EFL teachers’ Positioning about Functional Diversity: a ...

1 EFL teachers’ Positioning about Functional Diversity

EFL teachers’ Positioning about Functional Diversity: a Narrative Study

Laura Camila Villarreal Buitrago

Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas

School of Science and Education

The Master’s Program in Applied Linguistics in the Teaching of English as a Foreign

Language

Bogotá, D.C., Colombia

2018


EFL teachers’ Positioning about Functional Diversity: a Narrative Study

Laura Camila Villarreal Buitrago

Thesis Director: Pilar Mendez Rivera Ph.D.

A thesis submitted as a requirement to obtain the degree of M.A. in Applied Linguistics to the

Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas

School of Science and Education

The Master’s Program in Applied Linguistics in the Teaching of English as a Foreign

Language

Bogotá, D.C., Colombia

2018


Note of acceptance:

Thesis Director: Pilar Mendez Rivera, Ph.D.

Jury: Yeraldine Aldana, M.A.

Jury: Camilo Enrique Díaz, Ph.D.


Acuerdo 19 de 1988 del Consejo Superior Universitario.

Artículo 177: “La Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas no será responsable por las

ideas expuestas en esta tesis”.


Acknowledgements

I want to thank to all people who have supported me during this hard but meaningful process.

As a first instance I am grateful with all masters’ program staff who has been important in my

growth as a professional and as a human being; Professor Álvaro Quintero Polo who has been my

example to follow during more than five years, also to the secretary Zoraida Revelo who fostered

me to study my Master three years ago. As a second part I have my sincere esteem to Pilar

Méndez who believed in who I am, teaching me to research with her unique, homely and humble

personality, helping me to seem, research as something natural, real and human. As a third part I

want to thank my family who listened to me when I was worried, stressed and anxious: to my

sister who was a mini-tutor and to my brother who was attending what I could need, but

especially I want to acknowledge my mom who taught me to love functional diversity with her

own life experience and her courage to assume what people call disability. As a final part I thank

my evaluators and the participants who have offered themselves to participate in this study

sacrificing their time to read this proposal, to write their narratives or to listen to the evolution

and growth of this research.

To my mom: my first and most important sensitizer of Functional diversity.


Abstract

This study explores the reasoning and positioning of teachers who face Functionally

Diverse (FD) students in their regular English classrooms. Positioning theory is key to understand

the reasoning processes that teachers used to think of themselves when were invited to reflect

upon their relations to functional diverse students. Throughout this study, teachers were exposed

to write their own autobiographies with the main focus of generating reflection about their daily

practices, dilemmas and thoughts that have not been seen as important or necessary.

Autobiographies unveiled teachers’ struggles in their reasoning to refer and relate to functional

diverse kids and their teaching practices. The collected data showed difficulties in the teachers’

expressions about their own brawls, mainly, factors such as: gaps in their teacher preparation

feelings of frustration and fear, commitment and uncertainties about teaching and learning,

special and differentiated treatment, lacks of interest. Normalizing and indifference practices,

along with the use of an exclusionary language. Also memo writing ideas collected during

participatory observation sessions exposed normalizing and indifference practices, the use of an

exclusionary language, derision and jokes involving disabilities. This study is a contribution to

The English foreign Language (EFL) field, particularly to the relation identity-language-teaching

to Functional Diverse students (FDs) as an unexplored angle to shed light to teachers’ reasoning

and positioning but also teachers’ struggles to teach in this scenarios.

Key words: Functional diversity, teachers’ positioning, teachers’ reasoning, struggles,

special education.


Table of Content

Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 6

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 10

It is Functional Diversity, not Special Needs .......................................................................... 12

Applied Linguistics Dimensions Where this Study is Relevant: .............................................. 14

Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................... 15

Inclusion vs Integration: ......................................................................................................... 16

Literature Review ...................................................................................................................... 18

Functional Diversity and its understandings in ESL and EFL classrooms ............................... 20

Teachers’ Positioning and Their FD Students ......................................................................... 22

The autobiographical self ....................................................................................................... 25

The meaning of telling and sharing stories to explore identities .............................................. 26

Research Design ........................................................................................................................ 28

Research Question ................................................................................................................. 29

Objectives .............................................................................................................................. 29

Setting ................................................................................................................................... 31

Profile of Participants............................................................................................................. 32

Role of Researcher ................................................................................................................. 33

Ethical considerations ............................................................................................................ 33

Data Analysis and Research Findings ........................................................................................ 35

Data Collection and Organization........................................................................................... 35

Narrative Inquiry: the Autobiographic Experience ................................................................. 37

Frida’s Narratives: “Facing a White Board that Was Myself”: Knowing the Reality of

Inclusion. ........................................................................................................................... 39


Pocahontas’ narratives: “I'm very interested in helping” Commitment among a Social

Change ............................................................................................................................... 42

Jafar’s Narratives................................................................................................................ 46

Resolution or Coda: ............................................................................................................ 49

Categories and Discussion ......................................................................................................... 58

Struggles of the self (Teachers’ emotions) .......................................................................... 59

Category One: Teachers Positioning Themselves as Novice in Functional Diversity Practices 59

Deficiencies in the Curriculum of Teachers’ Bachelor Programs ........................................ 60

Struggles of the Self (Teachers’ Emotions) ......................................................................... 61

