Este es un estudio de investigación-acción dirigido a mejorar las habilidades de lectura a través de la aplicación de la narración de cuentos entre los estudiantes de décimo grado en una escuela pública en Loja, Ecuador. Una muestra de conveniencia de 29 estudiantes, 17 mujeres y 12 varones, participaron en el estudio durante 10 semanas con 40 horas de instrucción. Para alcanzar el objetivo del estudio, se utilizó un pretest y un postest elaborados por el investigador, un cuestionario y notas de campo para recoger datos cuantitativos y cualitativos. La prueba incluía cinco preguntas sobre los componentes de la lectura: fonética, conciencia fonémica, vocabulario, fluidez y comprensión. Se administró un cuestionario de tipo mixto para descubrir las percepciones de los alumnos sobre los elementos de la narración, como los personajes, el escenario, la trama, el conflicto, la solución y el punto de vista. Las diferencias entre el pretest y el postest indicaron que los alumnos aumentaron significativamente sus destrezas lectoras. Además, el cuestionario y las notas de campo revelaron que la narración de cuentos mejoraba las habilidades lectoras de los alumnos porque se implicaban en las historias, que a la vez captaban su interés y entusiasmo por seguir leyendo.

The present research had as main objective to improve the reading comprehension through lesson study among tenth-grade students at a public school in the city of Loja during 2021-2022 school year. This skill is considered the most important because learners can obtain lexical knowledge and general information from written texts. Furthermore, this research used a quasi-experimental design with a mixed method approach in order to gather quantitative (scores) and qualitative (perceptions) data through the use of a pretest and posttest, as well as a questionnaire and field notes. The data analyzed demonstrated that students significantly improved (p ≤ 0.05) their reading comprehension after the application of the lesson study model and helped pre-service teachers develop professionally in their field. It was concluded that the lesson study model impacted students’ reading comprehension, mostly in the aspects of skimming and scanning, and that students found the strategies applied as relevant for their learning process. In addition, this model helped pre-service teachers to improve the creation of relevant lesson plans and to successfully conduct a class.

This research aims to analyze English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pre-service teachers’ perceptions regarding the didactic component of pronunciation of English fricative phonemes [ð] and [θ]. The participants under study were 93 EFL pre-service teachers from two universities that belong to the public and the private sector in southern Ecuador. An exploratory mixedmethod design involving the administration of an online questionnaire, a diagnostic test and a follow-up interview were used. The results reveal that erroneous pronunciation of pre-service teachers is related especially to the phonetic segments of the English language that do not exist in the repertoire of Ecuadorian Spanish, especially dental fricatives. It was observed that as far as the phoneme th moves from the initial position towards the middle or final positions, the pronunciation gets even inaccurate. This means that Ecuadorian Spanish speakers have a tendency to pronounce the fricative phonemes in the initial position better.

This study was aimed to improve the EFL descriptive writing skills through RAFT (Role, Audience, Topic, Format) strategy among eighth-year students at a public school in the city of Loja, Ecuador during the 2021 - 2022 school year. In order to carry out this research, a mixed method was used which combines quantitative and qualitative data. For quantitative data, one group pretest-posttest design was applied in order to know the students’ knowledge before and after the treatment. On the other hand, for qualitative data, questionnaires were administered with the purpose of noticing the students’ perceptions regarding to RAFT strategy. The results showed that there was a significant difference (p≤0,05) before and after the treatment which demonstrated that students had a relevant improvement in the descriptive texts aspects such as identification of the phenomena, vocabulary, grammar patterns and mechanics. Additionally, it could be evidenced that RAFT strategy developed their critical thinking skills (imagination, curiosity and research skills) and trigger their interest due to its aspects flexibility (Role, Audience, Format, Topic). It was concluded that RAFT strategy improved students’ descriptive texts writing performance as well as activated the students’ imagination, interest and curiosity to develop the RAFT assignments.

This study aims to improve the pronunciation of -ed endings of regular verbs among 35 ninth-graders through the implementation of lesson study at a public school in the city of Loja, Ecuador during the 2021-2022 school year. This study employed a mixed method with a quasi-experimental design. Data were collected through a pretest and posttest, a qudestionnaire, and field notes which were registered by the researcher as a participant observer and three collaborators as non-participant observers. After an eight-week period of time, results demonstrated that lesson study helped ninth-graders to improve their pronunciation knowledge related to -ed ending sounds (/d/, /t/, /id/) as they moved from ineffective or partially effective pronunciation to good pronunciation.      Additionally, among the four strategies used for pronunciation instruction, students expressed that “songs” were the most effective for their pronunciation improvement. Furthermore, it was beneficial for the researcher as it contributed to his openness to reflect upon his collaborators’ observations, which helped him to develop more effective lesson plans.