominantly regarding the treatment of

Colombian and non-Colombian teachers.

Teachers also expressed an emerging critical awareness through problematizing the

prominent US cultural references present throughout the school curriculum. For example, one

teacher shared with me that their math curriculum, designed and produced in the US, drew

almost extensively on US cultural references which she felt were not relevant to her students.

She provided the example of a math problem about a baseball team travelling through different

US states to explain about distance in miles. The example was the major narrative for a month-

long unit. The teacher felt students should see themselves reflected in the curriculum and she
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changed the narrative to one based instead on Egan Bernal, the famous Colombian cyclist who

had recently won the Tour de France. While not altering the content standards, the teacher

adapted the entire narrative to draw on relevant cultural content which celebrated a Colombian

sports hero, as show in Figure 10. Many teachers questioned the underlying message students

received about the US being superior and looked for space in which they could resist this

message through adapting curriculum to the Colombian context.

Figure 10 Teacher-designed Slides for Egan Bernal Unit

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Another teacher questioned the school’s definition of success tied to English proficiency

and to leaving Colombia to study in the United States. She stated:

If the school’s original intention was English, we’re going to do English, then great,

we’re probably doing it, but we’re not giving our kids access to all the tools that we have.

And why is English the goal if it’s not the students’ goal? As you’ve heard from high

school, there’s a variety of success [air quotation marks] stories, this student made it to

the States, they’re doing incredible. Great. I’m glad we can provide that, but when a child

goes to college [in Colombia] and they can’t do math in their original language, it’s like,

‘What have we done?’ That terrifies me to my core. And that we’re continuing to do it.

This teacher’s comment is particularly impactful as the majority CC students pursue their

initial university studies within Colombia and are at times underprepared for their academic

classes in Spanish.

A few teachers who expressed this critical consciousness began to position themselves as

change agents within their classrooms and the school context. Teachers expressed that their eyes

had been opened to issues around language and they wanted to share these new understandings

with others at the school to enact positive change. One teacher who saw herself as a change

agent, stated: “If [other staff] drank the Kool Aid that it should be all English, that submersion is

best, we’ll have to educate them.”

Other teachers grew in confidence as change agents as shifts began happening at the

school level. For example, in the final questionnaire at the end of the project, one teacher wrote,

“CC has made a very powerful shift in multilingual education, which has helped me feel safe to

make the changes I did make in my own teaching.” Often, I noted a significant shift in an

individual teacher over the course of the research project. For example, in our initial interview,
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one teacher became emotional about her concern about whether she would be supported if she

shifted away from an English-only approach. In our final interview, I asked her whether she still

had the same concerns. She replied:

I don’t think it’s gone away. I just don’t feel it as much anymore. I think being part of the

[project] and having Lisa [the new administrator focused on language development] there

made a difference to me in feeling like the administration does understand that we need

to [change]. I feel better that [she’s] around and that [she] could be a person that walks

into my classroom and would be excited if [she] saw Spanish things happening. If my

principal were to walk in, I’m not sure where she’s at in her process with bilingualism

and thinking in a heteroglossic approach way, but I’m not afraid anymore.

While this teacher noted that she still had some concerns, she felt supported as others made

changes as well. She felt she could shift toward more inclusive policies and was no longer afraid

to position herself as a change agent. Other faculty pushing for changes also became more

confident as the school became more explicit in its stance. For example, in January 2020 all CC

faculty participated in a staff meeting in which it was stated clearly that there should no longer

be references to “English-only policies” or attitudes of linguicism toward languages other than

English. However, some teachers questioned the school’s commitment to deep, lasting change.

In a discussion around proposed changes, one teacher noted, “I think it’s an interesting question

of how far does the school value it. If the parents push back and threaten to withdraw their

students, is it going to happen?” Another faculty member believed the commitment to shift

toward more equitable approaches to language education was genuine, yet he expressed concern

that the school at times made these types of shifts without a lot of forethought, just “jumping on

another bandwagon”. These faculty members believed in order to make the far-reaching and
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long-lasting changes the school truly needed, they needed to clarify the reasons behind the shift,

research best practices, and invest significant time and finances.

In sum, faculty espoused language ideologies and enacted language policies along a

spectrum from “English Excellence” to “Developing Critical Awareness”. While many faculty

were probing their own beliefs toward language and reexamining their enactment of oppressive

language policies, few were yet arguing for a critical stance that addressed systemic inequities.

There was a growing commitment from many faculty to engage in a transformational process to

more critically examine language ideologies and policies. As expressed by one optimistic

teacher: “We’re taking steps, we’re taking steps…It’s an exciting time to be here at CC. It’s

exciting. You’re here at the right time.”

Discussion

In this section, I draw on Pennycook’s (2000) framework of language ideologies to

critically examine the described spectrum of language ideologies and policies prevalent at CC.

Similar to my findings, Pennycook’s framework can be seen as a spectrum, from the least

critical, Colonial celebration, to the most, Post-colonial performativity. The three least critical,

(Colonial celebration, Laissez-faire liberalism, Language ecology), were closely reflected in the

three main points on the spectrum I described in my findings.

First, English Excellence can be seen as an example of Colonial celebration, in which the

spread of English is seen as inherently good and “trumpets the benefits of English over other

languages, suggesting that English has…qualities superior to other languages” (Pennycook,

2000, p. 108). The question of colonizing languages within the Colombian context is complex, as

the argument for valuing Spanish at CC is both in support of the home language of the majority

of students, as well as the primary language of colonization in Colombia. However, within the
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context of international schools, the language of colonization primarily refers to English, and the

push for students to speak and be like native English speakers. As noted by many critical

language scholars, colonization no longer refers just to imperial powers, such as Britain and

Spain, but to the role of languages. Phillipson (1992) argues, “Whereas once Britannia ruled the

waves, now it is English which rules them” (p. 2). Building on Field (1998) and Pennycook

(1998), Tanu (2018) directly links the role of English in international schools to the larger forces

of colonization, both from previous imperial powers and the post-war dominant US.

The ongoing positioning of English, native English speakers, and the US as superior at

CC situated foreign faculty as colonizers. In this case, “speaking the colonizer’s language and

being educated in their ways [comes] to signify a sense of social distinction that colonial’s

subjects continually desired and pursued, thus consolidating the colonizer’s dominant position”

(Tanu, 2018, p. 62). Within this dynamic, the colonizers and their language are presented as

superior, and therefore the colonized can never reach them. Colombian students are positioned as

the colonized, as no matter how much they may mimic the accent, vocabulary, and discourse of

their US teachers, they can never by definition reach the status of being native English speakers.

The ideal is simply unattainable by definition and therefore, the colonized’s position as inferior

remains (Tanu, 2018). While international teachers at CC may not recognize themselves as

colonizers, “applying a post-colonial analysis to people who live transnationally as adults show

that colonial discourses continue to influence the ways in which Western expatriates perceive

and interact with host-country nationals” (Tanu, p. 19).

Some critical Colombian scholars point out that colonizing practices are enacted not only

by foreign institutions and educators but have also as Colombians themselves prioritize foreign

languages, educators, and institutions. Drawing on Gonzalez Casanova’s (2006) use of the term,
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colonialismo interno, Guerrero (2009) notes how internal colonization refers to practices that are

not imposed by foreigners or native speakers, but those Colombians impose upon themselves.

Within the field of English language teaching, Guerrero outlines various examples of internal

colonization, including how universities and private schools penalize the use of Spanish by

instructors and students, prefer native English speakers as teachers, even over more qualified

Colombian counterparts, and institutional language requirements for graduation which exclude

Indigenous languages. Further, Castañeda-Londoño (2019), notes Colombian scholars

themselves enact self-colonization through their continual focus on building on the work of

foreign authors. Applying this concept to CC, similar patterns of internal colonization were

present, such as the strong opposition of Colombian parents to Colombian English teachers. In

the next chapter, I further explore this concept of self-colonization through an analysis of

students’ participation in their own colonization. While I question whether an emphasis on self-

colonization unjustly places blame on the colonized, I recognize and desire to amplify

Colombian scholars who put forth a convincing critique of how Colombians further the colonial

project through colonialismo interno.

Next, the position of English-Spanish bilingualism is an example of Laissez-faire

liberalism (Pennycook, 2000). Within this ideology, English should coexist and complement

other languages, but the spread of English is seen as beneficial and natural, or at the very least

neutral. Within this position, faculty at CC acknowledged that Spanish and English should

coexist together, but they did not question the ongoing superior positioning of English at the

school, nor take a critical stance to larger issues of linguistic inequity. At CC, an increasing

emphasis on English-Spanish bilingualism at times further entrenched the invisibility of other

societal and home languages. While the growing importance placed on Spanish at CC indicated a
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developing value of bilingualism, it also gave a false impression of openness to linguistic

diversity, when it was primarily an openness to English-Spanish bilingualism. This issue reflects

an important trend recognized on a national scale by critical language scholars in Colombia. For

example, in his description of the National Bilingual Program in Colombia, Usma Wilches

(2015) argued that a movement toward recognizing English-Spanish bilingualism, actually

“diverted the public’s attention from the fact that instead of opening the door to a diversity of

languages, including Indigenous languages already spoken in the country, the new programs

actually enhanced the role of English as the only language to be used in a global society” (p. 74).

While both Pennycook and Usma Wilches highlight the insidious nature of these supposedly

neutral ideologies, their description of the concealed nature of these beliefs does not match my

findings. As opposed to Pennycook’s description of Laissez-faire liberalism as the “most silent”

of the six ideological categories, in my study, participants within this position were the most

outspoken. As dogmatic stances of Colonial celebration were increasingly discouraged at CC

and few participants were yet calling for more critical stances, the proponents of Laissez-faire

liberalism were most often in line with the school’s movement to embrace English-Spanish

bilingualism and therefore likely felt the most open in sharing their beliefs, at least within the

context of my study. While Pennycook’s description of Laissez-faire liberalism can be seen as a

positive step toward recognizing the existence of other languages, the lack of attention to critical

issues further entrenches linguistic inequities.

Finally, I compare the Developing Critical Awareness category with Pennycook’s (2000)

Language Ecology. Pennycook describes this position as a recognition of the potential harm of

introducing English into multilingual contexts. At CC, I found some teachers demonstrated an

increasing awareness of the potential negative impact of promoting English, and by association,
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US culture within the school context. These teachers indicated the problematic positioning of the

foreign over the local, from discrepancies in pay and benefits to the positioning of Spanish

primarily as a tool to learn English. These teachers began to indicate how an emphasis on

English-Spanish bilingualism was still detrimental, as “the problematic hegemony of the English

language in Colombian educational policy and society [marginalizes] Spanish and Indigenous

languages” (Usma Wilches, 2009, p. 1). Interestingly, Pennycook explains how Language

Ecology can be a useful entry point into a critical understanding of languages as it connects to

many individuals’ concerns for environmental ecologies. At CC, there was an intentional focus

on environmental issues, from student groups to recycling campaigns, yet during my time there, I

did not hear of any connections being made between environmental and linguistic diversity.

While I believe Pennycook’s point is valid that a commitment to environmental justice could

lead to concerns for other types of justice, I did not see evidence of a close alignment of these

issues at CC and question whether this ideological bridge frequently occurs in practice.

While teachers in this category were developing awareness of larger issues of linguistic

injustice within Colombia, the three increasingly critical aspects of Pennycook’s (2000)

framework - Linguistic imperialism, Language rights and Post-colonial performativity - were

generally not present within my findings. For example, while teachers recognized the

problematic positioning of English and the United States as superior, they did not generally

situate the prioritization of English at CC within the larger context of globalization, as key

component of Linguistic imperialism. While a couple of teachers mentioned concerns regarding

loss of Indigenous languages in Colombia, which would be evidence of a Language Rights

ideology, these comments were rare and not tied to any associated classroom practices or

discussions. Finally, I did not find evidence of Post-Colonial performativity, the most critical,
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nuanced, and holistic language ideology. While individual teachers made isolated comments

about issues around language, culture, knowledge, and power, which are four key elements of

Post-Colonial performativity, they were generally not addressed in a holistic manner tied to the

local context. While there was not yet strong evidence to indicate the influence of these three

more critical language ideologies outlined by Pennycook, in Chapter 8, I explore how these three

ideologies could inform language policies and practices in the context of international schools,

through my Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) framework.

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have examined the interaction of language ideologies and policies within

an international school in Colombia. I found a spectrum of ideologies and policies, which I

describe in three categories from English Excellence to English-Spanish Bilingualism to

Developing Critical Awareness. In comparison to Pennycook’s (2000) framework of language

ideologies, my findings did not indicate evidence of the more critical stances. Yet, teachers

indicated how their involvement in the research project supported them in questioning their

previously held beliefs about language. Even while some teachers doubted whether deep

systemic change would occur at CC, they saw themselves as change agents. In a study conducted

at a private bilingual school in Bogotá, Camargo Cely (2018) drew similar conclusions. While

Camarago Cely found many of participants’ ideas and practices about language were still rooted

in “hegemonic, colonial” ideas, she also found some participants “resisted these discourses by

being involved in a community, where they had the opportunity of firstly, reshaping,

contradicting, confirming, and constructing pedagogical beliefs and practices by means of

dialoguing and sharing” (p. 129). When seen in their role as change agents, we recognize

teachers’ powerful positioning to open up ideological and implementational spaces (Hornberger,

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2002). While this chapter focused primarily on ideological spaces, in the following chapter, I

focus on implementational spaces, through exploring how teachers and students engaged in

translanguaging pedagogies as a tool for decolonizing multilingual language education within

international schools.
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CHAPTER SEVEN: WHO NEEDS TILDES ANYWAYS?: STUDENT AND TEACHER

ENGAGEMENT IN TRANSLANGUAGING PEDAGOGIES

Introduction

Within the field of bi/multilingual education, translanguaging pedagogies have become

an increasingly common (though at times contested) response to support linguistic diversity

within K-12 classrooms. However significant debates endure regarding the feasibility and impact

of translanguaging pedagogies within actual classroom spaces. Within the context of

international schools, many schools are questioning a traditional emphasis on English-only

instruction and exploring ways to leverage the linguistic diversity of their school communities

and local contexts. Nevertheless, few studies have documented student and teachers’ engagement

with translanguaging pedagogies within international schools.

In this chapter, I address this identified gap by examining how teachers and students at

Colegio Colombiano (CC) engaged with translanguaging pedagogies. As part of a larger case

study, I explored: What obstacles and opportunities did teachers and students encounter as they

engaged with translanguaging pedagogies? To answer this question, I introduced teachers to

translanguaging pedagogies through the graduate course I taught prior to my research

commencing. Additionally, some teachers had been exposed to the concept of translanguaging

through previous courses but had not yet begun to systematically implement these new

pedagogies in their own classrooms. Some teachers also collaborated with Lisa, the school’s new

administrator focused on language learning, on incorporating translanguaging pedagogies during

my research study, as part of her push to move toward an integrated bilingual program model.

Throughout my research study, I acted as a critical friend (Costa & Kallick, 1993) as teachers

designed, implemented, reflected on, and redesigned translanguaging pedagogies.

