Maestría en Enseñanza y Aprendizaje de las Lenguas Extranjeras · 2025

Interculturality and Its Assessment in a Teacher Education Program: Understandings and Practices

Resumen

The exploration of culture(s) in the foreign language classroom has gained ground in Colombia. Teacher education programs have assumed the challenge of adopting perspectives that allow teacher educators to address both languages and cultures, and provide pre-service teachers with possibilities to deal with this intersection whose exploration is not detached from political agendas. Therefore, interculturality has become a term which raises curiosity and distrust in the field, and critical perspectives of the issue have been implemented in teacher education programs with the purpose of unveiling the specific power relationships that shape social interactions, and transforming them. This implementation has led to concerns regarding its integration in the general assessment that takes place in the classroom. In general terms, few studies have focused on the way interculturality and its assessment from those critical perspectives are being addressed in teacher education programs. The purpose of this study is to explore how two teacher educators understand and practice interculturality and its assessment in a teacher education program in Medellín-Colombia. To achieve this purpose, class observations, document analysis of institutional documents, course syllabi, class materials, and assessment instruments as well as interviews with the two teacher educators and some pre-service teachers were carried out. These data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings reveal that teacher educators understand interculturality as pre-service teachers’ perspectives, their relationship with others’, local realities and identities. The class materials and activities reflected this understanding. Teacher educators address both interculturality and language instruction more comprehensively through written tasks. In this respect, interculturality was developed as linked to the exploration of identities and interactions in local contexts and their transformation. Regarding assessment of interculturality, the institutional documents did not explicitly address it. The teacher educators’ practices of assessment somewhat seem to be consistent with their understandings and their general practices, except for their teacher-centered summative and formative assessment of interculturality. This suggests that the teacher education program needs to address and make the intersection between interculturality and assessment explicit, and supports the teacher educators’ work.

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