Category two: Students need a differentiated treatment .......................................................... 62

Educational Integration....................................................................................................... 63

Educational Inclusion ......................................................................................................... 63

Vocabulary Use to Refer FD Students .................................................................................... 64

Category Three: Actors of Change vs Passive Committed Teachers ....................................... 65

Frida and Pocahontas as Actresses of Change ..................................................................... 65

Hercules and Jafar as Passive Committed Teachers ............................................................ 66

Category four: Closeness to Functional Diversity Realities .................................................... 67

Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 67

Implications ............................................................................................................................... 73

References ................................................................................................................................. 74

Appendixes ............................................................................................................................... 79

Appendix A ........................................................................................................................... 79

Fridas’ Extracts ...................................................................................................................... 79

Appendix B ............................................................................................................................ 85

Pocahontas’ Extracts .............................................................................................................. 85


Appendix C ............................................................................................................................ 88

Hércules’ Extracts. ................................................................................................................. 88

Apendix D ............................................................................................................................. 92

Jafar’s extracts ....................................................................................................................... 92

Table of figures

Figure 1 Preceding phenomenon ................................................................................................ 18

Figure 2: Theory relation ........................................................................................................... 24

Figure 3 Positioning theory and its related concepts ……………………………………………22

Figure 4: Theory relation ........................................................................................................... 24

Figure 5 Processes of Narrative Inquiry ..................................................................................... 35

Figure 6 Data analysis ............................................................................................................... 49

Figure 7: Objectives diagram ..................................................................................................... 57

Figure 8: Teachers’ positioning: conclusions ............................................................................. 70

Table of charts

Table 1 Narrative analysis (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990) .......................................................... 38

Table 2 Participants’ names ...................................................................................................... 38

Table 3 Extracts analysis: Frida ................................................................................................. 50

Table 4 Extracts’ analysis: Pocahontas ...................................................................................... 52

Table 5 Extracts analysis: Hercules. ........................................................................................... 54

Table 6 Extracts analysis: Jafar .................................................................................................. 55

Table 7 Objectives’ chart ........................................................................................................... 56

Table 8 Categories’ relation with the research question and objectives....................................... 59

Table 9: Teachers’ ideas and beliefs: conclusions ...................................................................... 72


Introduction

This research work looks into teachers’ positioning when they have to teach functionally

diverse students. I started to hear different kinds of stories that were told by my colleagues at the

private institution where I work, these informal conversations woke up a desire in my

professional development trying to understand and comprehend different realities which were

closely related with inclusion and students with functional diversity. For that reason I decided to

reveal those talks in real and tangible stories that people could read to evidence these teachers’

voices and experiences, having as a main goal the characterization of those narratives into

reflective practices highlighting possible struggles and resistance practices in front of functional

diversity in regular classrooms, where students’ labels and its treatment have been noticed as

something negative in the institution; generating indeed, teachers’ worries, reservations,

accommodation and sometimes, apprehension into the language teaching practices (Talero,

2015). The study was conducted with the English team of the institution, understanding their

positions as reflecting practitioners to cope with diverse type of existing disabilities in the school.

Narrative inquiry as the research method focusses its attention on reflection as an

important tool to write narratives, specifically Autobiographies, with the power to help the

participant to understand real conditions that surround the pedagogical practice, carrying

processes of self-observation and possible changes to understand, differentiate and improve

teaching processes. This research process allowed the participants to get closer to reflective

spaces where their narratives constructed ideas about their situations in front of functionally


diverse students and the implications on lack of preparation about functional diversity, ignorance

of this topic and also, indifference or failure to intervene in regular classrooms.

As it is a narrative study, this thesis works as my own writing experience where I have my

voice as a participant too. The use of the first person allowed me to generate my own constructs

and ideas about this study which has been an important tool to grow up as teacher, researcher but

most important: as a human being, trying to sensitize the academic community to understand the

importance of inclusion and its correct management, defocusing the attention of students as a

problem to cope with and empowering teachers to change their realities of accommodation,

disinterest, fear or uncertainty about functional diverse kids.

The term Functional diversity is something no common to hear or to use in English

Teaching settings. Indeed, when I started to construct this research my own terminology was

charged of words like: Disability or special needs, something that unconsciously was generating

the exclusion and the rejection that I was trying to fight against, for that reason, the literature

introduced me to this new term that embraces a type of language that could allow people to

transform boundaries into bridge of correct communication. In that case, this functional diversity

term captivated me to start teaching people to understand millions of identities, characteristics

and circumstances which are not different, but diverse.

Having understood what was meant to do, this research work was a result of several

attempts that had been made to join education and diverse functionalities, that is why I encourage

the reader to follow all chapters carefully trying to understand the reality that I have exposed,

taking in mind that this kind of study is not so common in the EFL Colombian context, but it is

an effort to explore education in a broader relation to English practices, something that is still

hidden or unexplored. This narrative experience (as I decided to call it) follows the strictness and


validity of every research work. The reader will find the statement of the problem, the study

justification for the ELT field; then, here is going to be a discussion of theory that is going to be

covered by Harre’s positioning theory and it is going to be explain the process of data collection

and the data that I collect during a one-year process of research, showing process of self-analysis

and empowering.

