Nurturing language teacher education in Colombia from a multilingual perspective

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the concept of multilingualism from a critical perspective and we analyze its relevance to the field of language teacher education in Colombia. The Colombian National Bilingual Program emphasizes English as the almost unique foreign language taught at school, making it difficult to learn other foreign languages and underestimating the role and status of first languages and regional languages. A multilingual perspective would seem appropriate for addressing the educational, social, and political issues related to our linguistic and cultural diversity. We situate this perspective within the areas of sociolinguistics, language policy, second language acquisition, and applied linguistics. We also analyze the extent to which the multilingual perspective is included in pre-service and in-service teaching preparation and discuss implications for language teacher education in Colombia, professional development, and language policy. A multilingual view may help to foster curricular reorientation of language education programs, in order to meet the real needs and specificities of the contexts and communities to ensure equity and social change.