@article{Nieto-Gómez_Clavijo-Olarte_2020, title={Situating Local Literacies at the core of ELT Curriculum in Higher Education}, volume={21}, url={https://latinjournalorg.biteca.online/index.php/gist/article/view/830}, DOI={10.26817/16925777.830}, abstractNote={<p style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 35.4pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 8.0pt 0cm;"><span style="color: black; background: white;">This qualitative interpretive study carried out with four EFL teachers in an EAP course at a private university in Bogotá, Colombia addresses </span><span style="color: black;">the disconnection that exists between curricular content and the life of students in education<span style="background: white;">. From our </span>understanding of literacy as a sociocultural practice we proposed a pedagogy that immersed teachers and students in <span style="background: white;">community explorations to study local issues </span>informed by different disciplines. <span style="background: white;">Therefore, this study describes the ways teachers designed and implemented curriculum using community assets (Kretzmann & McKnight, 2003) to develop student agency. The issues addressed by students in their inquiries included improving civic practices in the cycling route; fostering river preservation; environmental issues with garbage in Bogotá; and possibilities to access higher education for young populations in Colombia.  Using a grounded theory approach, </span>we collected and analyzed data from class discussions, curricular units, semi-structured interviews and class observation. Findings reveal that community explorations fostered students’ agency towards studying social issues and <span style="background: white;">promoted the construction of context-embedded opportunities for learning using students’ realities and topics of local relevance (Canagarajah 2005). The target language was used to reflect, pose problems,</span> produce texts<span style="background: white;"> and participate in social reflections within an academic environment. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8.0pt 0cm;"> </p>}, journal={GIST – Education and Learning Research Journal}, author={Nieto-Gómez, Yuly Andrea and Clavijo-Olarte, Amparo}, year={2020}, month={Dec.}, pages={26–46} }