These are some snippets of our conversations while awaking around the Peace Walls area in Belfast in the Fall of 2023.

Shankill Road Paseo

Falls Road Paseo

This article presents a framework for decolonizing language teaching and research called "Ontoepistemological Oneness for Teaching and Research" (OTR). This framework, developed through ethnographic research in a marginalized Colombian English classroom, incorporates Indigenous concepts of "Buen Vivir" and "Sentipensar" to promote a holistic approach to education that emphasizes interconnectedness, community, and social justice. The author, Yecid Ortega, uses his own experiences as a mestizo Colombian and Canadian citizen to advocate for a more humanizing pedagogy that counters neoliberal narratives and empowers teachers and students to become agents of change in their communities.

Onward to Pquyquy - AI Podcast E1

This episode is a dialogue from Yecid Ortega's chapter, Sparking the Flame Within. Here, his personal journey as a first-generation graduate student from a marginalized community in Bogotá, Colombia, who immigrated to North America and pursued a PhD in language education is described. The episode examines the challenges and triumphs of his academic path, emphasizing the importance of social justice in education and the transformative power of collaborative research.

Sparking - AI Podcast E2

This AI podcast episode comes from my book chapter titled "Trans[cultura]linguación: An Intercultural Approach to the Revitalization of Indigenous Languages,". It focuses on the revitalization of the Quechua language, a language spoken by many Indigenous people in South America, through a pedagogical approach called "Trans[cultura]linguación." This approach emphasizes learning languages in a way that prioritizes cultural understanding, encouraging students to connect with the culture behind the language. The chapter highlights the Quechua Collective, a group dedicated to revitalizing the Quechua language, and their methods for teaching Quechua in both online and in-person settings. The author, who was involved with the Quechua Collective, uses his observations of the group's teaching practices to advocate for a critical, intercultural, and plurilingual approach to language education, ultimately arguing that this approach can help combat the colonial legacy of language teaching and contribute to the revitalization of Indigenous languages.

Transculturalinguacion - AI Podcast E3

Late capitalism and the commodification of English
in Colombia:  The shaping of language education policy and practice

More information here:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003155263-12/late-capitalism-commodification-english-colombia-yecid-ortega

Late Capitalism - AI Podcast E4

This episode from a chapter of Plurilingual Pedagogies explores the effectiveness of the Awakening to Languages (AtL) approach in early childhood education. The authors argue that this approach, which encourages exposure to a range of languages and cultures in the classroom, can foster children's curiosity for languages, cultural awareness, and linguistic skills. They provide evidence from two research projects conducted in Portugal and in the United States, Canada, and Colombia to support their claims. The authors conclude that while AtL is gaining traction in some educational contexts, there is a need for more widespread adoption and support, particularly in developing curriculum policies that explicitly acknowledge and promote the benefits of plurilingual pedagogy.