Comprensiones de Bilingüismo e Interculturalidad desde la Voz de los Docentes: Miradas Coloniales y Decoloniales

Abstract

This research project emerges in an increasingly interconnected world, where foreign language teaching has gone beyond the mere acquisition of linguistic skills, incorporating reflections on bilingualism and interculturality. In Colombia, a country with vast cultural and linguistic richness, including 68 native languages spoken by approximately 850,000 people from Indigenous, Afro-descendant, Raizal, and Rrom communities, these phenomena are essential to understanding students’ identity and education. From a critical perspective, the project aims to analyze the visions and understandings that foreign language teachers at the lower and upper secondary education levels in Bogotá, Tunja, and Yopal have regarding bilingualism and interculturality, in light of colonial and decolonial theories. It emphasizes the importance of rethinking identities from a binary position of colonialism, which involves both the colonizer and the colonized. The study adopts a qualitative research approach and a case study design, using interviews and surveys for data collection, in compliance with Law 1581 of 2012 on personal data protection. The project is considered feasible due to the availability of human and economic resources for materials design, data collection, and mobility. Moreover, it contributes to the research line on bilingualism within the Master’s in Bilingual Learning Environments at Universidad Santo Tomás.