Posicionamientos de los estudiantes como aprendizajes de EFL en un ambiente de aprendizaje cooperativo

Abstract

This qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative study describes students’ positioning as foreign language learners in a CLL environment. Positioning is defined as “the dynamic construction of personal identities relative to those of others” (Davies & Harré, 2003, p. 29). This research was completed at a private school in Bogotá and was meant to foster students’ self observation and self-reflection in order to understand their positioning as EFL learners. This study was conducted with a group of nine students: four girls and five boys between ten and eleven years old. The students were naturally introduced to a reflective process and, over time, were able uncover aspects of their identity as English language learners. The main data collecting instruments for this project were reflective journals and semi-structured interviews. The main category that emerged from the data was positionings of the self and others in foreign language learning practices. The findings of the study revealed that one of the factors of access to better opportunities in a globalized world is knowledge of the English language. The study found language teachers have the necessary and required knowledge to perform a guide role that cannot be replicated by a different teaching figure. This research also found social pressure limits a student’s ability to verbalize his or her knowledge as a result of the social paradigm in which a student who knows more about a specific topic is positioned over students who lack such knowledge. As a result, students with a lack of knowledge in small group settings look to students with “higher level” knowledge to support or aid to balance incompetence. In family intervention students are influenced in two ways: the first is related to students beliefs of parents as the ideal model and the second when reliability is dependent on the teacher’s experience.