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For this chapter, I focus specifically on classroom-level data generated with teachers and

students, including lesson and unit plans, classroom observations, and student and teacher

interviews. Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, participants engaged with a range of novel

translanguaging pedagogies. While teachers identified some key barriers and concerns as they

introduced translanguaging pedagogies into their classrooms, they generally described positive

outcomes. Elementary students were largely receptive to new translanguaging pedagogies. In

contrast, middle and high school students were often resistant, while at the same time regularly

engaged in translanguaging practices on their own terms.

In the Discussion section of this chapter, I further analyze these findings in comparison

with García et al.’s (2017) goals for translanguaging pedagogies. García et al.’s goals were

initially introduced to teachers during the graduate course I taught at CC, as one of the different

approaches which could support a more heteroglossic understanding of language learning. These

explicit goals were not a required element of teachers’ unit plans, nor of the participants’ later

design and implementation of translanguaging pedagogies. However, as I observed teachers and

students engage in translanguaging pedagogies, I noticed a pattern emerging of translanguaging

pedagogies primarily valued for their support of language learning. I employed García et al.’s

goals to examine what might be missing and found while teachers and students engaged with

translanguaging pedagogies in many significant ways, they did not consider [pluri]lingual10

ways of knowing, nor the development of their [pluri]lingual identities. This exclusion echoes

my larger argument outlined in Chapter 5 regarding a logic of coloniality in which pedagogies,

languages and people are imported as they are seen as more valuable commodities compared to

10
In the case of García et al.’s (2017) goals, I use the term [pluri]lingual to demonstrate my replacement of their
original use of the term multilingual to be consistent with my use of these terms throughout this dissertation.
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their local counterparts. I discuss the importance of contextualizing practices as a means to

decolonize language education and examine how translanguaging pedagogies could be

contextualized for international schools.

While each school has its own history and sociocultural context, CC reflects many of the

general trends and debates about language occurring within the field of international education.

For the past fifty years, English as global lingua franca has been the medium of instruction in

most international schools (Baker, 2009). While some international schools may include various

instructional languages, they often emphasize proficiency in English as a language of power,

instead of valuing linguistic diversity or students’ languaging practices (de Mejía, 2006). While

decolonizing must occur across all aspects of international schools, in this chapter I focus on

decolonizing through translanguaging pedagogies. Translanguaging pedagogies interrogate

standardized views of languages and linguistic identities and make space for fluid and dynamic

understandings of languaging and language users. An emphasis on standardized views of

language harkens to colonial patterns in which language was imposed upon colonial subjects,

particularly through education. As discussed in the previous chapter, language ideologies which

continue to emphasize standard or native views of language further colonization by holding

subjects to a linguistic pattern which non-native speakers cannot attain (Tanu, 2018).

Translanguaging pedagogies create space for a more accessible view of languaging practices by

disrupting classroom practices which focus on standard or native language use as the goal. They

shift from attempts to conform students’ practices to “standard English” to instead “place the

ownership of the English language in the hands of the multilingual users of English worldwide”

(Molina, 2021, p. 256). Translanguaging pedagogies can be a tool for decolonizing by

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interrogating language practices that hold up standardized views of languages as superior and

instead center the languaging practices of minoritized speakers.

Translanguaging pedagogies also challenge the hierarchical imposition of English as a

colonial language by valuing all of students’ and teachers’ linguistic repertoires. Translingual11

practices challenge traditional notions of language which are problematic as they “contribute to

the hierarchization and separation of languages, leading some languages and their corresponding

users to be valued more than others” (De Costa et al., 2017, p. 464). Translingual practices are a

tool for decolonization as they critique a “monoglossic assumption of English as the most

important, primary language to which all other languages are subordinate…to an explicit

valuation of all languages in the writing and readings assigned to students, spoken in the

classroom, and produced in scholarly work (Cushman, 2016, p. 235). Drawing on the work of

Mignolo’s matrices of power, Cushman argues translingual approaches can be tools for cultural

and linguistic decolonization as, students and teachers together can “hasten the process of

revealing and potentially transforming colonial matrices of power that maintain hierarchies of

knowledges and languages” (p. 235).

Translanguaging pedagogies can further serve as tools for decolonization through making

space for a more fluid understanding of linguistic identities. The interaction of language and

identity is central to the work of decolonization, as decolonization brings to light how “languages

are not something human beings have but what human beings are” (Tiostanova & Mignolo,

2012, p. 61). Translanguaging pedagogies are particularly powerful as tools for decolonization

for students “with histories of colonization or various experiences of linguicism, that is,

11
Cushman (2016) defines translingualism as “meaning making processes that involve students and scholars in
translanguaging, translating, and dwelling in borders” (p. 235). While this chapter focuses directly on
translanguaging, I see many connections with Cushman and others’ work about translingual practices.
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prejudice and discrimination based solely on one’s use of language” (De Costa et al., 2017, p.

467). While students within elite international schools may not typically be seen as experiencing

linguistic discrimination, these students continue to be prohibited in many contexts from

speaking their home languages. Furthermore, in the Colombian context, Usma Wilches (2015)

argues oppressive language ideologies and policies practices first established within international

schools in Colombia informed the creation of the National Bilingual Policy which impacts public

and private schools across the country, including Indigenous students whose own bilingualism is

not recognized. Therefore, engaging in decolonizing through translanguaging pedagogies within

the corridors of power (Phipps, 2019) of international schools has the potential to impact

students more broadly. Translanguaging pedagogies serve as a tool for decolonizing by bringing

attention to issues of power, questioning norms of standardization, interrogating a problematic

emphasis on English as a superior language and making space for students and teachers’

identities and languaging practices that are often excluded.

Literature Review

There has been an increased focus on the use translanguaging pedagogies within

bi/multilingual program models as students and teachers engage with and through language to

make-meaning. Originally introduced by Williams (1994), translanguaging referred to a

pedagogical practice in Welsh bilingual schools where teachers and students moved between

Welsh and English for a variety of classroom literacy tasks (as noted by Baker, 2001). While this

type of language "mixing" was considered problematic at the time, Williams reframed these

practices, arguing that the practice provided students and teachers the opportunity to draw on

their linguistic resources by generating meaning together (Li, 2017). Since Williams' original use

of the term, translanguaging has been taken up in various ways, evidenced by an explosion of
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conference presentations, scholarly articles, and pedagogical conversations (Leung & Valdés,

2019).

For this review, I focus on translanguaging as pedagogical method which includes the

creation of a classroom environment in which all of students’ languages are important, through a

[pluri]lingual ecology that makes [pluri]lingualism visible through its use of texts, visual

resources, and collaborative tasks which require communication using different types of

language and skills (García et al., 2017). García et al. outline three goals of translanguaging as a

pedagogical practice:

1. To allow space for students to draw on the totality of their linguistic repertoires and

their [pluri]lingual ways of knowing;

2. To provide students with opportunities to build off of their current languaging

practices to incorporate new languaging practices that are associated with academic

contexts;

3. To support students as they develop their [pluri]lingual identities

The authors emphasize that these principles are not limited to a certain type of bi/multilingual

program, as the pedagogical strategies can be adapted and implemented to support plurilingual

students within any educational context.

Within a supportive bi/multilingual classroom, García et al. (2017) call for teachers to

plan for instruction through a translanguaging lens by including objectives that reflect

appropriate content, as well as objectives for general-linguistic performance, language-specific

performance and translanguaging. The authors argue for the importance of differentiating

between general-linguistic and language-specific performance, arguing that general-linguistic

performance objectives focus on students using their entire repertoire to express complex
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thoughts, make inferences, summarize, etc. while language-specific performance objectives

focus on meeting a specific objective through a named language, using standard grammar,

vocabulary, etc. This distinction is important as it demonstrates how translanguaging includes an

emphasis on students’ communicating at times in one named language but provides students with

the space and support to draw on all of their linguistic repertoires throughout their thinking

process. Finally, the authors call for the inclusion of translanguaging objectives which are

specific practices that leverage students’ multilingualism as they meet the content and language

objectives. The translanguaging objectives emphasize strategies and practices that require

students to draw on their metalinguistic awareness and make connections across named

languages.

While García et al. (2017) provide an extensive framework for enacting translanguaging

as a pedagogical method, other researchers have identified specific classroom practices as a form

of translanguaging pedagogy. For example, in an article which has become a central work about

translanguaging as a pedagogy, Creese and Blackledge (2010) explore a flexible bilingual

approach within complementary schools in the UK. Complementary schools are typically started

by (im)migrant communities and teach aspects of their language and culture to children of that

community. The authors present two case studies of complementary schools, one Gujarati and

one Chinese, in which the teachers and students engage in bilingual practices for a variety of

social and academic purposes. As opposed to a strict separation of languages, the students and

teachers promote a fluid overlapping of languages, as shown in a number of extracts of

conversations between students and their teachers. These interactions demonstrate how teachers

engage in translanguaging as a pedagogical strategy to create links between students’ own

languaging practices and the class content.

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In their biliteracy framework, Literacy Squared, Escamilla et al. (2014), describe a

holistic pedagogical approach to support elementary Spanish-speaking students as they develop

biliteracy. The instructional framework intentionally brings Spanish and English together,

through strategies such as TheDictado and así se dice (that’s how you say it), creating an

environment in which students draw on the totality of their linguistic repertoires and compare

across named languages to develop metalinguistic awareness and support biliteracy.

Within the context of Colombia, emerging research explores the use of pedagogies which

fit under the umbrella of translanguaging. In an article about the creative use of pedagogical

strategies in rural Colombian schools, Cruz Arcila (2018) notes how one teacher encouraged her

students to move freely between Spanish and English during her English class. The teacher

stated students needed to see how the learning of English was connected to their language

resources, and not view English as a separate entity. She indicated students enjoyed “mixing” the

two languages, such as using a colloquial Spanish expression when writing an English dialogue.

Cruz Arcila notes how the teacher’s instructional choices coincide with translanguaging as a

pedagogical approach, without the teacher necessarily using this specific term.

In their case studies of eight Spanish-English bilingual schools, de Mejía et al. (2012)

note some teachers use a strategy called, “Preview/Review” in which they first introduce a topic

to students in Spanish and have students participate in several activities and then present the next

related lesson in English and focus on activities to demonstrate and expand students’

understanding. Another teacher described a group presentation assignment in a science class that

was supposed to be taught solely in English. She provided the instructions in English and the

final product was in English, but the students were encouraged to freely move between the

languages as they discussed and prepared for their presentation.

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Castaño’s (2017) dissertation conducted within K-12 schools in Colombia explicitly

refers to translanguaging or translingüismo. Arias Castaño notes the English-only approach to

language teaching was not producing the expected high levels of English proficiency required by

the government. In response, Castaño collaborated with English teachers within bilingual

programs at two public schools in Colombia to explore more dynamic and flexible understanding

of bilingualism. They enacted translanguaging pedagogies to “romper el paradigma” (p. 220) and

move toward a more heteroglossic approach to language education. Castaño describes several

key barriers the teachers faced, but also a change in their perspective as they began to see

Spanish as an essential resource for students to draw on within their English classes. While

Castaño primarily proposes translanguaging pedagogies for their linguistic benefits, and not

necessarily from a critical lens of decolonization, his work is important in outlining some of the

key opportunities and barriers for translanguaging pedagogies within the context of K-12

education in Colombia.

Ortega introduces the term trans[cultura]linguación to describe his research at the

intersection of plurilingualism and translanguaging. In his study, Ortega (2019b) explores how

an English high school teacher in Colombia drew on the linguistic and cultural repertoires of her

students. The teacher provided opportunities for students to engage in meaning-making in

English class through specific tasks in which they compared linguistic variations. Ortega states

translanguaging can be a tool for social justice through addressing linguistic imbalances of

power. He argues within a translanguaging classroom, allowing students to use all their linguistic

repertoire pushes back against ideologies of standardization that exclude particular students and

“empowers bilingual and multilingual speakers to challenge the monolingual dominant

paradigm” (p. 160).

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Mora and Nuñez (2019) argue for a critical consideration of what translanguaging could

look like within the context of Latin America. They call for a recognition of the work of scholars

engaged in translanguaging research outside of the US and how different terms, such as the use

of translenguaje in Spanish or translinguagem in Portuguese, are not just direct translations but

bring different nuanced meaning to the concept. They argue Indigenous and minority language

speakers and teachers have been fighting for recognition of their own language practices,

including their flexible use of Spanish within their repertoires, as translanguaging. They call for a

careful consideration of how translanguaging should not just be adapted, but appropriated and

recreated, for the Colombian context. While research about translanguaging pedagogies in

Colombia is limited, these initial studies demonstrate new possibilities for introducing

translanguaging pedagogies into formally “English only” spaces.

Researchers have also begun to explore translanguaging pedagogies within the context of

international schools. Jonsson (2013) investigated how six adolescents at an international

boarding school in Sweden engaged in translanguaging practices through their personal diaries.

Through an analysis of the diaries, as well as interviews with the students, Jonsson demonstrates

how students engaged in translanguaging for their own purposes and how translanguaging was

an integral part of their identities as plurilingual students. Her study also sheds light on how

students’ languaging practices often do not match with the language ideologies or policies at the

school level. While Jonsson does not propose a particular translanguaging pedagogy, her study

sheds light on the importance of recognizing translanguaging within international school spaces,

as part of students’ daily lives and identities regardless of whether it is permitted within official

school spaces.
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In a mixed-methods study, Zhou et al. (2021) explored translanguaging pedagogies

within English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) middle school classrooms at an international

school in China. Through classroom observations and interviews, the authors examined both

students’ own translanguaging practices and their attitudes toward translanguaging pedagogies.

They found students engaged in translanguaging for a variety of social and academic purposes

and were generally open to translanguaging pedagogies as a tool to learn content. Some students

were unsure though about whether translanguaging should be accepted in formal contexts. Zhou

et al.’s study is an important contribution to understanding translanguaging practices and

pedagogies within the context of an international school. However, the study has a quite narrow

conception of translanguaging for the sole purpose of language or content learning and lacks a

more expansive understanding of translanguaging as a tool to interrogate standardized views of

languages.

While not fitting the traditional definition of an international school, Tai (2021) explored

translanguaging pedagogies within the context of an EMI high school in Hong Kong with

instruction primarily in English. As the definition of international schools has expanded to

include glocal schools (see Bettney & Nordmeyer, 2021 for an in-depth discussion of glocal

schools), I include Tai’s study here as an important contribution to this field. Tai explored how

translanguaging pedagogies could serve the needs of South Asian ethnic minoritized students,

who had different linguistic and cultural backgrounds than the majority of students and teachers

in their school. Tai found translanguaging pedagogies served as an inclusive practice within a

mathematics classroom. He proposes translanguaging as an analytical perspective which shifts

attention “from using different linguistic codes for promoting inclusion to the way that teachers

can create diverse multilingual, multimodal and multisensory signmaking practices for making
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learning accessible for all in a multilingual EMI classroom” (p. 34). Through inclusive

translanguaging pedagogies, the teacher transformed the traditional English-only approach to one

which brought minoritized students from the periphery by allowing all students to draw on their

linguistic and cultural resources.

Some, like Leung and Valdés (2019), critique the practical application of translanguaging

as a pedagogy. The authors note while translanguaging is useful when students and teachers

share similar linguistic repertoires, they debate whether translanguaging is useful in all contexts.