Rationale

It is Functional Diversity, not Special Needs

As I previously mentioned in the introduction, I understand language as one of the main

focus of human behavior, for that reason I strongly believe that the way as I express myself

reveals my acts, feelings and thoughts. In this new era, inclusion is seen as a matter of importance

but there is still having problems in the recognition of people’s rights and opportunities; those

aspects go beyond the physical or psychological boundaries that society intents to make them

adopt and of course, the language that is used to refer this kind of population is generating more

exclusion, prejudices and segregation. Intending to change people’s perspectives and habits, I

propose to continue with the use of this term: “Functional diversity” created by Romañach (2005)

that expands peoples’ wings to understand that bad labels and names are no more than wrong

uses given by a blind society that is ignoring FD people and their abilities in any field.

The Importance of this Study

This study is important to cast light on teaching discursive practices that contribute to

perpetuate scenarios where language can be used to mark and label students. Vocabulary use also

plays an important role when teachers’ acts are being shaped and guided by the way as they


communicate, and also, teachers’ struggles and problematics can be reveal by the expression of

their own voices trough the construction and expression of their thoughts.

This study reveals a problematic that can be seen in different contexts where teachers

struggles are hidden, covered or unseen when trying to adapt to new trends or demands on

education. The construction of teachers’ identities has been an initial point of departure

understanding different kind of problematics upon them, especially in the construction of the new

positions they have to adopt as the inclusion of diverse kind of population. In other words, it is

commonly seen that there are different types of problematics in FD field when students are

included in regular classrooms (ONU, 2006), something that regularly is taken as a center of

study which is problematized from different social, biological and even organizational

perspectives. In this research study, the focus to pay attention is related to teachers’ acts, believes

and positions that are constructed based on their preparation and lives’ experiences,

understanding teachers’ acts not as something negative or even destructive, but also as

opportunities to improve inclusionary practices in Colombia, being those seen as a constantly

worked field.

I want to make people understand functional diversity and the role of teachers that results

more empowering of what is thought. Teachers have the possibility to decide, follow and

implement different strategies that without being planned result being meaningful for their

students. This is the reason why English teachers at this private institution are exposed to make

reflection about their practices inside the classroom, (Artiles & Ortiz, 2002) putting their voices

to be heard, analyzed and understood, inviting them to improve their regular practices, intending

to making them analyze their vocabulary use for diverse kids, the teaching methodologies that

surround their practices and their self-images towards functional diversity.


Applied Linguistics Dimensions Where this Study is Relevant

EFL teaching: It is important to make teachers understand the important role of education

that is sometimes reduced and limited by different unknown situations located in our

regular classrooms, our teaching proficiency is being also affected as Paneque and

Barbetta (2005, p.45) argue: “Teachers with a high sense of efficacy have a strong

conviction that they can influence student learning, even the learning of those students

who may be more challenging” for that reason, empowering teachers to know and

understand realities helps teachers to have stronger senses of efficacy and of course, better

process on students learning.

Colombian preparation in FD on bachelor programs: Nowadays, it is assumed that

English Teacher Education Programs prepare people to teach to diverse kinds of

population, but actually I have found that there is still a strong gap in the preparation of

teachers in functionally diverse realities, something that need to be implemented and

organized. Teacher who are prepared for any particularity in the classroom is able to ask a

better learning proficiency for all academic community.

Identity construction and teachers’ struggles: This narrative study tells important life’s

stories which were genuine and real, these participants put their own realities to exemplify

daily teaching and learning problematics that are unseen in our schools, for that reason,

teachers’ empowering results a central point to make teachers understand the importance

of their thoughts and feelings, making them be part of social changes that start by their

own daily lives.


Statement of the Problem

In the Institution where this study is conducted, English teachers have been exposed to

different realities, especially to the ones which deal with the recognition of deficiencies in the

students’ learning processes. The exposition to those students´ truths have built some teachers

attitudes and positioning which have revealed classrooms’ practices that segregate students with

functional diversity.

English teachers at a school in La Granja Neighborhood, Bogotá, have been hired to

show results in students command of English language, some teachers relate to functionally

diverse students recognizing them, some other prefer to ignoring them showing that the relation

with their students with Functional diversity has been taken as a difficult process to address;

these EFL teachers have argued to have struggles and internal fights (Méndez, 2017) that have

made them feel confused, lost and even nescient in the process of teaching English to FD

community. The problem comes up from a concrete practice:

Once in my school there was an informative chart in which special needs students were

incorporated. This was chart was created with the objective of making them visible, in

comparison to the rest of the regular students. The location of this chart was inside the teachers’

room where students were not allowed to enter. However, without having in mind the students’

curiosity, some of the kids entered the room, and reading the chart, he discovered the children

who were named as special ones. The days passed and nothing strange occurred in the school,

except to a student who did not want to do any homework, workshop, assignment or exam

because of the fact that he realized that he was a special and limited student. The previous student

was the kid who read the chart and found himself as part of it.


This previous experience made me reflect about the importance of language management

and its implications; the way as we manage our words reflects the way as we behave in different

scenarios (Harré, 1999), as it was shown in the previous example, teachers’ intentions to

understand and cope with FD kids were centered on the identification of students with learning

difficulties, something that got out of hands when students discovered that they were called

different or special. This practice is one more of those which are conducted in the school,

allowing me to identify the following factors:

Teachers were focused on helping students separating them as: special and non-

special.

