Exploring EFL rural students' experiences through children's rights as part of Inquiry- based project

Abstract

This project emerges from reflections about EFL teaching practices at a rural school. A diagnosis showed a curriculum that is disconnected from students’ realities, interests and experiences. The syllabus used in the school focused on standardized topics and overemphasized the teaching of formal aspects of the English language, which resulted in boredom and lack of interest in learning the language. An inquiry-based project that included the examination of children rights was developed and implemented as an alternative to motivate students and make learning more meaningful. This qualitative descriptive study examined the way learners engaged into the analysis and interpretations of their rural context by means of children’s rights as a social topic, and how EFL students’ literacy was shaped through an inquiry -based project. Data collection included field notes, transcripts and artifacts (children- real life stories and slides presentations) that resulted from their inquiries, reflection and interaction. Findings showed students’ nascent and increasing desire to examine social phenomena in their contexts. Rural students not only distinguished children’s rights but also, they associated them with previous experiences and aspects that they had seen before in their own community. They also became owners of their own learning when searching and reflecting about their rights collaboratively. In other words, inquiry practices allowed students to work democratically to express their points of view about children’s rights phenomena. They used both languages, Spanish and English in their oral and written productions as a real mode of communication, which indicated a more significant use of the language. The findings lead to reflections on the need to reshape teachers’ pedagogical practices so that both cognitive and affective factors can be stimulated.