They question whether in linguistically diverse classrooms or in those focused on the

development of an additional language, as would be the case for most international schools, if

translanguaging would serve the needs of all students. While these are valid concerns and

questions that require further exploration, translanguaging as a pedagogy provides a framework

for schools and teachers to consider how to recognize and support the languaging practices of

their plurilingual students within the specific needs of each context.

As a dynamic and evolving construct, translanguaging provides a lens by which to

understand plurilinguals’ languaging practices as fluid and unified, as opposed to static and

separate and as pedagogy provides various strategies which may help teachers move toward

heteroglossic approaches. As noted by García and Lin (2017), translanguaging in the classroom

can be transformative as it resists the hierarchy of languages so common in bi/multilingual

programs while also allowing students to engage in dynamic languaging practices which support

the development of their linguistic repertoires.

Methodology

This chapter fits within the larger case study I conducted at CC about language

ideologies, policies, and languaging practices. In this chapter, I specifically draw on data
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generated with teachers and students through SDBR as they engaged with and responded to

translanguaging pedagogies. While nine teachers and three administrators participated in the case

study, for this chapter, I focus on data from four English teachers and their students. I have

selected these teachers as I have the most complete set of data for each one and they represent a

wide range of grades, from early elementary to high school. All of the four teachers were hired

as foreign teachers and had worked at CC for between 1-15 years. While all students in the

classrooms engaged in translanguaging pedagogies as part of the regular class activities, I only

recorded data from students with signed consent forms.

Findings

Participants engaged with and responded to translanguaging pedagogies in several

diverse ways. I identify patterns within three key groups: teachers, elementary students, and

middle/high school students, as shown in Table 4. Teachers introduced and participated in novel

translanguaging pedagogies in their classrooms. They generally perceived positive impacts,

while also identifying key barriers and concerns with the process. Elementary students were

generally very receptive to new translanguaging pedagogies. In contrast, middle and high school

students were often resistant to newly introduced translanguaging pedagogies, while at the same

time regularly engaged in translanguaging practices for social and academic purposes.

Translanguaging Teachers’ Responses Students’ Responses

Pedagogies
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Creating bilingual Perceived Impacts Elementary

spaces through: -relationships with students -eased communication
1) language norms -equitable participation -helpful for learning
2) content knowledge -at times, felt uncomfortable
across languages Barriers
3) bilingual resources -uncertain about best practices Middle/high school
-limiting linguistic identities and -did not perceive need for
Expanding linguistic competencies translanguaging pedagogies
repertoires through: -mismatch with program -academic Spanish skills not a
1) vocabulary model/assessments priority
connections -lack of administrative support -concern re: negative impact on
2) grammatical -concern regarding parents’ English
structures response -but consistently engaged in
3) building bridges translanguaging practices for
own purposes
Table 4 Overview of Chapter 7 Findings
Engagement in Translanguaging Pedagogies

Teachers and students engaged in translanguaging pedagogies through intentionally

creating bilingual spaces and through expanding linguistic repertoires. Teachers began to

implement translanguaging pedagogies by creating bilingual classrooms spaces in which students

were encouraged to draw on all their communicative repertories. Previously, English classrooms

were seen as English-only spaces and teachers and students were expected, and at times

mandated, to speak only in English and use all English resources. As the school began to shift

away from this approach, teachers began to loosen these restrictions, and at times, abolish them

all together, as they encouraged students to use Spanish within the English classroom as a

learning resource. For example, one elementary teacher explained to her class how they would be

starting a new reading unit comparing fiction and non-fiction texts. She explained students could

read both Spanish and English books during reading class, as:

It's going to be good for your brain either way. If you choose fiction in Spanish, that still

meets the expectation for Fiction Fridays. We're moving into a more flexible knowledge,

we're moving into a more flexible way of how we learn and acquire English.
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In various elementary classrooms, I observed conversations about new flexible classroom

language norms or noticed posters about norms for using Spanish and English. While they may

not have had an explicit conversation about language norms, some middle and high schools

increasingly looked for opportunities to assure students they were welcome to use both Spanish

and English, even if they had not been in the past. For example, one high school teacher stopped

a class to remind a student to not call out. She explicitly stated the issue was not that the student

had called out in Spanish, as they were welcome to speak to each other in Spanish, but they

should not shout across the classroom. In a high school journalism class, students were

encouraged to conduct interviews in Spanish or English, depending on the linguistic preference

of their interviewees. One student noted that she conducted an initial interview with a school

administrator in English, but she felt it had not been very successful based on their interviewee’s

English proficiency. She decided to conduct a follow-up interview in Spanish and received more

accurate information for her news article.

Some teachers also supported the development of students’ bilingual academic language

through a focus on developing content knowledge, without an explicit focus on a particular

language of instruction. For example, one high school teacher planning a particularly challenging

unit of instruction wrote, “I want to focus on building understanding first and developing English

language use second as I teach this unit.” Other teachers noted particularly when presenting

challenging and complex content, their focus was on students understanding the concepts, not on

the specific language of instruction.

One high school teacher noted how his students had struggled in previous years with

“mastery of the technical or the storytelling skills required to produce quality journalistic

photos”. To address this issue, he designed a unit plan which included teaching vocabulary and
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concepts in both Spanish and English in hopes of supporting students to develop a more nuanced

understanding. I provided feedback on his unit plan, asking how he planned to address students’

reticence to engage in translanguaging pedagogies, a trend we were noticing as other teachers

began to experiment and share about the research project with their students. The teacher decided

to invite a bilingual photojournalist he knew to present about some of her work in Latin America,

as he thought this might be an interesting way to show students the value of bilingualism in

media. He noted that in previous years he would have felt uncomfortable inviting a guest speaker

to present to his class in Spanish. After the presentation, the class engaged in a bilingual

discussion to clarify any new technical terms from the presentation. In the following class, he

presented a bilingual PowerPoint (see Figure 11 for an example slide) he had developed and

again noted how including Spanish in his PowerPoint was not something he was used to but he

felt it would help solidify the students’ understanding of the terms.

Figure 11 Teacher-designed Slides for Photojournalism Unit

After the presentation, we discussed this strategy for using bilingual slides. He noted that

he thought this strategy was particularly helpful for technical terms as it built students’
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proficiency in both Spanish and English. We returned to the discussion of inviting the bilingual

journalist, as he felt it had been very helpful in promoting photojournalism as an important media

tool within Colombia and Latin America. We discussed whether he would continue designing

bilingual slides for the rest of the unit or whether there were particular topics where it would be

the most beneficial. For this teacher, a shift toward developing students’ academic language in

both Spanish and English was closely tied to demonstrating a practical use for their bilingual

skills.

During the project, many teachers introduced new bilingual classroom resources to their

classrooms as part of their translanguaging pedagogies. When writing about their planned

changes for an upcoming unit, one teacher wrote:

I will work to provide several Spanish language resources to my students. These

additional resources will likely be in the form of textbooks, either print or online, plus

multimedia resources, such as YouTube instructional videos in Spanish or with Spanish

subtitles.

While bilingual classroom resources had been available in the past, many teachers were not

aware of them. For example, some elementary teachers were surprised to find out their math

curriculum already had several Spanish resources available, such as sentence stems and

explanations for parents. Teachers debated which resources would be the most useful and when

it would be appropriate to use them. One elementary teacher first discussed with students why it

was important for them to learn about math terms in both Spanish and English and then worked

with students to develop a bilingual vocabulary chart which they added to throughout the unit.

This teacher indicated her responsibility to support the academic language development in both

Spanish and English.

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Another teacher wanted to provide students access to books in Spanish and English to

support a new unit of inquiry through a visit to the library. Knowing that this type of access did

not follow the norms of the school, the teacher visited the library ahead of time to explain to the

librarians that students did have her permission to take out Spanish and English books. While

teachers did not yet have a wide variety of bilingual resources, they began to provide

opportunities for students within their emerging bilingual classrooms.

While in the past, English teachers saw themselves as just “English teachers”, many

teachers demonstrated a new understanding of themselves as language or bilingual teachers.

Regardless of their own Spanish proficiency, teachers began to look for ways to support students

to make connections between Spanish and English. For example, in elementary classrooms,

teachers began to create bilingual word walls or to ask students if they knew the Spanish

equivalent of a new word. During one classroom observation, an elementary teacher asked her

students how to say a multiplication expression in Spanish. Students began to debate amongst

themselves and agreed there were a couple different wants to say it correctly in Spanish. Then,

they asked their teacher to clarify between the use of "multiply" and "multiplied by". While it

appeared the teacher’s initial intention was a straight translation, it soon became clear that there

was opportunity to discuss grammatical structures, both in Spanish and in English, as well as

note that in each language there were often more than one way to express a thought.

While one might assume that teachers generally were looking for opportunities to use

students’ Spanish skills to support English, often the knowledge flowed from English to Spanish.

For example, middle and high school teachers noted students had not had sufficient opportunity

to develop broad academic language skills in Spanish, as certain classes, such as math and

science, were taught only in English beginning in elementary. As teachers saw themselves as
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language teachers, not just English or content teachers, they looked to strengthen students’

academic Spanish skills. For example, a middle school science teacher created a poster which

included terms in both Spanish and English, as seen in Figure 12. In comparing the English terms

speed versus velocity, they discussed and showed the translation of velocidad in Spanish had

both a colloquial and a technical meaning within the science classroom. Teachers realized that

they could not assume that students had been exposed to the academic language for their classes

in Spanish. Instead, they at times had more sophisticated technical language in English and

needed opportunities to develop this type of language in Spanish as well.

Figure 12 Teacher-created Science Poster

As teachers began to see themselves as supporting bilingual students, not just supporting

English proficiency or content knowledge, they intentionally created bilingual classroom spaces,

in which students were encouraged to draw and expand their communicative repertoires.

Teachers’ Responses
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Teachers generally were very positive about the impact of the introduction of

translanguaging pedagogies, particularly regarding the impact on relationships with students and

for encouraging equitable participation. They also demonstrated a growing awareness of the

relationship between languages as more flexible and less rigid.

Across all grade levels, participating teachers describe a positive association between

translanguaging pedagogies and their relationships with students. One elementary teacher

explained, “Now that I feel free to use some Spanish with my students, I have been able to get to

know them better and the wall between us is gone.” By drawing on their own linguistic

repertoire, teachers could build relationships with students in ways that were limited in the past,

as neither they nor their students had been allowed to use Spanish, even in personal discussions.

When discussing the shift to creating a bilingual classroom space, one elementary teacher stated:

I think it has helped our relationship in the fact that I am not mean about Spanish…it's

just one less management piece which is what it felt like before… I felt like I was

supposed to manage how much Spanish they were speaking in the classroom. So, so it

has helped our relationships being less naggy [about speaking Spanish].

In high school, one teacher described how they no longer felt they had to be the language police,

always reminding students to speak in English. As teachers were no longer required by the

school to implement the punitive student language policy of the past, they felt there was one less

potential conflict with students.

Across all grades, teachers also indicated translanguaging pedagogies allowed for more

equitable participation. One elementary teacher noted her shift to allowing students to use

Spanish “allows all students to participate in a way that my previous English-only policy didn’t.”

While teachers noted that some students felt comfortable participating in either Spanish or
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English, even at the highest grade levels there were students who were less likely to participate

in a classroom discussion if only English was allowed. Teachers noted that in the past, this

created a negative cycle, as these students who did not participate because of the exclusive focus

on English, became less and less engaged in class, and were more likely to fall farther behind.

Now, students were “more likely to take risks and use all of their language resources to

communicate”. By creating bilingual classroom spaces and enacting pedagogies which removed

English proficiency as a barrier to participate, students were more likely to engage and move

toward the learning objectives.

Teachers also demonstrated a growing awareness of a dynamic relationship between

Spanish and English. For example, one teacher noted, “There seems to be a very strict separation

of languages. English happens in English class. Spanish happens in Spanish time. It seems like

there could be more ways.” While the teacher noted the limitations of the current program model

with a strict separation of instructional languages, they demonstrated an increasing recognition

that this monoglossic approach was not the only way.

While teachers noted positive impacts of translanguaging pedagogies, they also faced

significant and limiting obstacles throughout the process. First, teachers were often unsure of

how to implement translanguaging pedagogies within their individual classrooms. While they

indicated they agreed ideologically with this shift, they lacked comprehensive knowledge on

how to enact translanguaging pedagogies in their classrooms. For example, one elementary

teacher wanted to encourage students to draw connections between their Spanish and English

literacy blocks, but was unsure how:

Our reading and writing scope and sequence is not organized keeping Spanish in mind.

And the thing is, I don't know what is best practice. I know for example, they read
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biographies (in Spanish) and we write biographies (in English). Should we do that at the

same time? I mean, I have this knowledge, but I don't know specifically what is best to

do.

The teacher acknowledged her theoretical knowledge about the importance of students making

connections between literacy practices in Spanish and English, but she was unsure of classroom

implementation. In a discussion about incorporating translanguaging pedagogies, one high

school teacher simply said, “I know what it means in terms of my beliefs. I just don’t know yet

what it means in terms of my practice.” Teachers across grade levels reflected a lack of clarity

about best practices.

Teachers were significantly limited by the rigid separation of the English and Spanish

programs. For example, when describing a desire to help students build on their writing skills in

Spanish, one elementary teacher noted that she really did not know exactly what happened in

Spanish class and she was not sure how to access this information. An English language arts

teacher who had worked at the school for several years was aware of what was taught within the

Spanish language arts program, but noted it was difficult to figure out how to build connections

across language arts because the two programs had such a different focus. He noted how English

language arts classes were project-based which was not something that the Spanish program was

interested in at this time. In late November, an elementary teacher explained to me there was

supposed to be a regular meeting between the English and Spanish teachers for each grade level

with the intention of encouraging alignment between the two programs. She noted, somewhat

ironically, that they were already four months into the school year and they had not yet met

together once, even though meetings had been scheduled. Both the lack of knowledge about the

Spanish program and the lack of alignment between the two programs significantly limited
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teachers opportunities to enact translanguaging pedagogies which drew on competencies being

developed in both languages.

Additionally, some teachers felt limited in their ability to implement translanguaging

pedagogies based on their perceptions of themselves as language users. While many teachers

openly promoted an asset-based approach to their students’ linguistic resources, teachers

frequently viewed their own languaging practices from a deficit lens. Teachers were often self-

consciousness about speaking in Spanish with their students, even if they felt confident using

Spanish in their daily interactions outside of their classrooms. In a classroom observation, a

teacher spoke in Spanish and the students corrected her pronunciation of a word. After she noted,

“I think, they make me self-conscious of my Spanish because they are always, like, weird,

and…I am also like, ‘Am I saying everything wrong?’” While the teacher indicated a desire to

create a classroom in which students felt comfortable speaking in both Spanish and English, she

felt self-conscious about drawing on her own Spanish language skills with her students. Another

teacher noted:

Unfortunately, as I am also a language learner in Spanish, my language skills are not at a

level that currently allows me to model translanguaging with my students, so this will be

a tool that I need to add in future years as I become more fluent.

While many teachers wanted to introduce translanguaging pedagogies, some teachers’

perceptions of their own language proficiency limited their engagement.

