Due to the need of decentering language learners' conceptions and practices of "othering" against the target culture, it has become necessary to help them grow in critical cultural understanding and positive appreciation towards the richness of difference and plurality, as a transversal dimension of their intercultural competence. Thus, this paper seeks to summarize the literature on the notion of othering and its pedagogical possibilities to promote critical cultural awareness raising in the language classroom. It initially presents some theoretical contributions on the concepts of the "Other" and the "Self" and its dialectical relation, and later, it proposes four pedagogical tools that could enable learners to achieve the already mentioned objective. Key words:Critical cultural awareness, language learning, othering, pedagogical tools, the Other and the Self.Debido a la necesidad de descentrar las concepciones y prácticas de otredad que los estudiantes de lengua poseen hacia la cultura meta, se ha hecho necesario ayudarlos a crecer en su comprensión crítico cultural y valoración positiva de la diferencia y la pluralidad, como una dimensión transversal de la competencia intercultural. Por lo tanto, este artículo pretende resumir la literatura sobre la noción de otredad y sus posibilidades pedagógicas para promover la conciencia crítico cultural en el aula de lenguas. Inicialmente se presentan algunas aportaciones teóricas sobre los conceptos del "Otro" y el "Yo" y su relación dialéc-tica, y más tarde, se proponen cuatro herramientas pedagógicas que podrían permitir a los estudiantes alcanzar el objetivo ya propuesto.Palabras clave: aprendizaje de una lengua, conciencia crítica intercultural, el Otro y el Yo, herramientas pedagógicas, otredad.

The purpose of the present paper is to offer a state-of-the-art review on the topic of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and its theoretical and practical implications on the field of language education, being the former widely recognized due to its potentiality to encourage both reflection and action for the participants involved. Recent empirical studies were located and thoroughly reviewed, which shed light on the three most researched areas including text analysis and literacy intervention, classroom discourse, and the language teaching and learning processes. As a final remark and taking into account the literature analysis, some prospective studies are briefly proposed.

As a result of the rapid development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the growing interest in Internet-based tools for language classroom, it has become a pressing need for educators to locate, evaluate and select the most appropriate language-learning digital resources that foster more communicative and meaningful learning processes. Hence, this paper describes a mixed research project that, on the first hand, aimed at proposing a Checklist for evaluating language websites built on the principles of the Communicative Approach, and on the second hand, sought to strengthen the teachers’ Knowing-how-to-do skill as part of their digital competence. To achieve these goals, a four-phase research procedure was followed that included reviewing relevant literature and administering qualitative and quantitative research methods to participants (i.e., language teachers, an expert in the Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) field and a college professor) in order to gain insights into problematic issues and, thereafter, to contribute to the creation and validation of the Checklist model and the Study Guide. The findings revealed that: (a) evaluating language websites leads to the enhancement of the teachers’ practical skills and their knowledge of the technological language; and (b) having an assessment instrument allows educators to choose the materials that best meet their communicative teaching purposes.

The emergence of Indigenous poetry to the public domain has represented a milestone in their struggle to voice their communities' past and present experiences despite the ongoing ostracizing discourses from societies as the ones residing in Indo-America. In this sense, the present paper will offer an analysis of selected poetry by the Colombian indigenous poet Fredy Chikangana in the light of the transitivity system informed by the Systemic Functional Linguistics theory to unveil their experiential meaning construal. To attain this goal, a descriptive quantitative and qualitative research method approach was applied through which the different process types, participants, and circumstances arising from the corpus were systematically identified, calculated, and analyzed. Findings indicated that among the six transitivity process types, the material processes (47%) dominated his poems, followed by the relational realizations (27%) whereas the verbal, behavioral, existential, and mental processes were relatively low altogether, representing an overall occurrence of 26%. This reveals that the author’s primary goal was to employ poetry as an agentive act of resistance that originated from the context of the situation in which his Yanakuna community has been and is immersed.

Considered as the universal language, music has been historically a means of communication and personal expression about the inner and outer world of its creator, it is present in almost every social activity of human beings as in the habitual religious celebration of Christmas across the largely Catholic countries. Therefore, the present paper will provide a descriptive text analysis of ten traditional Latin American Christmas folk songs on the base of the transitivity system informed by the Hallidayan Systemic Functional Linguistics theory. To reach this goal, both a quantitative and qualitative research method approach was applied. Findings indicated that among the six analyzed transitivity process types, the material processes (32%) dominate the construal of the musical pieces, followed by the mental (23%), behavioral (18%), and relational realizations (13%) whereas the verbal and existential processes are relatively low all together representing an overall frequency of 14%. This reveals the singers’ attempt to represent the Christmas season as a nostalgic time leap, an immediate enjoyment, and a rewarding exchange.