La interculturalidad crítica en los programas de formación inicial de docentes de lengua extranjeras en el contexto colombiano contemporáneo

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation describes an exploration of ways in which critical interculturality, as a theoretical decolonial position (Maldonado-Torres, 2010; Mignolo, 2005a, 2005b; 2007; 2010; but mainly, Walsh, 2005; 2007; 2009), can support initial foreign language teacher education ontologically and epistemologically. For this qualitative critical research (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2012; Steinberg, 2015), data were collected through interviews with teacher educators from national Licenciatura programs and with the representative of teacher education from Colombia Bilingüe at the moment of the study; discussion groups were undertaken with students of one Licenciatura program, after having made a pedagogical intervention; lastly, documents related to foreign language teacher education at the political and institutional level were analyzed. Data analysis indicates the existence of six discursive tensions in foreign language teacher education: being instructor or educator, preference for a native or non-native teacher, deficitarian image of language teachers as opposed to an ideal image, instrumental or cognitive and intercultural purposes for learning a language, emphasis on disciplinary knowledge or diverse knowledges, and division or integration between theory and practice. From these tensions, the criteria proposed for initial language teacher education based on critical interculturality are derived.