Some teachers felt confident in implementing translanguaging pedagogies but were

limited by the design of the school curriculum and its established assessment practices. For

example, one high school teacher stated that they felt “handcuffed” as they believed that it was

important to allow students to draw on Spanish in challenging content courses, yet students faced
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significant pressure to perform well on external testing, such as AP tests, which would be

conducted completely in English. While many teachers wanted to introduce translanguaging

pedagogies, they felt limited by the school’s ongoing use of a monolingual curriculum and

assessment practices.

Other teachers questioned whether school administrators would support them if they

introduced translanguaging pedagogies. In an interview with one teacher, I asked her if she had

any concerns with incorporating translanguaging pedagogies within her classroom. After a big

sigh, the teacher said:

Yes and no. If someone was to come in and ask, "Why are your kids reading in Spanish

while you're here?", I would say, "Because it's best for their learning" and I would point

them to all the research that says that. That being said, I'm still afraid.

Over the course of the interview, the teacher began to cry as she noted her internal conflict

between creating a space for students to engage freely in translanguaging and her concern that

she would be reprimanded by administrators who were not yet supportive of translanguaging.

Another teacher described a similar sense of unease, then stated her solution was to engage in

translanguaging pedagogies “when my doors are shut.” One teacher believed CC was

philosophically taking steps in the right direction, but administrators were not yet providing

teachers with implementational supports.

Teachers also expressed concerns that parents would not be supportive if they began to

implement translanguaging pedagogies in their classrooms. For example, when discussing the

use of Spanish resources to support learning at home, one teacher hesitated as she was concerned

that some parents were all about supporting "English, English, English" and may not be receptive

to an English teacher sending home Spanish resources. Another teacher believed parents were
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not explicitly against her using Spanish with the students, but they just did not really see the

point or what it would accomplish. One participant felt parents were not as concerned with the

process, as the product. He explained, “Our parents expect the final product to speak English. It's

an investment. I am assuming that at the end of their 14 years, he or she is going to speak

English. They don't question the in-between of how they are acquiring the language. They don't

think about what's in between.”

Teachers’ concerns about a negative response from parents were not unfounded. During

data collection, a group of parents approached an administrator to express their concern that a

teacher was using “too much Spanish” within the English classroom. In response and to be

proactive in avoiding further problems, several administrators began to regularly meet to develop

a plan to communicate changes around classroom language use to parents.

While teachers described significant concerns and limitations, in general they believed

translanguaging pedagogies had a positive impact on students and expressed interest in further

engagement with them.

Students’ Responses

In comparison, students demonstrated wider range of opinions about translanguaging

pedagogies. In general, elementary students were positive both in their initial response to the

introduction of translanguaging pedagogies, as well as in their later reflections about their

experience, while middle and high school students were more likely to express reservations.

Elementary students indicated the introduction of translanguaging pedagogies had a

positive impact on their communication and on their learning. For example, students now

perceived their classroom as a bilingual space so they felt more comfortable asking in Spanish

for a word if they did not know the word in English. They also felt now there were more
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opportunities for them to make comparisons across languages. Students indicated it helped them

understand both Spanish and English better if they were able to compare them directly. For

example, in one classroom discussion, a student brought up that they were not sure when to use a

capital or not. While in the past, the teacher noted they would have reviewed the rules for

capitalization in English, they instead asked the students to brainstorm a comparison chart of

when to use capitals in English versus in Spanish. This comparative activity answered the

student’s initial question, while allowing them to see different conventions between Spanish and

English.

For many elementary students, engagement in translanguaging pedagogies appeared to

match how they already saw a dynamic and fluid relationship between languages. One student

simply stated: “It is not like all the time Spanish or like all the time English. Sometimes you can

do both.” During a classroom discussion about establishing classroom language norms, one

teacher asked her students about whether they would be discussing with partners in English or in

Spanish. A few students called out in response, “Both!” As shown in Figure 13, the teacher

eventually adapted her classroom poster to provide a space in the middle of English and Spanish,

recognizing many students already translanguaged to support their own learning. In an

elementary math class, I observed small groups of students adding fractions. Throughout the

time working together, the pair used phrases like “una half” and “un fourth mas dos fourths”.

Students already translanguaged for learning, whether or not it had been officially supported or

promoted.
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Figure 13 Classroom Language Norms Poster

In contrast, some elementary students appeared uncomfortable or unsure about

translanguaging pedagogies. For example, after describing an activity in which students would

discuss a math problem in Spanish and then write a response in English, I overheard one student

ask their peer, “Are we really allowed to do this?”. During this same activity, many of the groups

engaged discussed in Spanish, yet as soon as their teacher came within perceived hearing

distance, they switched to English, even though the instructions were to discuss in Spanish.

Some seemed uncertain based on their previous experiences with an English-only approach. In a

student group interview, the discussion returned again and again to the distinct contrasts from

previous years. Students described before and after scenarios in their classroom, from an

English-only approach to the introduction of translanguaging pedagogies. Most elementary

students, indicated there had been a distinct, not gradual, shift toward introducing

translanguaging pedagogies which likely contributed to the sense of unease amongst some. Other

students believed the shift was limited to a few teachers. For example, when asked if they were

engaged in translanguaging pedagogies in all of their classes (as opposed to just the homeroom
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class where their teacher was participating in this project), one upper elementary student

responded: “Only Miss. She thinks that Spanish is also important for us.”

Compared to the generally positive response of elementary students, middle and high

school students displayed a much larger range of reactions to the introduction of translanguaging

pedagogies. First, some older students described several positive benefits resulting from the

introduction of translanguaging pedagogies in their classes. For example, some students felt it

removed the need to hide. While they had already been translanguaging to support their learning,

they previously felt they had to speak exclusively in English when within their teachers’ hearing

range. When I asked a student if they felt it was challenging to conduct their interviews for

journalism class in Spanish, even though the final product would need to be in English, a student

responded, “No, it’s normal.” The student then explained how he wrote his questions in English,

then translated them in his mind while conducting the interview in Spanish. He then transcribed

the interview by listening to the recording and writing out the translation in English. I asked if

this felt like an arduous task and he noted it was time consuming, primarily because he was a

slow typist. Clearly, for this student, the moving between Spanish and English and between

modes was seen as a “normal” part of his languaging practices.

Other students noted it was helpful to not be limited to one language, as they drew on

both languages in particular ways, depending on the context. For example, a number of students

noted that at times they needed to use an English word when describing a topic in Spanish,

because they did not know the Spanish equivalent, often for certain academic topics. On the

other hand, for complex concepts, they found it easier at times if the teacher explained the

concept in Spanish. One student explained this continual shifting between languages in one of

her classes:
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For example, in Philosophy, that class is in English but sometimes we understand better

in Spanish, so we are like, “[Professor] Felipe” and we ask [him] something in

Spanish…but it's all in English. The curriculum is in English. But to explain things,

sometimes in Spanish. But sometimes, I'm like, "How do you say that in Spanish?"

Another student explained they really appreciated having a bilingual math teacher, noting they

would at times provide explanations in Spanish: “I think it was useful because precalculus is

hard to understand so learning some in Spanish was easier for everyone.” With the introduction

of translanguaging pedagogies, students were able to engage more openly in the translanguaging

practices they already employed to support their learning.

On the other hand, many middle and high school students demonstrated a strong

resistance to teachers’ introduction of translanguaging pedagogies and I categorize their

reticence across three main categories: 1) lack of perceived need of translanguaging pedagogies;

2) disinterest in strengthening academic language skills in Spanish; and 3) concern regarding

negative impact on their English proficiency. First, some students indicated they did not need

translanguaging pedagogies, as their English skills were strong enough to access all academic

content, without any support in Spanish. To these students, translanguaging pedagogies were

seen as a back-up, only to be used if a student was not able to access grade-level academic

content in English. They did not outrightly reject the usefulness of translanguaging pedagogies,

but they felt it was unnecessary in the English-medium class context in which it was introduced.

Students’ confidence in their English language proficiency stood in direct contrast to how

many teachers described their students’ English skills. Teachers were often critical of “Paisa

English” which referred to students’ use of what teachers deemed a non-standard (and non-

acceptable) form of English. While the term “paisa” has different meanings throughout Latin
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America, in Colombia, “Paisa” is a positive term used to describe someone or something from

the department of Antioquia, where the school was located. Often, it is used with pride by people

from Antioquia to describe a particular custom, food, accent, etc. from this region. In contrast, at

CC, “Paisa English” was typically employed as a derogatory term by teachers to describe

students’ level of English, including a particular type of accent common among students, as well

as non-standard grammatical forms or vocabulary. One administrator commented that it was

common to hear older students speak with a “Paisa accent” even if they came from “native

English homes”. In response, another administrator joked about whether the accent was

contagious. While teachers generally saw Paisa English as reflecting poorly on students’ English

skills, some teachers described it as an intentional choice by students. One teacher believed the

Paisa English phenomena was a “backlash from students who didn’t want English shoved down

their throats. It’s them pushing back to assert their identity.”

Students also demonstrated an explicit awareness of and use of the term Paisa English. In

a middle school interview, students explained how they were able to switch their use of Paisa

English on or off. They believed students originally started speaking in Paisa English because

they were made fun of in elementary grades if they were trying too hard in English class. In

contrast, outside of school, they wanted to “sound like a gringo”.

I first experienced this phenomenon in an upper elementary class observation. A small

group of students asked for my help pronouncing “five sixtieths”. I said it for them and a few of

the group members repeated it back, clearly attempting to emulate my pronunciation. One of the

group members then repeated it again with an accent that I perceived to be mocking the other

students attempt to mimic my pronunciation. In reflecting on this interaction, I wrote in my field

notes:
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It seems to me that this might be the mocking of proficient English that I have heard

talked about as a common phenomenon in older grades. Students make fun of each other

if they feel like they are putting on a gringo accent. Some teachers, and maybe even

students, believe that the desire to avoid sounding like a gringo is what leads students to

develop “Paisa accents” that were not present in earlier grades.

Later, in a small group interview with high school students, I asked students directly

about Paisa English as I wanted to clarify my interpretations thus far. In the discussion that

followed, students reiterated the importance of accent, one student noting, “I know my English is

good, but my pronunciation really isn’t.” Like the middle school students, they noted their

conflicted desire to sound like a “native” English speaker while also wanting to avoid being

made fun of by classmates if they “spoke English too well”. Students described how this self-

consciousness began in late elementary school and solidified in middle school, noting their

beliefs that their accent worsened, even as their English vocabulary increased. However, in late

high school, another shift occurred for some as they became more aware of the stigma held by

certain foreign teachers against students who spoke in Paisa English. In response, they learned to

switch their accent on and off depending on the teacher and their goals for the class. The

phenomena and interpretation of Paisa English provides important insights into how students’

used language for their own purposes, how it was closely tied to their negotiations of their

identities and how teachers’ implementation of translanguaging pedagogies were at times

misaligned with students’ translanguaging practices.

Secondly, older students rejected translanguaging pedagogies because they did not see

strengthening their academic Spanish skills as a priority, particularly within English class.

Teachers at times presented translanguaging pedagogies as not only an opportunity to support the
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learning of academic content in classes primarily taught in English, but also as an opportunity for

students to develop their academic language in Spanish. This rationale generally came from

teachers who were concerned that since certain classes, such as math and science, had been

exclusively taught in English from Grade 1, graduating students lacked some academic

vocabulary in Spanish which they would need for future university studies in Colombia. In

response, some students stated they did not need academic Spanish skills because they would be

studying in the US upon graduation. One student, in response to their teacher encouraging them

that translanguaging pedagogies could strengthen their Spanish writing skills, stated his

preference for English. He argued that upon graduation he would be going directly to the United

States to study, and therefore, “Who needs tildes12 anyways?”

The question of whether students needed to strengthen their academic Spanish skills or

not and whether this should be a priority was discussed at length in one of the small group

interviews with high school students. Several students believed they did not have strong

academic Spanish skills. Some students recognized their underdeveloped Spanish skills might

cause issues in the future if they studied within Colombia. One student shared the example of his

sister who had studied at CC and was now at a private university in Colombia. He said that his

sister was made fun of by her new university friends for using English academic terms when she

did not know the Spanish equivalent, a common practice at CC. The student noted how his sister

needed to learn new terms in Spanish and adapt her languaging practices to be successful at the

university. While some students recognized their need for stronger academic skills in Spanish,

many students reflected a certain ambivalence, described by one student as, “My Spanish is a bit

behind but I plan to study abroad.”

12
Tildes are accent marks which are used to spell many words in Spanish and can change their meaning. For
example, papa means potato in Spanish while papá means father.
 191

While students appeared ambivalent at times, many teachers and administrators

expressed their concerns regarding students’ academic Spanish skills. However, in a discussion

about parents’ priorities for language learning, faculty believed parents’ views echoed the

students and were primarily concerned with high levels of English proficiency. One

administrator tied this stance to the assumption that Colombian students living in a primarily

Spanish-speaking country would by default be proficient in Spanish. They noted “within

Colombian society, it means something socially to say you're bilingual or you're not”, and

explained this social status referred to how proficient you were in English.

Finally, some older students believed translanguaging pedagogies would have a negative

impact on their English proficiency. These students stated teachers should not create bilingual

classroom spaces, but instead should strictly implement English-only language policies. These

students indicated if their language use was not “policed”, they would not learn English. Students

also policed each other’s languaging, at least during English class. For example, in a discussion

about whether it was harder to learn English or Spanish as a second language, one student argued

Spanish was harder, “because they are tildes”. Almost immediately, a classmate corrected the

student, inserting “accents” for tildes, even though I regularly heard students use insert the term

tildes in primarily English sentences. Some students reflected back on their own learning

experience and associated their high level of proficiency with the school’s previous strict

English-only approaches and they felt a shift toward translanguaging pedagogies would have

negative repercussions on future students.

While middle and high school students responded in diverse ways to the introduction of

translanguaging pedagogies, they consistently engaged in translanguaging for social and

academic purposes. Even the students who were the most resistant to translanguaging pedagogies
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fluidly drew across their linguistic repertoire during class time in conversations with their peers

about academic and non-academic topics. For example, one student noted how she did not think

Spanish had a place in the English classroom because the languages should not be mixed. She

said she believed this because she had been told to keep languages separate by a previous

teacher. On the other hand, the same student explained earlier in the conversation how she

constantly drew on English and Spanish in conversations with classmates outside of class and

even in our conversation about keeping languages separate, she used a number of Spanish terms

to express herself. While students had been previously told to keep languages separate,

translanguaging was clearly part of their everyday languaging practices.

In sum, students responded in a variety of ways as they engaged, or chose not to engage,

in translanguaging pedagogies. While the majority of elementary students responded positively,

older students often resisted translanguaging pedagogies while simultaneously engaging in

translanguaging practices for their own purposes. Teachers primarily indicated positive

impressions of the potential impact of translanguaging pedagogies, while also identifying key

barriers.