Teachers did not know how to manage FD students’ realities.

There was a positive intention to manage FD practices but it generated a negative

effect it the students.

Teachers used to use labels to refer FD students generating on them ideas of limitation

and difference.

There were lacks in this topic preparation, something that revealed teachers’ needs to

emphasize in the management of inclusive language and inclusive practices.

Inclusion vs Integration:

Having in mind these previous ideas, I found as a problem the distinction between

Inclusion and integration in our daily practices as teachers. As a first part I found how teachers

included students in a classroom: they received them in the school sitting them in their sides

normalizing their conditions, ignoring their needs, rhythms and learning styles. Those teachers

graded FD students with the minimum acceptance’s number without planning or designing any


extra activity to apply to FD kids. As a divergent aspect, inclusion intended to work and look for

strategies that could help students with Functional diversity and mainstream students too. By the

contrary, some teachers demonstrated effort in order to make their students learn and feel equal

despite their diverse types of functionalities.

In my teaching job and as a researcher I could have the opportunity to maintain informal

talks about the processes of inclusion that I have mentioned in the previous paragraph, the

participants who were my colleagues in the institution argued to have difficulties when they

looked for strategies that could fix some of the gaps that made them feel insecure when the taught

FD students; arguing also that paying attention to this population represented division and

preferences among students. Also, some of the teachers told me that inclusion must not be part

of the educational system thanks to the inabilities that we have to prepare students with diverse

learning styles and functionalities; this idea was a remarkable aspect that showed some

accommodation practices in which teachers noticed FD students in their classrooms but they did

not work to access to their ways of learning.

Making a closing up to those teachers’ perspectives, I understood that their ideas and

beliefs about inclusion guided their styles of teaching. The teachers’ role is concerned to manage

different factors as the educational, cognitive, emotional and socio-behavioral needs of all

mainstream students. Most teachers argued the right to educate students with FD in mainstream

classrooms (Kavale & Rivalland, 2002). Indeed, there were many teachers who reported their

lacks of confidence when they were exposed to teach their own knowledge to ELLs with FD in

regular classrooms (Greaves, 2006).

To illustrate in a clear way the preceding phenomenon, the following graphic synthetizes

the relation of teachers’ positioning towards functional diversity practices and its implications to


teach English. This led me to explore that Inclusion process was conducted by committed

teachers who tried to have a good development of Functional diversity students and mainstream

students too; by the contrary, I evidenced that the processes of integration was conducted by

teachers who did not accept students with FD and just include them as another regular student.

Figure 1 Preceding phenomenon

(Own elaboration)

To conclude this section, I could highlight that some of the teachers’ beliefs guided their

behaviors and acts inside EFL classrooms, for that reason, I attempted to understand the way as

they saw themselves in the construction of their teaching practices when they faced FD students

and mainstream kids. The following chapters are going to support this teachers’ positioning and

also their beliefs; then, the construction of the research design is going to explain the organization

and planning of data collection in order to understand teachers’ ideas illustrated in their

narratives.

Literature Review

This research follows a socio-critical perspective which inspired me to read, analyze and

discuss Harré’s positioning theory (1999) in relation to Functional diversity practices. Following

this concept and its representations in ELT, I thought about this literature review as a constant

Inclusion practices

Teachers as actors of change

Integration practices

Teachers passive commitment


dialogue between my experience as a researcher and as a participant too, considering my

understandings of the research problem as something real that I faced as an English teacher. For

this reason, this chapter incorporates my own narrative in which I support my own constructs

with theory and concepts that enriched my process of learning and searching. In doing so, this

section problematizes teachers’ struggles when they faced functionally diverse students, and

more importantly, their constitution of self-as-teacher and the recognition of their identities in

relation to FDs. Based on the previous ideas, I suggested this organization sequence which

embraces my own perspective of theory and its dynamics in this specific context:

Figure 2 Positioning theory and its related concepts.

(Own elaboration)

Before the development the concepts, I am going to introduce my theory discussion with a

general panorama of Functional diversity in EFL classrooms, having in mind some short

examples from my own context. During the development of the study, I explained why I decided

to use the term Functional diversity and its importance for this research, in the consolidation of

this chapter, I would highlight again how difficult was to incorporate this new topic in EFL

scenarios, specifically here in Colombia.

Positioning theory (Harré,

1999)

Teachers' struggles and

identities

Functional diversity

The autobiographical

self


As a first instance, when I started to write this thesis work, all the terminology that I got

from literature was full of negative labels which referred FD students. There were also diverse

numbers of articles and books in which I found strong divisions between special and non-special

students, but also I found how the development of inclusion and EFL methodologies were

centered on students as the problem, ignoring the environment where those kids were. For this

reason, I am going to show who this phenomena is being seen in bilingual education as a general

view, then I am going to start introducing Harré’s positioning theory and its importance for EFL

classrooms too.

Functional Diversity and its understandings in ESL and EFL classrooms

Functional diversity is a new concept that has been applied in different fields with the

main purpose of clarifying the language reference of people with diverse conditions. The word

Disable has been strongly rejected by the inclusive society; as Corbalán (2014) argues, there are

some negative consequences that emerge from this word, generating not just obstructive

practices, but also representing a society that is not being able to adapt and accept diversity.

