EFL Pre-Service & In-Service Teachers as Agents of Change: Enhancing Social Justice Practices in a Colombian Public University

Abstract

As a critical-Colombian scholar, I read the reality of my country with an urgent need to act and build bridges between communities and academia. I discuss how 2016 peace-agreements and 2018 presidential-elections marked an important historical period for Colombia. I examine the relationship between neoliberalism and educational policies to further discuss why social justice education matters in Colombia. I introduce the roots, premises, and stages of the “Pedagogy of Possibilities” where social justice constitutes an individual and collective act to become a door of possibilities to let others be and become. I explain how a social-justice-oriented syllabus impacted EFL pre-service teachers’ identity construction.