Discussion

In the following section, I draw on García et al.’s (2017) three goals of translanguaging

as a pedagogical practice to further explore my findings, as summarized in Table 5. I argue while

teachers and students engaged with translanguaging pedagogies in many ways which fit with

García et al.’s goals, they did not address students’ or teachers’ [pluri]lingual ways of knowing,

nor the development of their [pluri]lingual identities. The exclusion of these two important

components points to a larger issue in which many CC teachers engaged with translanguaging

pedagogies primarily to support language learning based on monolingual norms, without deep
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engagement in translanguaging to promote linguistic justice. This example of pedagogical

borrowing reflects the larger logic of coloniality present at CC in which faculty “import” foreign

teachers, curriculum, and resources without consideration of whether the underlying ideologies

of each borrowed item fit the context of CC.

García et al’s. (2017) Goals for Evidence

Translanguaging Pedagogies
Goal 1: To allow space for students to draw Expanded space for bilingual repertoires but
on the totality of their linguistic repertoires not [pluri]lingual ways of knowing as
and their [pluri]lingual ways of knowing students and teachers define themselves and
each other by monolingual norms.
Goal 2: To provide students with New opportunities to expand languaging
opportunities to build off of their current practices but older students resisted
languaging practices to incorporate new translanguaging pedagogies.
languaging practices that are associated with
academic contexts
Goal 3: To support students as they develop Translanguaging pedagogies primarily seen as
their [pluri]lingual identities a tool for supporting language development
without consideration of identities.
Translanguaging as example of pedagogical
borrowing without critical consideration of
CC context.
Table 5 Comparison of García et al’s. (2017) and Chapter 7 Findings
Goal #1

First, García et al. (2017) state translanguaging pedagogies should provide students with

space to draw on all their linguistic repertoires and [pluri]lingual ways of knowing. In my study,

across the various grade levels participating teachers intentionally created spaces for students to

draw on their linguistic repertoires. For many teachers, this was a clear shift from their previous

approach which attempted to regulate students’ language use through English-only classroom

spaces. However, teachers and students were not yet drawing on their [pluri]lingual ways of

knowing, as both groups continued to define themselves and each other according to

monolingual norms.
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While teachers created bilingual classroom spaces, monolingual native speaker norms

persisted within these spaces which limited [pluri]lingual ways of knowing. Kayumova et al.

(2015) provide a helpful description of ways of knowing in their study about the interactions of

bilingual Latina mothers and daughters in a family science workshop. The authors describe ways

of knowing as an individual’s “multiple and intersecting cultural, social, political, economic,

linguistic, and gendered experiences” (p. 261) within various contexts. In terms of language, the

authors describe how the mothers and daughters held different understandings of the importance

of English language proficiency versus a dynamic understanding of bilingualism which informed

their languaging practices in different contexts. Within the context of my study, a continued

emphasis on monolingual ways of knowing limited teachers’ recognition and valuing of their and

their students’ [pluri]lingual ways of knowing.

First, some teachers saw themselves as unable to support students’ engagement in

translanguaging pedagogies because their own Spanish language skills were not yet at a

sufficient level. For these teachers, while they believed translanguaging could support students in

their development of linguistic proficiency in both English and Spanish, teachers persisted in

seeing themselves as excluded from translanguaging because of their levels of proficiency. This

deficit-based evaluation of their Spanish skills was further entrenched by teachers who felt

students were critical of them when they used Spanish in the English classroom. These teachers

did not see themselves as [pluri]linguals developing a holistic repertoire, but instead as

monolinguals who were not yet bilingual enough to participate.

Next, teachers at times also defined students from a deficit perspective in which students

were measured against monolingual norms in both Spanish and English, as opposed to

recognized for their development as [pluri]linguals. For example, students were both criticized
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for their use of what was viewed as non-standard Paisa English, as well as lacking academic

Spanish language skills. Students were often not recognized for their ability to simultaneously

draw on Spanish and English but were instead derided for speaking “Spanglish”. Students were

explicitly taught and assessed as if they were monolingual English speakers from the United

States and seen as deficient for not meeting monolingual standards in either language.

[Pluri]lingual ways of knowing were not recognized or understood because of the

problematic positioning of teachers and students in comparison to monolingual norms. While

there was a move to recognize both Spanish and English as assets, students were still seen as

separate dual monolinguals (Escobar & Dillard-Paltrineri, 2015; Grosjean, 1989). Teachers and

students continued to enact these problematic norms in their relationships and interactions with

each other as they held each other to the ideal of native speakers of a language. To move toward

a view of teachers and students as plurilinguals, this cycle must be dismantled and replaced with

a plurilingual understanding of linguistic practices and identities.

Goal #2

Next, translanguaging pedagogies provide students with opportunities to build off their

current languaging practices to incorporate new languaging practices for academic contexts

(García et al., 2017). Teachers across the grade levels looked for opportunities for students to

build and expand their languaging practices in three primary ways. First, teachers provided

opportunities for students to draw on Spanish to strengthen English. Second, teachers provided

opportunities for students to draw on their English academic skills to strengthen Spanish

academic language. Finally, teachers looked for opportunities to strengthen students’

metalinguistic skills across both languages.

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While teachers increasingly looked for opportunities to strengthen students’ languaging

practices in both Spanish and English, students, particularly in the older grades, were not always

receptive to translanguaging pedagogies. For some students, developing their Spanish academic

language skills was not a priority and they were against the introduction of translanguaging

pedagogies in their classes. Even so, students’ stances were complex, as even the most resistant

students regularly engaged in translanguaging practices within the classroom, often with earshot

of their teachers. Of course, teenagers are often resistant to suggestions from teachers and other

adults in their lives, as they make their own sense of the world. I argue though, the students’

stance was partially a reflection of the messages they had received thus far at school about

language. At CC, students had primarily been told English was the language of school and the

more valued academic language. To learn English, students were told they needed to

compartmentalize Spanish, and the use of Spanish in English classroom was policed and

penalized. Many students noted their plans to study outside of Colombia, a measure which had

often been used to define success upon graduation. Students had been told and therefore reflected

the message that reliance on Spanish and remaining in Colombia was less desirable and therefore

successful students should not focus their energies on academic Spanish, nor need

translanguaging pedagogies, in middle and high school.

While students mirrored the colonialist ideologies that English and foreign study were

superior, they also demonstrated resistance through their use of Paisa English. During my case

study, teachers noted their frustration that students spoke in “Paisa English”. Yet, as pointed out

by one astute teacher and confirmed by students themselves, students employed Paisa English to

speak English on their own terms. Paisa English allowed them to abide by the school’s

established English-only approach, while differentiating themselves from their foreign teachers.
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This theory seems to be strengthened by teachers’ comments that in the youngest grades, they

did not notice evidence of a Paisa accent when students were first learning English. Students

began to intentionally use Paisa English to differentiate themselves from their foreign teachers,

while speaking “like a gringo” outside of school when it served their own purposes to

demonstrate “native-like’” proficiency. This act of resistance demonstrates how students’

perceived rejection of Spanish and embrace of academic English was complex. Students had

been told, and in some cases were still being told, that English was more important for their

future success. Students mirroring these problematic colonialist ideologies should therefore not

be surprising but instead evidence of the pervasive and oppressive language ideologies, policies

and practices which had been enacted at the school for decades. In turn, students’ apparent lack

of interest in strengthening their Spanish academic skills could be interpreted as evidence of

internal colonialization (Guerrero, 2019; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018), as they denigrated their own

home language, yet students’ use of Paisa English instead demonstrates how students resisted

and created space for their own ways of engaging with language and the world.

In consideration of García et al.’s (2017) second goal to provide students with

opportunities to build off their current languaging practices, teachers might consider how to

move away from a deficit view of students’ languaging practices and instead consider how to

maximize students’ demonstrated ability to use their holistic repertoire for their own purposes.

For example, Canagarajah (2000) describes various ways in which speakers engage in

multilingual practices for their own purposes. According to his description, Paisa English could

be valued as a form of discursive appropriation, as students create a new variation of English

through the integration of Spanish features. Students selective use of native accents within

certain contexts is an example of accommodation as they use the status of speaking English
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according to their own agendas. As opposed to a penalized language practice, Spanglish could be

valued as a form of linguistic appropriation as students create a new hybrid language system by

drawing on their holistic linguistic repertoires. By reframing these practices, teachers can

interrogate a standardized view of language which upholds US native-speaker norms and instead

“recognize the changing uses of English and diversification of English within post-colonial

contexts” (Molina, 2021, p. 260).

Goal #3

Finally, García et al. (2017) argue for the importance of translanguaging pedagogies

supporting students as they develop their [pluri]lingual identities. In my study, teachers did not

explicitly refer to supporting students’ [pluri]lingual identities as a key goal or outcome of

translanguaging. This lack of focus on supporting linguistic identities appears in line with the

school’s overall shift toward a more integrated approach to bilingual instruction without a critical

examination of the underlying hegemonic and oppressive ideologies which initially informed this

approach, as discussed in the previous chapter. Though many teachers began to recognize

students as English-Spanish bilinguals, students’ identities were still perceived through binaries

based on monolingual norms. While students were now encouraged to draw on Spanish and

English and to imagine both as valuable pieces of their linguistic repertoires, languages were

seen primarily as tools for learning and communication, not as essential pieces of who the

students were as plurilingual individuals. There was also virtually no recognition that students

should be supported in their identification with languages outside of Spanish and English. While

teachers began to include translanguaging pedagogies, this shift was primarily based on an

instrumental valuing of English-Spanish bilingualism and not on a recognition of students’

plurilingual identities.
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The absence of identity as a key component of translanguaging points to a larger issue in

which CC faculty engaged in pedagogical borrowing by enacting translanguaging pedagogies

designed for the US context within an elite international school in Colombia. I use the term

pedagogical borrowing to build on scholarship within the field of comparative education on

policy borrowing. Steiner-Khamsi (2016) outlines some of the positive contributions of policy

borrowing, as one country or industry can learn from the experiences of another. Steiner-Khamsi

points to the potential dangers of borrowing, arguing scholarship about borrowing “does not

necessarily mean that policies and practices should actually be transferred from one context to

another” (p. 381). Within the Colombian context, Usma Wilches’ (2015) uses policy borrowing

to describe the common practice of developing national educational policies based on foreign

models, as seen in the development of the National Bilingual Program, in which educational

policies are borrowed from foreign contexts and from international schools within Colombia.

This policy borrowing is often based on a logic of coloniality where foreign policies, and in this

case, pedagogies, are seen as superior, by nature of them associated with foreign educational

contexts.

In this case study, CC teachers engaged in pedagogical borrowing of translanguaging,

without consideration of the underlying differences between the educational contexts, in

particular those related to questions of linguistic identity and justice. Within the US context,

translanguaging pedagogies are increasingly common, designed to serve the needs of bilingual

students and closely tied to the goals for social justice embedded within the original fight for

bilingual education. Yet, within the context of CC, this same commitment to social justice did

not necessarily transfer with the borrowing of translanguaging pedagogies from the US context.

However, pedagogical borrowing at CC extended beyond the introduction of translanguaging

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pedagogies. Like most international schools, the majority of CCs curriculum and instructional

resources were shipped from the US. Therefore, when teachers are already working within US-

designed programs, such as the Bridges math curriculum and the Readers and Writers Workshop,

it seems logical to also borrow translanguaging pedagogies, without consideration for the

underlying ideologies.

The pedagogical borrowing of translanguaging from the US context to an international

school in Colombia may be a common pattern, particularly within international schools in Latin

America which follow a Spanish-English bilingual model. While these schools share some

linguistic characteristics, the social positioning, and its relation to identity within each context is

drastically different. Where Spanish-English bilingualism is associated with elite education in the

context of Latin America, US Latinos are often discriminated against for their language skills.

Therefore, the consideration of translanguaging within the context of international schools in

Latin America must explicitly engage with the tenets of identity. Where the promotion of

bilingual identities may be relevant to the US context, in light of the historical and ongoing battle

for the right to bilingual education, within the CC context, a focus on plurilingualism instead

shifts away from a binary understanding of bilingualism and allows for more fluid and inclusive

understandings of linguistic identities. A focus on plurilingual, over bilingual, identities within

Latin America also resists the problematic association of bilingual education with exclusively

Spanish-English bilingual education (de Mejía, 2020), at the expense of Indigenous language

programs.

While I draw attention here to the need for more contextualized practices, I also continue

to critically reflect on my own role in perpetuating pedagogical borrowing at CC through my

graduate teaching and my research project. As noted above, while some teachers had already
 201

been introduced to translanguaging pedagogies in previous graduate classes, I proposed García et

al.’s (2017) goals for translanguaging pedagogies as one possible approach to support a more

heteroglossic program model at CC. At the time, while I had an emerging understanding of

critical frameworks, my teaching and my research plan were still primarily focused on the

relationship between Spanish and English with significantly less awareness of how coloniality

influenced the school community. I had been very liberal in my reimagining of the graduate

course I taught, however the course was still entitled, “English as a Second Language” and was

part of a US university program. While I felt restricted at times by the extensive focus on

approaches from the US, I also wanted my research to respond to the expressed needs of the

teachers. Looking back, I wonder if my presentation of García et al.’s (2017) goals and my

engagement with teachers in their design and implementation of translanguaging pedagogies

failed to encourage an awareness of issues of linguistic identity and justice. In what ways did I

further perpetuate pedagogical borrowing without contextualization?

As I reflect, I also consider how in the future I can use my privileged positionality to

collaborate in the decolonizing of language programs. Looking forward, I ask: What could a shift

away from borrowing translanguaging pedagogies look like within the context of international

schools? I consider the recommendations of Torres-Rincon and Cuesta-Medina (2019):

Teachers should constantly engage a culture of reflection and analysis based on their

class experiences, examining how implementations should (or not) work in a given

context, in this case specifically Colombia, while fostering critical assessments and

feeding their professional engagement for the benefit of their educational communities.

(p. 127)
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Teachers, and myself as a an educational researcher and teacher educator, must move past

pedagogical borrowing to a critical examination of how a particular pedagogy fits or does not fit

with the school context.

Additionally, teachers should critically consider the underlying tenets of translanguaging,

including creating space for [pluri]lingual ways of knowing and identities and the significance of

these components within the context of international schools. For example, within the context of

CC, translanguaging is not primarily about the right of students to access bilingual education nor

has there been an historical link between bilingual education and critical questions of linguistic

justice. Instead, Spanish-English bilingual education is often about students solidifying their

social status through continued and further access to linguistic, social, and cultural capital. Yet,

could translanguaging be about more than strengthening students’ linguistic skills in

international school contexts? Could translanguaging pedagogies be a tool for decolonizing work

within these classrooms? In the next chapter, I explore these questions through the introduction

of the Decolonizing International Multilingual Education framework.

Conclusion

This chapter documents how teachers and students at CC engaged with translanguaging

pedagogies in diverse ways and the patterns that emerged across three distinct groups. While

participants engaged with translanguaging pedagogies, a comparison of my findings with García

et al.’s (2017) goals for translanguaging pedagogies, indicates participants did not address

students’ or teachers’ [pluri]lingual ways of knowing, nor the development of their [pluri]lingual

identities. While teachers and students began to leverage their linguistic repertoires more

holistically, they still did so from deficit-based positions which upheld monolingual native

speaker norms. Teachers enacted specific opportunities to help students build off their Spanish
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and English languaging practices and incorporate new practices across both languages, but

students, particularly in older grades, were at times ambivalent or even opposed to strengthening

their Spanish academic skills, as they saw it as a waste of time. A closer analysis of students’ use

of Paisa English complexifies students’ position, showing how students both embraced and

resisted the colonialist messages about language they heard at school.