Corbalán also integrates the use of the correct language practice that is understood as a bridge of

knowledge and thinking; this represents the means as people integrate their language construction

in order to create different patterns of behavior and culture.

In the literature it is found the fact that people are still ignoring the term Functional

Diversity using instead negative tags to make reference to this population. Some of the most

common phrases are surrounding inabilities as a segregating adjective which creates barriers

among society, as examples of this idea, there is a big number of people searching on internet

phrases as the following: Bathrooms for handicapped person, school for Dysfunctional kids or

Mathematics for disable people, generating misunderstandings and wrong messages. Barking and


Dagenham (2001) have constructed a guidebook which explains in a detailed way the correct use

of language for Functional diverse people and their correct integration in language generation.

One of the main fact to think about is the challenge of changing paradigms and usual thoughts,

something that aims to reject discrimination; oppression and stereotypes; opening the acceptance

and correct inclusive acts that are needed not just on school environments, but also on the whole

life practices.

Arguing the importance of ESL- EFL classrooms and their development on FD, there are

different authors who consider important the development of abilities in students with different

kinds of conditions. It has been normal to define what disability is, having in mind social,

economic, cultural and diverse type of backgrounds that are also called as special needs (Bernal,

1991). In words of Garcia (1988) special needs are taken as a minority group that is also

presenting diverse types of referrals or misunderstandings about its nature, pretending to be taken

as something different, abnormal or sometimes timewasting to think of. However, the English

teaching field has been taking diverse problematics in terms of the diversity problems in students,

because of teachers’ lacks of understanding, preparation or even interest in associate learning

practices with learning disabilities, making in that way, labels, moral and judgments in the

treatment of FD, (Ortiz, Robertson, Wilkinson, Liu, & Kushner, 2011).

There is a big dichotomy that is sounded by the teachers’ reasoning: what English

teachers do to help their students to learn and also what English teachers do not develop to help

their students to learn. In this previous contrast there is also a big dilemma that comes from the

teachers’ inability to act, trying to make a big effort to cope with the different problematics that

relates inclusion.


I would like to talk about the regular experiences that I have in some meetings at the

schools where I have worked in, for example, the most obvious problem about how to grade the

students with special needs is the idea of how we as teachers undervalue the students’ capacities

making them lazy or disinterested, centering the idea of the Why do we have to make him pass the

subject when the student is able to bother and disturb the class?. He is able to do the things he

wants but in terms of learning is not possible to make him effort. There are other points of view

who certainly argue that the minimum effort they do has to be taken and value just because they

are special and their families are not prepared to help them.

Teachers’ Positioning and Their FD Students

I consider that having a specific position allows to identify different characteristics of

behavior, thinking and proceed, as it was previously mentioned, the positioning theory suggested

by Harré (1999) argues the importance of language and acts in the way as people place

themselves within their contexts, starting by the location of thinking and reflective practices as a

bridge to construct acts. Language is a resource for actions and remembering, referring also

personal and collective memories of past and present events. As this positioning concept takes

not only an individual but also a communal consciousness, the main theoretical base is taken

from Vygotsky’s order mental process principle that is centered on the cultural and social

development of the individual positioning the actor as a mediator of relationships and

interactions. These ideas introduce Harré’s discourse where language starts to increase at the

moment of having social interactions, in fact, this positioning theory studies the nature, formation

and influence of local systems and assumptions during interaction, in here, this theory constructs

the convections of speech and the actions in order to position the participant as a linguistic self,

organizing symbolic systems inside a social episode, this part means the necessity to analyze the


strength of the Illocutionary force and its social significance in which language conducts and

develops a big number of identities, allowing the participant to feel identified and located with

different characteristics of a social group or as an individual too.

Harré’s positioning theory enhances the importance of creating not just an individual

consciousness but also a collective one where the participant, in this case; the teacher could

identify his or her own position and in the same way, his or her identity towards Functional

diverse students at the institution. When teachers argue their own lives’ past events and how

those experiences have shaped and conditioned their attitudes concerning this population it is

evidenced how the language that they use locates the way as they act and think towards specific

inclusionary practices.

This previous understanding of positioning theory allowed me to comprehend some

emerged concepts (figure 2) which were key in this study to make a clear relationship among the

phenomena. These concepts were analyzed during observation when teachers were asked to write

their stories, in this case I observed that positioning could be divided into elementary aspects that

helped me to comprehend some of the teachers’ beliefs that appeared from their experiences with

functionally diverse students in their regular classrooms. Having this idea in mind, I could

generate the following composition of analysis:


Figure 3: Theory relation

Figure 4: Theory relation (Own elaboration)

This graph shows some of the actions, discursive and non-discursive practices of teachers

positioning. During the observation and some interviews I could observe teachers’ struggles and

difficulties when they interacted for the first time with FDS. This concept: struggles analyzed by

Méndez (2015), serves here to show a different perspective of teaching and its challenges, in

which some teachers’ discursive and non-discursive practices unveiled some infightings or

struggles of the self. When teachers acknowledged, combated against their own inabilities to act

in favor to inclusionary practices carried out by different schools where they had worked.

