This article elaborates a theoretical reflection upon critical interculturality as a tool for decolonial pedagogy, which needs to be explored in initial language teacher education programs as a means to counteract the increasing emphasis on the instrumental nature of the field caused by a limited view of the meaning of professional development. For this purpose, the text addresses, first, the theoretical developments of the decolonial turn; secondly, it discusses the notion of critical interculturality; and finally, it presents a reflection on the links between critical interculturality, decolonial pedagogy, and a vision of teacher education as a dynamics of personal development. The text concludes by explaining the potential of critical interculturality as a point of intersection for transgressive pedagogies, whose main feature is recognizing and making subjectivities visible. The article is part of an ongoing research on initial language teacher development programs currently being carried out within the framework of the Ph.D. in Education at Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino in Bogotá, Colombia.Keywords: decolonial pedagogy, critical interculturality, initial language teacher development programs ResumenEl presente artículo tiene por fin presentar una reflexión teórica acerca de la interculturalidad crítica como herramienta de la pedagogía decolonial para ser explorada en los programas de formación inicial de docentes de lenguas como una manera de contrarrestar la cada vez mayor instrumentalización del campo causada por una visión limitada de lo que constituye el desarrollo profesional. Para este propósito, el texto trata los desarrollos teóricos del giro decolonial; a continuación, discute la noción de interculturalidad crítica, y finalmente, presenta los vínculos entre la interculturalidad crítica, la pedagogía decolonial y una visión de la formación de docentes como la dinámica de un desarrollo personal. El texto concluye con una explicación del potencial de la interculturalidad crítica como una intersección de pedagogías transgresoras fundamentadas en el reconocimiento y la visibilización de subjetividades. El artículo hace parte de una investigación en curso acerca de los programas de licenciatura en lenguas modernas, que se está llevando a cabo dentro del marco del Doctorado en Educación de la Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino en Bogotá, Colombia. Critical Interculturality. A Path for Pre-service ELT TeachersInterculturalidad crítica. Un camino para profesores de inglés en formación Interculturalité critique. Une voie pour des professeurs d' anglais en formation

This article shares a reflection based on the relations found between the partial findings of two ongoing projects in a BA program in bilingual education. The first study is named Critical Interculturality in Initial Language Teacher Education Programs whose partial data were obtained through interviews with four expert professors of Licensure programs across Colombia. The second project is Estado del Arte de los Trabajos de Grado 2009, which involved an inventory of the theses done by students as graduation requirements for the BA program. Based on these data, the article urges a re-assessment of criticality in research at the undergraduate level by problematizing the hegemonization of action research, the instrumentalization of language and research, and the subalternity for those being researched.Key words: Action research, critical theory, decolonial option, research in English language teaching, undergraduate programs.Este artículo es una reflexión acerca de las relaciones entre los hallazgos parciales de dos investigaciones en curso en una licenciatura en educación bilingüe. En el primer estudio, La interculturalidad crítica en los programas de formación inicial de docentes de lenguas extranjeras, parte de los datos surgieron de entrevistas con cinco profesores expertos de licenciaturas de distintas zonas de Colombia. El segundo, Estado del arte de los trabajos de grado 2009 -2016, es un inventario de las tesis desarrolladas como requisito HOW Vol. 25, No. 1, January/June 2018, ISSN 0120-5927. Bogotá, Colombia. Pages: 174-193 175 Revisiting the Need for Critical Research in Undergraduate Colombian English Language Teaching de grado para la licenciatura en educación bilingüe. El artículo insta a una re-evaluación de la criticidad en la investigación en los pregrados en enseñanza de inglés al problematizar la hegemonización e instrumentalización del método de investigación-acción y la subalternización de los investigados.Palabras clave: investigación-acción, investigación en pregrados en enseñanza de inglés, opción decolonial, teoría crítica. IntroductionThe purpose of this article is to share a reflection exercise emerging from a comparison between two sets of data obtained from two on-going research projects in a BA program in bilingual education. The first set was obtained from a group of four expert professors from licensure programs across Colombia interviewed for a doctoral project entitled Critical Interculturality in Initial Language Teacher Education Programs. The second set was obtained from Estado del Arte de los Trabajos de Grado 2009, which accounted for the theses developed by students in the BA program in bilingual education. This paper urges a reassessment of critical approaches to research in the field of English language teaching (ELT) in undergraduate programs in Colombia to better respond to the current situation of the world and the country, to national language policies, and to the kind of research most commonly promoted in teacher education programs at undergraduate levels. Langua...

Colombian English Language Teaching (ELT) is experiencing a paradigmatic change guided by the decolonial turn. This turn has enriched the debate about the implementation of a bilingual policy in Colombia, its impact on languages otherthan English, the purposes of learning English in the country, and English teacher practices and identities. This article shares the results of a critical ethnography that collected data from students and teacher educators from elt preparation programs and institutional and legal documents. Results indicate that, in Colombian elt, there are six discursive tensions representing coloniality. These are (a) English teachers as instructors or as educators; (b) native or non-native English speakers; (c) poor image of foreign language teachers as opposed to an idealized language teacher; (d) instrumental or cognitive and intercultural purposes for learning English; (e) emphasis on disciplinary knowledge or on interdisciplinary knowledge; and (f ) division or integration between theory and practice. To counter these tensions, a set of criteria are proposed. These criteria are: (a) elt preparation graduates are professionals in language pedagogy; (b) they are multilingual educated teachers; (c) they are well-rounded professional educators; (d) English is a means of recognizing diversity; (e) elt preparation programs embrace interdisciplinarity as a decolonizing option; and (f ) ELT preparation programs promote praxis. To conclude, the criteria proposed aim to shift initial language teacher education from an instrumental vision to a reflexive one, considering what is being learned, how, with whom, in what contexts, and the reasons that justify it.

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