Teachers engaged in a superficial borrowing in which they imported translanguaging

pedagogies from the US context primarily to support language learning without engaging with

the underlying commitment of translanguaging to promote linguistic justice. While

translanguaging pedagogies in the US are often explicitly tied to calls for linguistic justice and

equity for plurilingual students, within the context of international schools, language acquisition

is often more about providing more access to an already privileged student population.

International schools should consider whether they are interested in translanguaging pedagogies

simply as an instrumental tool for supporting language acquisition or whether translanguaging

pedagogies could serve a more critical purpose as a tool for decolonizing work.
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CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION

Introduction

In this final chapter, I provide a summary of what was learned through the case study I

conducted at Colegio Colombiano. I restate and respond to my research questions and clarify the

significance of my findings. I propose the DIME framework to model how international schools

can engage in decolonizing their language programs. Then, I outline possible directions for

future research. Finally, I include a Coda, in which I describe related changes which have

occurred at CC since I completed my data collection.

Summary of Study

In this case study, I explore how school actors at Colegio Colombiano, an international

school in Colombia, engage with critical approaches to bi/multilingual education which

problematize a focus on English-only instruction to instead embrace the complex and fluid

identities and languaging practices of teachers and students. The following research questions

guided my study:

1. Where do international schools fit within the landscape of K-12 foreign language

education in Colombia?

2. What language ideologies influenced language policy creation and appropriation at

Colegio Colombiano?

3. What obstacles and opportunities did Colegio Colombiano teachers and students

encounter as they engaged with translanguaging pedagogies?

To answer these questions, I collected and analyzed various sources of data including

school policy documents, classroom observations, student, teacher and school administrator

interviews, and teacher questionnaires. In Chapter 5, I examine the first research question, as I
 205

sketched the landscape for K-12 foreign language education in Colombia. While critical

Colombian scholars rightly criticize the extensive influence of international schools on K-12

national language policy, I expand this argument to show a shared logic of coloniality underlying

both private and public language education. By exposing a common logic of coloniality, I

propose a pathway to bring international schools into current conversations around decolonizing

language education in Colombia.

In Chapter 6, I address my second research question, as I explore how language

ideologies influence language policy and creation at CC. I argue many faculty exhibited a

favorable shift away from promoting English Excellence to an emphasis on supporting Spanish-

English bilingualism which allowed Colombian students to leverage their holistic bilingual

identities and practices. However, these shifts often fell short as participants failed to address

critical issues of linguistic inequity and power. Participants argued for strengthening Spanish

academic literacy skills, while often positioning Spanish as simply a tool to help students learn

English. While explicit messages about English as superior were no longer officially promoted,

hidden ideologies and policies persisted which valorized English, denigrated Spanish and

completely ignored other societal and home languages.

In Chapter 7, I explore the third research question, as I consider how teachers and

students engaged in translanguaging pedagogies, the perceived impact of these approaches and

the barriers they identified. I found while participants engaged with translanguaging pedagogies,

they did not address students’ or teachers’ [pluri]lingual ways of knowing, nor the development

of their [pluri]lingual identities. Teachers and students leveraged their linguistic repertoires more

holistically, but still from deficit-based positions which upheld monolingual native speaker

norms. While teachers supported students’ development of a bilingual repertoire, the students’
 206

use of Paisa English complexifies their position, as they both embraced and resisted the

colonialist messages about language they heard at school.

Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) Framework

Based on the findings of the previous chapters, I developed the Decolonizing

International Multilingual Education (DIME) framework. The DIME framework is a tool to

support school actors in interrogating a logic of coloniality within their own school contexts. In

the DIME framework, I build on the four more critical stances from Pennycook’s (2000)

framework: Language ecology, Linguistic imperialism, Language rights and [De]colonial13

performativity. While I found evidence of Language ecology, as described in the Developing

Critical Awareness category in Chapter 6, I did not find significant evidence of the other three

more critical stances. Instead, faculty failed to address critical issues of linguistic inequity and

power as colonialistic language ideologies and policies persisted. Further, in Chapter 7, I found

many CC teachers engaged with translanguaging pedagogies primarily to support language

learning based on monolingual norms, without deep engagement in the historical purposes of

translanguaging to promote linguistic justice. I argue pedagogical borrowing of translanguaging

reflects a larger logic of coloniality present in which faculty import foreign teachers, curriculum,

and resources without consideration whether the underlying ideologies fit the context of CC.

Therefore, I argue the lack of evidence of significantly critical stances at CC indicates a limited

shift away from colonialistic and monoglossic approaches to language education. Instead, while

13
As noted previously, while decoloniality and postcoloniality both consider the ongoing
impact of the colonial project, I draw on decoloniality based on its trajectory of scholarship from
Latin American intellectual in diaspora. While Pennycook draws from postcoloniality, I instead
align myself with Mignolo and Walsh’s (2018) argument that there is not a postcolonial world
and we need to continually engage in the active work of decolonizing. I use brackets to highlight
my modification of Pennycook’s term.
 207

important shifts were made toward more critical approaches, the CC community must engage

more deeply in addressing the logic of coloniality to allow for the decolonizing of their language

program.

To engage further in the work of decolonizing language education, CC and other

international schools must first recognize the logic of coloniality which continues to inform their

language ideologies, policies, and pedagogies. School actors must then deconstruct and construct

as described by Fandiño-Parra (2021) in his article about decolonizing English language teaching

in Colombia. Based on the data generation I engaged in with teachers and students, as well as the

deep qualitative analysis of data, I identified a need for a guiding framework to orient school

actors to engage in the work of decolonizing their language programs. In particular, I reflected

on how my participants, likely some of the most committed to linguistic equity at CC and

exposed to critical approaches through our graduate course, were still limited within a system

governed by persistent logic of coloniality. I also wondered if as a white Canadian educator I

was not explicit enough in outlining the critical theoretical foundations for the approaches I

introduced, both during the course, as well as during our engagement in SDBR.

Based on these reflections, as well as my findings from this study, I created the

Decolonizing International Multilingual Education framework (DIME) to make the work of

decolonizing language programs explicit (shown in Table 6). I build on Pennycook’s (2000) four

most critical stances: Language ecology, Linguistic imperialism, Language rights and

[De]colonial performativity, as a reference point and then establish guiding principles, critical

questions, and possible actions for international schools to consider as they move toward a more

critical understanding of language education. If I could travel back in time, I would take the

DIME framework with me, so I could ensure an explicit critical basis for the work I did with
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teachers. Instead, I offer the framework now to support schools as the critically engage in the

work of decolonizing their language programs.

Decolonizing International Multilingual Education (DIME) Framework

1. School actors recognize the linguistic diversity present within the language ecology of their
school community and local context and the potential negative influence of English on these
languages. Through translanguaging practices and pedagogies, students and teachers draw on
and expand their holistic plurilingual repertoires in home, societal and new languages.
Critical Questions Actions to Consider
-What languages already exist within this -home languages survey of all students
school and societal context and how are -ask students to document examples of
they portrayed at school? multilingualism outside of school
-How can we create a school community in -conduct a linguistic landscape of the school and
which each person’s plurilingual document when and how languages are
repertoires are valued? displayed
-What barriers do teachers and students -translanguaging pedagogies
face to engage in translanguaging
pedagogies?
2. School actors acknowledge the historical and ongoing role of international schools in
furthering linguistic imperialism through an exclusive focus on English which entrenches
inequity in various forms. Schools shift from positioning English primarily as a tool to provide
further access to the global market for the privileged to valuing linguistic diversity as critically
engaged global citizens. School actors resist the logic of coloniality by prioritizing local over
foreign.
Critical Questions Actions to Consider
-What is the purpose of learning -reallocate resources to prioritize local
languages? In what ways does our current knowledge, languages, scholars, communities
approach prioritize instrumental or -examine reliance on external international
economic justifications for language organizations
learning? -shift away from language policies and program
-How is language being used to entrench models which position English as superior
privilege? How could language learning be -promote alternative justifications for language
part of the work of decolonizing? learning which value linguistic diversity over
global market access
3. School actors actively support language rights through the promotion and protection of
endangered (including minoritized and Indigenous) languages within their school, regional and
national contexts. School actors resist language ideologies, policies and practices which place
English as the top of a linguistic and cultural hierarchy and instead actively engage with local
community members and scholars to support endangered languages and the associated ways of
thinking and being.
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Critical Questions Actions to Consider

-What Indigenous languages exist within -engage in reflective practice with teachers and
our local community? students to examine implicit and explicit
-How have we prioritized English at the language ideologies influenced by coloniality
expense of other languages? -design school and classroom language policies
-How can our school support the work of with input from various stakeholders, including
local community members and scholars to Indigenous language speakers and scholars
protect endangered languages? -recreate school curriculum to include
-How can we support teachers and students endangered languages
in their development of Critical -subsidize teachers’ enrollment in local language
Multilingual Language Awareness to draw learning courses
attention to questions of power, -invest in resources from local and national
particularly related to endangered authors
languages?
4. School actors create space for [de]colonial performativity which brings local
configurations of language, culture, knowledge, and power into focus. School actors
decolonize through considering “what is produced in cultural encounters, not just homogeneity
or heterogeneity, imperialism or resistance, but rather what ‘third cultures’ or ‘third spaces’
are constantly being created” (Pennycook, 2000, p. 118). School actors are supported in their
negotiation of complex plurilingual identities and dynamic plurilingual languaging practices.
Critical Questions Actions to Consider
-In what ways are we currently promoting -consider how the school promotes foreign
a narrow version of identities based on cultural models of success, such as the
colonial norms and ideals? celebration of graduates studying abroad
-How can our school community recognize -provide opportunities for school community to
and support the complex plurilingual reflect on and discuss their complex identities
identities of all members? -create human resource policies and practices
-How can we recognize the role of (i.e. hiring, promotion, benefits, etc.) which
language in the unique historical and address inequities between staff based on local
cultural configurations of our local vs foreign and non vs non-native false
community? dichotomies and hierarchies.
Table 6 DIME Framework
Considerations for Applying DIME Framework

While the DIME Framework outlines principles, critical questions, and possible actions

for school actors to consider as they engage in decolonizing work, I highlight four important

considerations for its intended application within the context of international schools. First, to

engage effectively in the work of decolonizing, international school communities must identify
 210

the driving purpose of their school and how it connects to engagement in decolonizing work.

Matthews’ (1988) early work on defining international schools may provide a helpful starting

point. Matthews described international schools according to a dichotomy of market-driven vs

ideology-driven schools. While market-driven schools are developed to serve the needs of a

specific group of students, traditionally expatriate families, ideology-driven international schools

are typically focused on their mission to promote international understanding or global

citizenship. As noted by Hayden and Thompson (1995), these two categories are at times

incorrectly interpreted as mutually exclusive, but instead schools can be both driven by market

forces and underlying ideologies. An understanding of a school’s driving ethos informs their

engagement in decolonizing work. For example, in my case study at CC, a market-driven

ideology was commonly exhibited which positioned English as a commodity to be sold. Students

needed English as an instrumental tool to access the global market and a high level of English

proficiency was an essential product to ensure ongoing competitiveness of the school to parents,

the paying customers. In contrast, some teachers hoped for a shift toward a more ideologically

driven school, which valued multilingualism as part of an overall commitment to diversity, not

just English-Spanish bilingualism for its instrumental purpose of providing access to the global

market. My study pushes against the boundaries of Matthews’ dichotomy, showing how diverse

opinions and stances exist within each school community based on the individual ideologies held

by different school actors. When considering engagement in decolonizing work through the

DIME framework, school actors must first identify whether such engagement lines up with the

overall ethos or purpose of the school. While individual administrators, teachers and students can

engage in decolonizing work within their own spaces, as was evidenced by the “Developing

Critical Awareness”, the work of individuals will have a greater impact when aligned with a
 211

large-scale commitment to address the fundamental purpose and guiding ideologies of the school

community.

Second, all schools operate within a particular context. Within the ecological model,

schools are often shown in the center of expanding concentric circles, indicating how they are

influenced by district, provincial/state and national factors. International schools also operate

within certain contexts, yet the concentric circles are often not as clear. Unlike national public

schools which are impacted by various levels of national or regional governance, international

schools often operate with a certain level of autonomy from local educational authorities. This

autonomy often leads to policy compression in international schools, as school actors determine

their own programs and policies (Bettney & Nordmeyer, 2021). Yet, this policy compression

interacts with policy borrowing, as international schools rely heavily on external international

organizations. Usma Wilches (2015) argues in contexts in which educational policy has been

borrowed from other contexts, there are “three simultaneous and interactive processes that take

place at the macro and micro level, namely, processes of transnational reform and policy

transfer; processes of formulation and reformulation of policy texts; and processes of local policy

appropriation” (p. 36). Within the process of policy compression in international schools, these

three processes are happening within one individual school. To provide an example, imagine an

international school director deciding which policy to borrow from an external organization,

such as following an IB or Common Core curriculum. The curriculum would then by imported

from the external organizations, formulated, and reformulated for the school context and then

appropriated by individual teachers within their own classrooms. While policy compression can

be problematic as international schools are often isolated and disconnected from their local

educational context, on the other hand, this high level of autonomy allows individuals within
 212

international schools to engage in school and classroom-level policy borrowing and remaking.

Therefore, I designed the DIME framework to both encourage reciprocal connections to the local

educational and language communities to move away from a heavy reliance on policy borrowing

from foreign bodies, while providing questions and actions which allows for both bottom-up and

top-down reflection and change within the reality of policy compression in international schools.

Third, for school communities to engage with decolonizing work, school leaders must

ensure a hospitable context which fosters this work. For international schools, this includes

explicitly recognizing their historical role in colonizing, as well as a clear commitment to

change. At CC, some actors were limited in their critical engagement by a lack of certainty

regarding the position of their administrators. While individual teachers and students found space

to push toward more heteroglossic approaches that supported diverse plurilingual identities and

languaging practices, they would have been more effective if they had felt explicitly supported

by the school leadership in this new direction.

Finally, school actors should recognize the engagement in decolonizing work is not a

linear process. While many CC faculty were shifting away from oppressive stances, these shifts

were not happening unilaterally across all staff. The process included ongoing negotiations as

school actors wrestled with the tradition of hegemonic ideologies and practices which valorized

English at the expense of students’ home languages while still espousing ideologies which

emphasized English-Spanish bilingualism.

Future Research

This study’s limitations, as described in Chapter 4, suggest opportunities for future

research. First, while I was unable to conduct a CCS because of the COVID-19 pandemic, future

research should consider how to explore similar questions across different school contexts. For
 213

example, what might critical decolonial approaches look like in a public school in Colombia?

What might they look like in an international school with higher levels of linguistic diversity? A

comparison of findings across different contexts would provide a level of breadth that I was not

able to fully develop in a single case study.

Second, while I have developed the DIME framework, future research could explore its

implementation within international school contexts. In particular, what types of resources or

supports are essential to help schools as they engage in the decolonizing of their language

programs? While the DIME framework includes critical questions and possible actions to

consider, further research is needed to determine its effectiveness. Ideally, schools would engage

with the DIME framework as part of a SDBR project, in which they could adapt the framework

with each design cycle.