Social practices involved in oppression deal with something that goes beyond common

parameters, of what it is said, something that is not pretended to be similar, Gallagher and

Geurtsen (2012) call it Diversity. In this aspect is key to understand how different the teaching

The Importanceof:

Relations between language and thought and language and action.

(Harré, 1999)

Relation of theself and the other:

"relevant group, influenced by culture and history, and then in the mind of the individual".

(Vygotsky, 1978: 57):


communities are, for example, we cannot think to have an congested and an uniform population

but is seems that sometimes it is clear that we, as teachers, feel upset or frustrated when we do

not have brilliant students such as the one who acts as it is required or the one who has the

highest grades. In my experience, I have felt that I used to plan my classes to the student who was

able to follow what I explained, for the one who showed me more interest, or for the students

who were fast to catch the rules and the ones who liked English. From that experience, I could

understand that my lessons were planned to the people who did not required to much attention

and the rest of the students that in my concern were lazy or disinterest were not taken as a subject

to plan a lesson. This was because I thought they were not able to follow me, or even they did not

care.

The autobiographical self

The idea of recognizing the self-trough the construction on his social environment

captivated my attention for the design of this research. As Vygotsky (1978) has highlighted too

has highlighted too, the self is recognized inside a particular environment which is the in charge

of create his personality, beliefs, religion and thoughts, beyond this idea, there are important

factors which help to reveal the self and its construction where the struggles and identities are

constructed: Language angles, context, culture variety and also temporality. In this case, teachers

who are managing FD students in their classrooms, have experimented the influence of the

previous factors in their stories; those teachers’ identities and beliefs have been built during a

temporal space which have allowed them to have a specific vocabulary use and different acts in

regards functionally diverse kids.


For the previous reason, I strongly consider that teachers’ identity construction has been

influenced by internal and external factors which let them to orient their personalities in diverse

types of ways, as Sammut, Andreouli and Valsiner, (2015) argued:

The embodied self is singular, continuous and self-identical. Then there is the

autobiographical self, the hero or heroine of all kinds of stories. Research has shown how

widely the autobiographical selves of real people can differ from story to story.

This idea shows that teachers’ acts in relation to FD students is just a number of stories

which show human beings who lived and experimented real and particular experiences, in which

the judgment of their behaviors and acts cannot be rejected or isolated from diverse number of

realities which have conducted to act in different ways, for that reason, this autobiographical

study is going to be analyzed as a way to explore identities. In this case, the following section

will introduce the research method and designed in which the narrative process allowed

participants to take a reflective position in their own teaching practices.

The meaning of telling and sharing stories to explore identities

I understood the role of autobiographic narratives when the daily practices go beyond the

methods and techniques that are lived in classrooms. Comprehending what is behind procedures

is a key aspect in this project thanks to the big influence that previous, current and future

implications could act in the community’s life. In the case of teachers, Michael & Poynor

(2007) argue the importance of knowing their experiences because of the significant marks that

stories can have in their professional development. The stories that are still unforgettable for

people are commonly the ones that had a big impact in the narrator’s life:


Ve las narrativas en el estudio de la docencia como un medio de superación de la

dicotomía existente entre la filosofía esencialista de la educación y los estudios empíricos,

con el propósito de lograr un nuevo objetivo: “contar historias acerca de la docencia, con

la esperanza de que al decir algo nuevo aprenderemos a enseñar mejor” (Murillo, 2016).

“Identity has been conceptualized as a position towards an ‘other’ in relation to a social

representation. The term position allows us to view identity as a relational and dynamic process”

(Andreouli, 2012). According to Davies & Harre (1990) positioning is a social practice that is

constructed thought the identities created by the selves, most of the identities are images that are

represented in examples, in his case, It has been remarkable in the institution the big influence of

job’s pressure in terms of being a perfect teacher, something that is understood when our human

responsibilities are demanding a big effort in order to maintain our jobs, or sometimes, when it is

important to have any kind of acknowledgment in front of our partners, directors or families. In

other words, accepting different practices that are sometimes taken as not good or not good

enough are the ones that make us feel worried, stressed or anxious. Teachers used to change their

identities in front diverse aspects that are sometimes invisibilized.

Understanding the importance of the self in relation with the other, the observation of

differences is mainly constructed by the society. It is said that influences as feminism,

postmodernism and new experimental methods are the ones who are making the academic culture

evolve. In this case, the reflection in terms of the own practices are taken into account in the acts

reflected in the society. (Ellis, Adams, & Bochmer, 2011), ethnography argues why community

life is a key aspect. Having in mind educative research, the social phenomena that is evidenced in

the school surrounds a structured work which is demanding power relations, bad conceptions and

experiences in front of special students, learning environments of rudeness and


misunderstandings about diversity. In words of Atkinson, Hammersley and Atkinson (1998)

“Ethnography places an emphasis on exploring the nature of particular social phenomena, and

increasingly in more recent times, working primarily with unstructured data, investigating small

numbers of cases , in this case also Ellis (1995) highlight the importance of educative

ethnography as:

A depth interpretation of the meanings of the data and critical reflections upon the

purposes and motivations of social actions. This has to be represented in a variety of creative

ways including art, photography and other audio and visual means, or performed through poetics,

stories, theatrical and dramatic presentations.

