Teachers’ Experience: TEFL at Rural Elementary School in Cota, a Case study.

Abstract

The research topic of this paper was describing the teaching experiences of English as a foreign language (TEFL hereinafter) of five teachers from an elementary rural school. The teachers’ experience was located in the Rural School el Abra in the municipality of Cota in the department of Cundinamarca. This paper describes TEFL under recent language teaching methodologies in Colombia, particularly in the rural context. As a result, the discussion is limited to the way in which learning is constructed and contrasted in a subsequent analysis within the umbrella of the elements of competencies and performance that play a role within pedagogical practice. The epistemological approach was framed in the qualitative paradigm, since it sought to make a description of the experience, and was guided by the methodological design of the case study. A semi-structured interview, questionnaire and a documentary review of national and local bilingualism policies were the instruments used to collect the data. Two categories of analysis emerged from the findings: first, knowledge evidence in teachers’ experiences teaching EFL, and second, experience understood as the expertise to put disciplinary knowledge into practice. The analysis of the results allowed symbolic reconstruction and revealed a reality that does not generalize but portrays the limitations and challenges of TEFL in rural public schools.