Finally, critical language research is needed at the intersection of international schools

and their local contexts around the world. While I have provided a description of a shared logic

of coloniality across K-12 foreign language education in Colombia, how might this pattern be

replicated or diverge within other contexts? In the case of Colombia, recognizing a shared logic

of coloniality provides one avenue to bring international schools into the research already being

conducted in language education by critical Colombian scholars, but this pathway may look

different in other contexts.

Coda

While my case study reflects a snapshot in time, the CC journey continues. Since

finishing my main stage of data generation in February 2020, I have been in regular

communication with various members of the CC school community who participated in my

study. I continue to serve as a critical friend for questions around their shift toward more critical
 214

approaches to multilingual education. Through these relationships, as well as promotional

materials shared by the school in various public forums, I have observed the CC community

make strides toward more equitable approaches to bi/multilingual education. For example, CC is

in the process of shifting toward a dual language model, which will explicitly focus on

supporting bilingualism in Spanish and English. They have made changes to hiring policies, to

recognize that the native English monolingual teacher does not have to be held up as the ideal,

but instead prioritize the hiring of bilingual teachers. They also ask applicants about their

language ideologies as part of the hiring process. Through Twitter, a staff member recently

shared one of CC’s new strategic goals: “We will create and embrace a culture that values

multilingualism and allows students to effectively use multiple languages to succeed on the

pathway of their choice.”

While there has been evidence of ongoing engagement with critical approaches, the

COVID pandemic has greatly impacted the intended focus on language at CC over the past two

years. While many plans took a backseat role to the immediate need to shift between online and

hybrid learning, teachers noted the pandemic brought language into focus in a new way. My

critical friends shared how many teachers and parents were placing a stronger emphasis on home

languages, as students were at home during Colombia’s 180-day strict lockdown, one of the

longest in the world. I hope, with the return to more consistent in-person schooling, the CC

community will draw on these insights while again prioritizing engagement in critical

approaches to language education.

While CC continues its journey, all international schools must come to terms with how

language ideologies, policies and pedagogies impact both their own students, as well as the

larger society. While criticisms remain within the critical education community about whether or
 215

not elite international schools are an important context for research, Swalwell’s (2013) provides

a compelling case:

Examining privileged students’ experiences with schooling can help to illuminate how

inequality persists, de-normalize elite education, generate strategies for including these

people in social movements working towards justice, and to elicit compassion for the

ways in which systems of oppression ultimately dehumanize even those they advantage.

(p. 14)

Within the context of Colombia specifically, the exclusive focus on English-Spanish

bilingualism within elite international schools has had wide ranging impact, as these policies

influence government decisions about public bilingual programs across the nation (Usma

Wilches, 2009). International schools in Colombia and around the world should critically

consider how their continual emphasis on English or on limited constructions of bilingualism

negatively impact linguistic diversity and the positioning of plurilingual students within their

classrooms.
 216

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APPENDIX A: EXCERPTS FROM UNIT PLANS

Unit Plan Part 2 - Co-teaching a Heteroglossic approach in the writers workshop

As we approach a practical exercise on how to implement a heteroglossic environment in

our own teaching practices, as stated by Bettney (2019) “...schools can create ideological spaces
through language policies that reflect a heteroglossic view of languages, while teachers can further
wedge open implementational spaces through their use of heteroglossic practices within their
classrooms” (p.1), it is important to understand the context of learning. In the Early Years (ages 6-
7), the ages that we teach, we follow the Lucy Calkins readers and writers workshop design for
English native speakers. This workshop is designed in a way where teachers only get to have a
short time for I teach moment, called mini lesson, and then children explore the strategies taught
working independently. During this time, the teacher works with small groups tackling different
strategies throughout more specific conferences. At the end, students and teachers share the
applicability of the strategies during that lesson.

Our school context is a majority of students from Medellin Colombia, whose mother
tongue is Spanish. They are exposed to English ‘since their first year of the academic experience
at school (K4). Transitioning from year to year they are expected to produce academic writing in
both languages: English and Spanish. During the 1st Grade the grade that we teach, we have two
writing units, one in English called “From Scenes to Series: Realistic Fiction” and one in Spanish
called “Libros de series: Realidad – Ficción”. These units are usually taught separately from each
subject with their own minilessons planned. We have noticed that these writing units are one of
the students ́ favorite to write because it gives them the opportunity to create a series of stories
about their own character. As children dive into this unit, they bring to life their own character and
have it live a series of unimaginable adventures.

However, it has come to our attention that one of the struggles they have is that they cannot
express all of their ideas when they are writing in English. They do not feel confident as writers
because they do not know how to say or write most of the things they are thinking. This brings a
conflict for us as language teachers, because even though we understand what the curriculum is
asking of our students, as a language learners we know that it should be approached in a more
heteroglossic way, especially in this early stage of learning. Taking into account, as mentioned by
Kananu (2016), the potential of heteroglossic practices in the process of learning a second language
inside multilingual classes easing the cognitive load of language. This approach understands
multilingualism as fluid and diverse process, where languages converge positively.

Therefore, our approach for this unit plan is to work alongside, Spanish and English
teachers in First Grade D, in order to modify the writing unit. Our objective is to have two lessons
for each teaching point that would allow us to co-teach them and it will allow children to be able
to communicate and express their ideas in both languages. Consequently, we will generate a
bilingual environment in our classes, as Blackledge and Creese (2010) refer to “flexible
bilingualism as an approach that places the speaker at the heart of the interaction and views
languages as a social resource without clear boundaries” (as cited in De-Mejía 2016).
 238

In addition, we would be making adaptations that are more aligned with our students
context and needs as language learners. In other words, as stated in the article “Teacher autonomy”
by Usma & Peláez (2017) “...teachers become policymakers as they recreate reforms to respond
to their and their community's needs and realities” (P.9). To that end, our idea, after learning about
heteroglossic environment, is to use this approach to co-teach these units taking into account the
writers workshop ideas from Lucy Calkins as a guide and adapt them to our children’s learning
context. Taking into account as Bettney (2019) states that “...teachers can move toward a more
heteroglossic approach which allows for ideological and implementational spaces which leverage
students’ communicative repertoires while supporting their diverse linguistic identities” (p.4). The
new combined unit will be adapted in a way that allows the use of both languages in order to
accomplish the following language/content objectives through the process of writing a series of
fiction books:
● Students will construct a main character supported by their language repertoires (Spanish
& English) to create his physical and personal characteristics.
● Students will write a series of books using both English and Spanish languages in which
they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding
what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of
closure.
● Students will present their publishing pieces orally leveraging their speech throughout both
languages (reading in both languages).

In conclusion, by the end of this unit, students will produce a series of books in
Spanish and English that will enable them to acquire different writing strategies by making use of
existing knowledge of their mother tongue, universal properties of language and general learning
strategies, for example: Paraphrasing, Vocabulary Sort, Visual Vocabulary, and Free writing.
Taking translanguaging as a way of leveraging and supporting this learning they will feel more
successful with their final product, as stated by López, Guzmán-Orth & Turkan, 2017, “...the use
of translanguaging has the potential to develop content assessments that build on the complex
language practices of bilingual students and that translanguaging may provide a way for emergent
bilinguals to demonstrate their content knowledge and skills in initial content assessments"

Lesson # Lesson 1 & 2

Lección # Lección 1 & 2

FICTION WRITERS SET OUT TO WRITE REALISTIC

FICTION!
Bend 1 !LOS BUENOS ESCRITORES SE PREPARAN PARA
ESCRIBIR REALIDAD FICCIÓN!

This unit has been modified in a heteroglossic approach because instead of having two separate
units for writing (English - Spanish) We are integrating the use of both languages to co-teach
every mini lesson. We are aiming to give students the opportunity to use their native language to
leverage their writing skills, because as stated by Kananu, 2016, "Building on learners’ home
linguistic repertoires nurtures the acquisition of school language by linking school language
content with the lived experiences of learners. In addition, heteroglossic practices potentially
 239

provide agency to students, disrupt language hierarchies and the authority relations based on
unfamiliar languages, and give student a voice not only by enabling their knowledge in the
classroom but also in authorship of their experiences and the opening up spaces for dialogue." (p.
11-12).

As children create their character, they can also relate on it to reflect their own learning. They
can think of a character that speaks both languages and use this a way to create identity as a
multilingual learner, according to Kananu, 2016, "... the use of heteroglossic strategies
disorganizes the hegemony of monolingualism for multilingual learners. It creates a space for
pedagogy of integration and dialogue, which liberates historically omitted languages and asserts
the fluid linguistic identities of multilingual learners." (p. 11).

Using this new adaptation as a language tool, children will reinforce the ability to transfer their
knowledge from one language to another. During the lessons children will have access to visuals
in both languages. This idea relates to the fact that children in an early stage are more familiar
with some vocabulary in their native language and it would be easier to use it and then transfer
this to English. Kananu 2016, refers to this stating that " The use of home languages is important
to continue developing students’ voice through use of available resources they already have in
the process of acquiring English, and, to develop a deeper meaning in content learning, as they
use language (s) as a tool for thinking and realizing their thoughts (Vygotsky 2012)" (p. 11-12)

PREP WORK
PREPARACIÓN
- Poster with your own character.
- Cartel con mi personaje
- Anchor Chart - Cartel de anclaje

I Can Statement
Objetivo

I can create a pretend character for my series books

Yo puedo crear un personaje para mis libros en serie

CONNECTION TEACHING TEACHING ACTIVE LINK

CONECCIÓN POINT ENSEÑANZA ENGAGEMENT CIERR
ESTRATEGIA PRÁCTICA E
 240

Writers, DE ENSEÑANZA Vamos a ver cómo

escritores! we’re podemos crear un Have students close Writers,
going to be Writers of realistic personaje. Yo lo their eyes and start today
writing some fiction create a voy a hacer primero imagining their and
realistic fiction pretend character para modelarles stories, “Escritores, every
stories, libros de supported by 3 cómo hacerlo. cada uno va a day,
realidad ficción, questions: Vamos a (Close your eyes pensar un nombre cuando
like the ones pensar, Who is he? and model how you para su personaje” estén
we’ve been Quién es? Where is come up with a “Now think where escribie
reading and he? Dónde está? character and an this character will ndo
talking about What does it do? adventure for that be, choose ONE historias
these days. Qué hace? character) I’m place”, “Puede ser de
Como los libros going to imagine a un lugar que realidad
de Piggy and name and a place. I ustedes hayan ficción,
Gerald. Realistic like the name visitado” think of
fiction stories Gabrielle so my “Now, think, what a
seem like they’re character’s name real life trouble will pretend
real, like they will be Gabrielle your character get characte
could really and I really like the into? Think of one r, tell
happen but you forest, como el del small real-life that
still get to cuento de thing” “Ahora characte
imagine them. caperucita, so my vamos a compartir r’s story
Tienen algo de la character is going con nuestra pareja, across
realidad pero to live next to a cada uno tendrá su your
también pueden forest. Hmm, now I turno para contar fingers,
usar su am going to think qué imaginó” and
imaginación. of some trouble for Circulate and listen then
Writers, I’ve Gabrielle, las to partners, write.
seen you at historias siempre reminding them to Let’s
recess and I tienen un problema write about a small get
know you are o situación. Maybe moment when the started
very good at she falls out of a character had some writing,
pretending. You tree, or she gets trouble. I can’t
pretend that you stuck in a tree, or wait to
are a mom with a she forgets the time, see the
baby or a soldier eso es algo que me characte
at war or a boy pasa a mí muy rs you
who helps dogs. seguido, or I know! create,
Todo el día She finds a hurt tal
jugamos a animal, I’ll write como se
imaginar que my story about that! lo
podemos ser !Ya tengo una idea imagina
alguien diferente. para mi personaje! ron hoy,
When I was Gabrielle finds a and the
little, I liked to hurt animal. (Model trouble
pretend, me how you tell your they get
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imaginaba que story about your into!”

yo era una character across
doctora. Talk to your fingers).
your partner So how did I think
about something up a story? Vamos
you pretend a recontar cómo
about, o algún tuve esa gran idea: I
super poder que imagined a
les gustaría tener, character, I gave
MUY that character a
IMPORTANTE, name and place. I
usen su thought about
IMAGINACIÓN trouble the
” character could get
“Just like we into, algo pequeño,
pretend when we then I told my story
play, we get to across my fingers,
pretend when we la estrategia de los
write too! Today dedos es muy
les vamos a efectiva.
enseñar...”

INDEPENDENT WRITING AND SMALL GROUP WORK

ESCRITURA INDEPENDIENTE, PEQUEÑOS GRUPOS
Students create a poster of their main character and they can start drafting their first story.
Teacher confers and/or works with small groups providing specific help.

CLOSING/SHARE
CIERRE

Escritores! Qué gran inicio de unidad hemos tenido. Tomorrow we will be writing more and
more. Recuerden, que los buenos escritores siempre están escribiendo sus ideas. Por ejemplo,
I’m going to tell you one thing that authors do - they use their last few minutes of writing to
start on the next day’s work, es mejor dejar preparado para el día siguiente y saber dónde
continuar. So, put your finger on the place where you are right now and start a sentence or a
sketch, algo que les dé una pista para continuar su trabajo mañana!

Teacher Bank Ideas

Los estudiantes podrán usar bancos de palabras en los dos idiomas como:
Adjectives/ Adjetivos
Feelings/ Sentiemientos
Places/ Lugares
Verbs/ Verbos
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Grade 8 Science Energy Unit - Part 1 “The Overview”

Context of Student Population:

This Energy Unit is designed for 8th grade middle school students in a physical science
course whose first semester is focused on physics. The background of the grade level is that there
are about 105 students attending a private school split into 6 class section, where about 98% of
the students are Colombian with their home language as Spanish and the other 2% of the students
are Italian, American, and French. Students bring their own device and use google suits on a
daily basis in science class for their electronic notebooks and project guides which are shared
with their teacher.

Energy Unit Information:

The main learning objectives of the Energy Unit include organizing data to show that
kinetic energy depends on an object’s mass and the velocity of the object, that the potential
energy of an object depends on its mass, its height, and the acceleration of gravity, and the law of
conservation of energy: that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. The
essential question of the unit is how is energy transferred from one object or system to another?
The standards are broken down by Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in order to
explore the following three themes: defining energy, conservation of energy and energy transfer,
and relationships between energy and forces. The skills that students will need for this unit are:
creating and analyzing data, creating models, designing and testing a prototype, creating an
argument and supporting it with evidence, as well as planning an investigation. Due to this skills
it will be important to set language objectives as many of these standards are requiring an
advanced level of reading and writing to accomplish. There will need to be language objectives
for argumentative writing, looking at graphics and interpreting them, adjectives, labelling,
procedures, comparisons, as well as content vocabulary.