This previous explanation about the construction of narratives as an empowering tool for

the construction of the self, let me to open the research design. It is necessary to clarify the

importance of reflection practices in the language teaching processes, especially when there are

diverse types of students who need our attention and we do not have the elements to act towards

difficulties. In doing so, I decided to conclude this Literature review chapter clarifying the

importance of the narratives as process of self-observation and change, in which this process of

writing and recording goes beyond research methods and instruments, but centers its focus on the

pedagogical and human act of improving and transforming.

Research Design

This chapter argues the composition of the study in terms of research components. This

section also justifies the way as the work was conducted: its methods, techniques and instruments

in relation to the main problem, the research question and objectives. Thus, the explanation of the


population results important in terms of the recognition of the diversity of participants and their

characteristics in society.

This is an inductive qualitative research that attempts to generate not only data collection

about teachers’ positioning towards inclusion. It also looks for generating spaces of reflection

where the participants and the researcher try to improve their practices of English teaching to FD

students in a regular community. Based on the previous idea, the theories which were explained

before in the literature review are going to be supported with the research methodologies

proposed.

Research Question

How do English Teachers from a school in La Granja Neighborhood, Bogotá relate to

ELLs with functional diversity to teach them in their regular classrooms?

Objectives

To identify teachers’ reasoning about their practices in regular classrooms and ELLs

with Functional diversity

To describe how ETs see themselves through the construction of their teaching

practices to EEL with FD

Type of Study

“Stories lived and told by students and teachers of what is important, relevant,

meaningful, or problematic for them are valued” (Olson, 2000). Being inspired by Doctor

Méndez, the organization of the data collection instrument was born with the big amount of ideas

that emerged from teachers and students as well. Daily classrooms are also spaces of creation of


thousand stories in which all community is involved. In the same way, the practices and

experiences that are in schools are most of the time the ones that generate learning and strong

anecdotes (Conelly & Clandinin, 2006). With that idea, participants’ practices are put as the main

point of departure when teachers’ beliefs, formation, and methodologies are combined with their

own need to break some parameters in terms of disabilities.

During my active observation in the first stages, I also evidenced a particular attitude

from participants: they wanted to hide the difficulties that they had when they started to work

with functionally diverse population. In that moment I could interpret this behavior as a matter of

ego and proficiency, in which teachers wanted to generate an image of perfection that could

highlight their perfect role as professionals. In this case, Pavlenko (2007) argues that there is an

impact of autobiographic narratives in the applied linguistics field thanks to the big influence of

people thoughts in oral and written forms. In this way, analyzing the role of participants and

their language, we can understand some social, economic, cultural and different aspects that are

represented in discourse.

Talking about the relation of the self in comparison with the other, this research

methodology looks for the understanding of the position of something that De Fina (2006) calls

we. This term centers its position in how a person is locating himself and how he is also locating

his community; “if you can’t locate the other, how can you locate yourself?” In this case, this

methodology helps to identify how teachers are understanding their regular practices of English

teaching and how this is being evidenced in FD students. As the research question says, the role

of teacher is key to understand not only their feelings, their identities and thoughts but also it is

important to evidence how FD kids are being positioned, understanding the social influence that


the teacher-student relation that exits in regular classrooms and indeed, the vision of disabilities

that English teachers manage.

Finally, as it was previously mentioned the elaboration of the discussion, the different

aspects involved let me to understand the importance of conducting this study in the Colombian

context, thanks to the lacks of understanding about social gaps in front of teaching to functional

diversity. The arguments given above are important facts to understand the behaviors, procedures

and the nature of the phenomena.

Setting

This study took place in a private school in Bogotá Colombia, the institution counts with

thirty two special needs students that go from preschool to eleventh grade, within a group of

seven hundred regular students. The school has grouped and categorized disabilities previously

mentioned in: Intellectual, learning, mental, physical and language-speech. The students that have

been part of these classifications are meant to be also supported and advised by the psychology

team of the school. This team is the in charge of their learning and social conditions in regards of

the school absences of inclusion programs, services, attentions of special curricula for FD

students. Students are constantly attended by the teachers team work who are divided in different

areas and subjects; the focus group of this research is made up of four English teachers who

worked in the institution.

The study also registered the community voices who wanted to be heard, in this case

regular students, coordinators and psychologists who are observing the academic environment.

Having this in mind, it is important to highlight that the emphasis of this study is done in


documenting teachers’ reasoning and their biographic narratives in relation to their position on

English learners with FD.

Profile of Participants

In this section is key to understand the role of participants in regards of their importance

in this research, participants and their reflections are central points to analyze because the power

of their stories and the practices lived during their experience as teachers. The selection method

that was used is understood in terms of participants and not as informants (Morse, 1991) hence to

the importance of a self-reflective positioning processes, where the participant is invited to reflect

about his or her own story, intending to make some analysis about the social aspects that

functional diversity surrounds and demands.

The selection of participants for this study was centered on teachers’ occurrence and

similarities on their discourses which were known in informal talks (Miles & Huberman, 1994).

As it was previously mentioned, I chose four English teachers from the Language team at the

institution who showed interest on commenting and reporting their experiences with inclusion

practices in their teaching experience. This participants’ group was divided into two female

teachers and two male teachers who ranged into 23 to 50 years old, these teachers’ profile defined

and shaped the results of the data, thanks to their experiences as novices and experimented

teachers, and also the positioning which was addressed in the research was modified by the

gender feature of the participants. (See Implications and conclusions chapters).

