Abstract
This paper problematizes the meaning of subjectivity constructed by Colombian English Teachers in response to a National Bilingual Program and its system of reason to produce English teachers’ identity and promote bilingual education. The double-side character of subjection/subjectification (Foucault, 1982) is used to analyze English teachers’ work of the self and contestarian/resistance practices to affirm themselves as researchers and critical thinkers but also to claim recognition as educators who produce relevant and situated knowledge. Historical Discourse Analysis, through archeological procedures (Foucault, 1972) to trace back English teachers’ discursive and non-discursive practices, were key to unveiling how teachers think of themselves as English teachers, oppose policies and respond to dominant discourses in relation to English teaching. More than 100 English teachers’ academic publications were revised and confronted with normalized discourses circulating in political programs, print media and experts’ documents. Findings contribute to EFL teachers’ understanding of their own struggles and the role of their resistance practices to affirm their subjectivities.
Highlights
After 15 years of the implementation in Colombia (South America) of the National Bilingual Program much has been said about its impact in terms of success or failure
This research views the relation of subjectivity and policies through several lenses: it shows the ways in which conceptions of language policies in relation to bilingualism served to produce a type of English Language Teacher who is a mere technician to fulfill practices of marketing; it brings to the surface power-knowledge confronting forces between dominance and resistance discourses in ELT education; and it seeks to understand the struggles of English Language teachers to contest and dismantle a system of reasoning that diminishes them and attempts to steal their conditions of possibility to think, act and be different
Graphics presented earlier on mapped the terrain of emerging statements in which reiteration, co-occurrence and repetition within a type of rationalization in which English was cemented as the language for bilingualism in Colombia deviated from a mode of bilingualism comprehension and rejected any other mode of relating to foreign or local languages to promote one’s identity
Summary
After 15 years of the implementation in Colombia (South America) of the National Bilingual Program much has been said about its impact in terms of success or failure. The common ground to argue either in favor or against it uses statistics reports to compare progress, economic reports to value budget investment and discursive practices intertwined with ideas of productivity and competitiveness as measures of social efficacy Within these reports English teachers are reduced to figures to indicate their English Language Level according to the Common European Framework (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) or the numbers of teachers benefiting in training programs, but little is known about English Teachers’ struggles, regarding the effects of the National Bilingual Program promotion in the ways they have been constructed and perceived by society in general. The revision of these political and educational programs introduced English as a reason of marketing in a particular period in the history of Colombian society, where English teachers must cooperate by obeying the national policies and experts’ recommendations on language competence, promoting their identity as certified teachers willing to be tested through international texts
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