A Heteroglossic Approach:
This unit will be constructed with the lens of a heteroglossic approach which means that
language will be viewed in a socio-linguistic way that involves and encompasses the diversity of
languageness, voicedness, and speechness (Bettney, 2019). There are many different approaches
to promote heteroglossia in education which can include the “preview/review” language
flexibility, and the The Dictado which promote metacognition awareness as well as help students
create more meaning for what they are learning (Bettney, 2019). It is important when designing
and facilitating units in different content areas to be aware of language not just in the academic
sense but also of all the modalities and similarities and differences of the language in your
classroom. As has been seen in Colombia content area teachers have struggled with content and
the barrier of language other educators have focused on trying to allow the use of L1 for
explanation by using supplementary resources and activities in the L2 in order to bridge the
language gaps (Mejia, 2013). As this unit is developed it will be with a heteroglossic lens and
understanding that we are not just content teachers but also language teachers that will work to
promote and celebrate language, culture, and diversity in our classrooms.
This unit did not previously have language objectives or any focus on language
modalities which we will now implement. The standards require students to go beyond academic
language in order to show their understanding in different ways which will require language
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related to literacy and math. In order to take a heteroglossic approach it would be best to focus
on one language objective per standard and scaffold activities based on both content and
language. As we read in Bettney (2019), we need to emphasize the diversity in speechness,
diversity in languageness and diversity in voicedness. Until it is more clear exactly what [CC’s]
policy is on language instruction, it is the
teacher’s responsibility to make learning accessible to their students, based on their language
capabilities (Usma & Pelaez, 2017).

Part 2: “Heteroglossifying” the Unit

Implementing translanguaging strategies in the classroom is an important aspect that

today's teachers need to consider as it benefits students linguistic repertoires, culture, and
education experiences. This 8th grade physical science unit has been improved to now include a
heteroglossic approach. Firstly, although not a school requirement, every lesson has been given
language objectives in addition to the required learning objectives. Here is the link for the Unit 2
Calendar: Energy which has all of the activities and lessons. Below is the explanation for four
lessons that will occur over eight class periods with heteroglossic modifications explained for
each lesson.

Lesson 1 (2 class periods): Relationships between Energy, Mass, and Speed

Heteroglossic Strategies/Modifications:
● As seen in Tyler (2016) in their article examining using different translanguaging
strategies in a Xhosa and English classroom they found that using visuals was a main
strategy when promoting language as it allowed students to better understand both the
content and the language.
○ Watch a video of the 5 tallest roller coasters in the world. The video contains
written English but is limited to a description of the video and the names and
locations for each roller coaster. Pause the video at 20 seconds and ask students to
explain to a partner in Spanish or in English what they think this video is going to
be about and why it will help them to clarify their understanding of what to expect
and provide an opportunity for practicing speaking and reading. Have 1-2 students
share their ideas with the class, in English.

● According to Kiramba (2016), in their article about promoting diversity and value of
language it was seen that by intentionally using both languages during instruction this
helped the students translanguaging and create more meaning in their science classes.
○ LM 9 Roller Coaster Ramps Exploration: Students are provided with 3 different
types of tracks and balls of 4 different masses and given instructions to investigate
the effect of height and mass on the motion of the object. This activity could be
made more heteroglossic by providing students the opportunity to share how they
would normally create a data table or an experimental design if they were doing
this in Spanish instead. This could lead to opportunities for the teacher to identify
major differences between an English and Spanish approach, and allow students
to share reasoning for the Spanish way, while gaining an understanding of the
organization according to English scientific practices. Throughout the exploration
we can allow discussion, brainstorming, and rough work to be done in Spanish,
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with the final output required to be done in English. This approach will lower the
cognitive load on the students by preventing them from having a heavy cognitive
load in English, as well as new scientific concepts. Students can focus on
processing new information in any language (or combination of languages) that
they prefer, and after they have gained comprehension of the scientific concepts
being investigated, they can output their findings and understandings in English.

Lesson 2 (2 class periods): Kinetic and Potential Energy Lab

Heteroglossic Strategies/Modifications:
● As Rowe (2018), found when implementing translanguaging strategies into the classroom
using tools such as bilingual dictionaries or comparisons in both languages helps students
to see their linguistic repertoires and draw on both languages for making meaning in
content areas.
○ An online simulation allows students to explore kinetic and potential energy
through picking up and dropping objects of different masses with a helicopter,
and comparing the potential and kinetic energy at different heights.
Accompanying this virtual lab are data collection tables, calculations, and spots
where students are answering questions about what they have learned. Although
this will be completed by each individual, we plan to allow students to collaborate
and use their L1 to communicate meaning and understanding of new concepts, as
is consistent with recognizing the importance of allowing students to use their LI
during collaborative dialogue (Esther 2019, page 3). In addition, as a class the
students can be creating a new Bilingual Energy Vocabulary Glossary, which can
involve the word in English and in Spanish, an image to represent the term, and a
student definition in English and in Spanish. To incentivise students to help build
this vocab sheet, the teacher can allow it to be used during formative and
summative assessments throughout this unit.
○ Later, these terms and images can be taken and placed on paper cut outs. Students
can be broken into groups of 3 or 4 and create an interactive concept map that
students can use to review concepts.

Lesson 3: Debriefing the Virtual Lab (1 class period)

Heteroglossic Strategies/Modifications:
● As we learned from the course there are many ways to incorporate heterological
strategies into our daily lessons. As we practiced the list that [Lisa] and Esther provided
to us during the course we noted the strategies that we would like to use in this unit.
● As seen in Daniel and Pacheco (2015), in their investigation into how teens feel about
translanguaging it is very important to incorporate strategies that are explicit in order for
students to feel like all of their language repertoires are valued. By purposefully
encouraging the use of both L1 and L2 during review activities we can help them
increase their proficiency skills in both languages.
○ Following slides 2-15 as a class we will recap everything we have learned about
potential, kinetic and mechanical energy in the virtual lab. We will employ
various strategies taught by Esther and [Lisa] including fan and pick, timed round
robin, give one get one, talking chips and paraphrasing. These strategies allow a
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much higher percentage of the students to be engaged in speaking at the same

time, compared to if the teacher calls on one student at a time.

Lesson 4: Rocket Trajectory Summative Assessment (1 class period)

Heteroglossic Strategies/Modifications:
● As Rowe (2018), pointed out that using language that students would use outside of the
classroom helps students to increase their language skills. Using experiences they can
relate to that would be outside of the classroom can help students to recognize constructs
and see patterns. Here we will talk about arguments and claims using examples of things
that students would talk about in their daily lives in order to prepare them to complete the
summative assessment which asks students to support ideas and make claims about
energy.
○ Students are intentionally divided into groups of 3 or 4 based on similar language
ability and will receive paper cutouts of the new vocabulary (in English and
Spanish) and the images that the students added to the Energy Vocabulary sheet.
Students create an interactive concept map, connecting concepts to each other.
Students share out 1-2 main connections they made in their concept maps. This
activity can be done using the students L1 to discuss and then using their L2 to
share out ideas.
○ Language structures for arguments, supporting ideas, and transitions will be
reviewed with students. They can look at examples and identify the language
structures that are needed when doing this type of writing. Then students will
have three classes to complete a summative assessment doing LM10: Rocket
Trajectory - MSPS1, 2 and 5.
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APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW PROTOCOLS

Initial Teacher Interview Protocol

Initial Instructions

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview. My goal is to get to know your school
context and your perspectives and practices with multilingual teaching and learning.

Please avoid using names of people not participating in this research, but instead refer to others
by their relationship to you (e.g. colleague, student, student’s parent, administrator, community
volunteer, etc.) I will be audio-recording our discussion so that it can be transcribed. Before we
begin, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Sample Questions

1. What type of cultural and linguistic diversity is present in your school? How does this relate
to the diversity of Medellín? Colombia? The world?

2. What do you see as the relationship between Spanish and English in your classroom?
What about the inclusion of any other languages?

3. Please describe any language policies or rules (formal or informal) at your school? In your
classrooms?

4. Do you have any concerns about your students using Spanish in your classroom for social or
learning purposes?

5. What motivates you to participate in this research project?

Post-Project Teacher Interview Protocol

Initial Instructions
As we near the end of our project, I would like to ask you some questions about it. Please avoid
using names of people not participating in this research, but instead refer to others by their
relationship to you (e.g. colleague, student, parent of a student, administrator, community
volunteer, etc.) I will be audio-recording our discussion so that it can be transcribed. Before we
begin, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.

Introductory Questions

First, what type of new approaches did you introduce in your class? What objectives did you
have for your work with students during this project?
Impact on Students
 247

Next, I’d like to ask you about the impact of the project on the students. Please be aware that
impacts on students can either be positive or negative (or both).

1. Overall, how would you describe students’ experiences during the project?
Probe: Ask for some concrete examples of student experiences/feelings.
2. What were the advantages of this project for the students?
3. Were there any disadvantages of this project for students?
Now I’d like to ask you some questions about specific areas of impact for students.

4. Did you notice changes in students’ level of participation in class during the project?
Probes:
Ø Whole class?
Ø On individual students?

5. Did you see changes in student achievement during the project?

Probes:
Ø If yes, can you give me some concrete examples?
Ø If yes, how do you account for these changes?
Ø If no, why do you think changes did not occur?

Impact on the Teacher

My final questions are about the effects of the project for you.

6. What were the advantages to you as a teacher working on this project? If possible, please
provide some concrete examples.
7. What were the challenges? If possible, please provide some concrete examples.
8. How would you describe your experience incorporating these approaches to teaching and
learning?
9. What have you learned through this project that you might apply to your teaching in the
future?
10. What would you say was the single most important aspect of this project to you?

Wrap Up

Now, I’ve asked you a lot of questions, but I may not have asked about something that is
important to you. Is there anything else that you think we should know, but that we did not ask
about?

Thank you so much for all the information you have provided as it will help me continue to
understand how to support teachers in drawing on their students’ cultural and linguistic resources
in the classroom.
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Initial Student Interview Protocol

Initial Instructions

Thank you for participating in this interview. I really value your input as I am learning more
about teaching and learning with different languages. Today, I am going to be asking you some
questions about your experience learning at a bilingual school. Our time together will last about
45 minutes. If there are any questions that you do not feel comfortable answering, you do not
have to.
I am recording the focus group, so I can go back and listen to it later on. We will try to have only
one person talk at a time and I will do my best to make sure everyone has a chance to talk. Also,
please try not to use the names of a specific teacher or classmate when you’re answering a
question. Everything we talk about hear we will keep here and not share it with other people.

* NOTES WILL BE TAKEN on a computer during the focus group as well as audio
recording.

Questions

1. What languages do you speak at school and at home?

2. During your classes, what languages do you normally speak?

Probe: Do you ever mix languages or go back and forth between them?

3. Are there any rules at your school or in your classroom about when to speak which
language? What do you think about those rules?
If not: Do you think there should be any rules about when to speak different languages?

4. Do you ever find it useful to use one language to figure something out in the other?

5. How do you think speaking more than one language helps you? Do you ever think it
makes things harder?

6. Is there ever a time during any classes where you use more than one language at the same
time, like to compare a grammar rule or to learn new vocabulary?

7. How do you use language differently outside of school than inside of school?

Wrap Up

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about this project? Anything that we haven’t
talked about and you think I should know?

Thank you very much for answering my questions and helping me to better understand your
project. I really appreciate your time.
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Post-Project Student Interview Protocol

Initial Instructions

Thank you for participating in this interview. I really value your input as I am learning more
about teaching and learning with different languages. Today, I am going to be asking you some
questions about your experience with the multilingual project you completed with your teacher.
Our time together will last about 45 minutes. If there are any questions that you do not feel
comfortable answering, you do not have to.

I am recording the focus group, so I can go back and listen to it later on. We will try to have only
one person talk at a time and I will do my best to make sure everyone has a chance to talk. Also,
please try not to use the names of a specific teacher or classmate when you’re answering a
question. Everything we talk about hear we will keep here and not share it with other people.

* NOTES WILL BE TAKEN on a computer during the focus group as well as audio
recording.

Question

1. What were some of the new approaches your teacher tried these past few months?

2. Is this the first time you have been involved in a multilingual project?

3. What kind of things did your teacher do during the project?

4. What kind of things did you do during the project?

5. What this project any different than how you normally use language at school?

6. What did you like most about this project?

7. What did you like least about this project?

8. What have you learned as a result of being involved in this project?

9. How did it make you feel being involved in this project?

Probes: Did you feel Special? Proud? Nervous? Worried?

Wrap Up

Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about this project? Anything that we haven’t
talked about and you think I should know?

Thank you very much for answering my questions and helping me to better understand your
project. I really appreciate your time.
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APPENDIX C: CLASSROOM OBSERVATION PROTOCOL

Adapted from Dr. Gail Prasad, “Investigating Language(s) and Literacies in Multilingual
Schools Classroom Observation Protocol”

SEEING HEARING
CLASSROOM SPACE: TEACHERS:
• How is the class configured? • What language(s) are being used?
• What languages and cultures are How?
represented on walls, in teaching • How is the teacher drawing students’
materials, etc.? attention to language(s) explicitly or
TEACHERS: implicitly?
• Who is teaching? • What types of questions are being
• What instructional strategies are being asked?
used explicitly? STUDENTS:
STUDENTS: • What types of questions are being
• How are students grouped? raised about language(s), cultures, and
• Who is participating? Who is not? diversity?
OTHERS: • What language(s) are being used? By
• Who else is in the classroom? What is whom? How?
their role? OTHERS:
• What are they doing? Who are they • What language(s) are being used? By
supporting? whom? How?
• How are community members
interacting with students? With
teachers? With other community
members?
THINKING FEELING
RESEARCHER: RESEARCHER:
• What questions arise in my mind as I • How am I feeling at the outset of the
am seeing teachers, students and observation? How might this affect
community members engaging with what I notice or don’t?
one another (or not) within the CLASSROOM COMMUNITY:
classroom? • What’s the “emotional temperature”
CLASSROOM PRACTICE: in the classroom? In small groups?
• What seems to be working? What Individual students?
accounts for this success? How can this Teachers?
be amplified? Community members?
• What is constraining the process/ What factors might be contributing to
product? Why? What can we do such dynamics?
differently?
SCHOLARSHIP:
• What do I want to read and/or
investigate further in scholarship
based on this observation?
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APPENDIX D: TEACHER QUESTIONNAIRE

Teacher’s name: _________________________________ Grade: ___________

Thank you for accepting to complete this brief questionnaire regarding the research I am doing
regarding multilingual approaches to teaching and learning. Please answer the following
questions as you feel comfortable and where appropriate. Please avoid using names of people
not participating in this research, but instead refer to others by their relationship to you (e.g.
colleague, student, parent of a student, administrator, community volunteer, etc.)

1. What language(s) and culture(s) are part of your life? Your students’ lives?

2. What languages do you use in your classroom? What languages do your students use?

3. How do you feel about your participant in the multilingual research project?

4. Has your thinking or mindset about multilingual students changed over the course of this year?
If so, how has your thinking or mindset changed?

5. Has your teaching of multilingual students changed over the course of this year? If so, how
has your teaching changed?

6. What do you see as some important barriers to other teachers at CC shifting toward using
more heteroglossic approaches in their classroom?

7. Do you have any other comments, thoughts or insights that might be helpful as I continue with
writing my research?
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APPENDIX E: EXAMPLE OF CODE TREE

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APPENDIX F: VISUAL DATA DISPLAYS