Translanguaging y pedagogía decolonial Intercultural crítica: repertorios lingüísticos Afrocolombianos y venezolanos en una Institución Rural de Candelaria

Abstract

This master’s degree project analyzes how translanguaging and critical intercultural decolonial pedagogy address the linguistic repertoires and cultural memory of Afro-Colombian and Venezuelan migrant students in a rural school in Candelaria, Valle del Cauca. The study emerged from the need to question English teaching practices that, through monolingual and standardized models, tend to render students’ ways of speaking, cultural trajectories, and family memories invisible. Grounded in a situated qualitative approach and critical participatory action research, the project worked with a main corpus of seven students and articulated semi-structured interviews, student-produced artifacts derived from pedagogical workshops, classroom observation records, and a focus group. Data analysis followed a process of open, axial and selective coding, supported by thematic and phenomenological triangulation and the construction of emergent categories, given the uneven participation across instruments and the possibility of individual longitudinal tracking. The findings were organized into three categories: the surveilled voice and the struggle for the legitimacy of students’ own repertoires; memories in transit: language, migration, and intercultural belonging; and from distant English to situated English: participation, future, and one’s own voice. The results show that students’ linguistic repertoires are not obstacles to English learning, but identity-based, affective, and pedagogical resources that can strengthen participation, linguistic security, and intercultural recognition. Therefore, the study proposes understanding the situated bilingual learning environment as a space for linguistic justice, cultural memory, and the resignification of English through students' lived experiences.