Educación para la paz: Una alternativa en la enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera

Abstract

The experiences of students of English as a foreign language (EFL) who have been victims of the armed conflict in Colombia deserve recognition, reconstruction and reparation. This article reports the results of a research project that aimed to explore both the content and value of memory artifacts produced by students, based on their experiences in the context of the Colombian armed conflict. In a public primary school, there is a lack of dialogic spaces for the inclusion of their experiences in a post-conflict setting. Therefore, a pedagogical intervention was carried out with five didactic equences that proposed the construction of memory artifacts as alternatives to heal traumatic sequelae and develop resilience in victim students. Interaction practices and student memory artifacts were collected through participatory observation, semistructured interviews and analysis of memory artifacts elaborated by victim students. The findings suggest that the Colombian armed conflict has had a notable influence on student victims’ identity, whose roles in play coincide with that of the victimperpetrator type of the armed conflict. Play emerges as a space for interaction where the fragmented identities of children as victims of conflict are manifested through violent and hierarchical practices and power relations.