As a first instance in the process of piloting, teachers were asked to write or record their

biographies with the main objective of exposing their ideas, feelings and thoughts; although they

accepted the process of data collection, teachers struggled with the fact of exposing their realities


to an academic public, because they felt they could be judged and pointed thanks to the veracity

of their ideas they wanted to expose. After the process of writing and recording, these English

teachers argued to feel free when they presented their stories, arguing to have a good impact in

this process, making them empower during the process of reflection.

Role of Researcher

Taking into consideration the autobiographic narratives and its introspective reflective

positioning, my job as a researcher goes beyond the data collection and analysis of the setting

itself, as I see it, I took myself as a participant too (Kawulich, 2005) in regards of a daily

questioning of my teacher’s role in front my regular classroom and my functionally diverse

students. I feel strongly that my role as a researcher is also improving my practices of teaching,

especially when I discover the mistakes I make, the efforts that I do and the ones from my

colleagues who are also arguing their position in our realities at the school.

In my concern as a researcher I realized the importance of continuing the research

practices in every single moment in my job, in Wilson’s words (1977), this results an

anthropological practice that involves the human relation in different moments. Indeed, the data

collection instruments are being compared and complemented with diverse types of elements that

allowed me to have a more general vision of the setting where I am in. In this regard, the

observation practices are a constant practice, as well as colleagues’ opinions and regular students’

voices about the spontaneous activities that are involved in the phenomena. The data collection

instruments are going to be discussed in the following section.

Ethical considerations


The ethical issues contemplated during the development of the work, attempted to project

transparence in all the testimonies given by the participants. Being narratives a very natural and

authentic data instrument, teachers who participated in the research felt free in order to expose

their realities and life’s stories.

In January of 2018 directors at a school in La Granja Neighborhood, were asked to allow

the application of this research in the institution. This requirement was accepted immediately

thanks to the big interest of improving inclusive practices in the school, for that reason, the

implementation of the research work started as soon as it was possible1. At the beginning of the

year, the Psychology team was key important in the recognition of FD students and their medical

conditions. As a matter of fact, these medical concepts were shown to me with the permission of

the students’ families and the directors of the institution.

Having recognized students’ conditions, I proceed to contact the English teachers who

were managing the processes of teaching in those grades, in informal talks they accepted their

participation on the project, arranging to sign the individual consent forms then.

The names of the teachers were changed with different nicknames (See data analysis

chapter pg. 40, table 2) who were carefully selected depending on the stories given by the

participants, even the ethical considerations taken by the project the renaming of teachers

attempted to describe the characters with their diverse types of personalities and positions that all

participants had.

1 The permission given by the institution was approved in a consent inform letter which was signed by the director of the school, the same as the individual permissions given by the participants.


As a final remark, the narratives that were attached in the appendixes (See page 78) were

carefully selected in order to protect basic and specific participants’ information. As it can be

seen, some of the important data elements in the biographies were denied or erased: Names of

schools, name of students, ages, etc.

Data Analysis and Research Findings

This chapter attempts to describe the process of analysis of data obtained from four

English teachers mentioned before. In this chapter it is going to be found the data organization I

adapted from Conelly and Clandinin (1990) narrative inquiry analysis and the emerged results

from this process. This chapter also supports and answers the research question and its objectives

that were stated to reveal how the problem was addressed.

Data Collection and Organization

This study follows a qualitative-oriented Participatory Narrative inquiry (Connelly &

Clandinin, 1990). This type of technique is developed in the analysis of data in order to

understand a phenomenon as a constant dialog. This kind of data management follows strategies

that focus on codification and identification of repetitive and similar patterns that are useful and

pertinent in the study, establishing steps of analysis in the following way:

Figure 5 Processes of Narrative Inquiry


(Own elaboration)

This process of narrative inquiry allowed me to identify central points in the data analysis

process, as first: The individual experiences and the way as stories were told; second, the

involved time and the chronological elements that were disposed in the stories; finally, the

process of restoring that was planned with the objective of making connections between the

storyteller’s anecdotes and the statement of the research phenomena itself. This last aspect was

developed with participants helping them to clarify their ideas and also guiding the process of

constructing narratives, this phase was intended in order to construct not only the data collection

process but also it was proposed the development of reflective spaces looking for the

identification of some remarkable life aspects from the participants.

As it was presented in the problem statement, teachers’ opinions about functional

diversity practices in the institution were collected as a point of departure, which allowed me to

understand that teachers’ ideas could be presented in a more detailed way (Autobiographies) in

which they could feel free and open to express their thoughts and comments about their realities

and experiences in relation to teaching English to FDS.

organization of data

central points to analyze

final analysis


As a first part, (intending to encourage teachers’ to participate) I organized different

sessions in which participants were involved and fostered by watching related videos and

conversations about the initial ideas that were collected by themselves. In this section, teachers

were asked to think about their experiences inside and outside the school in order to start writing

or recording their experiences. Once teachers understood the purpose of narrative creation, they

started to be more secure and even free to comment and portray their own realities. During the

observation of the process of writing, teachers participate in an active way, asking for more time

and more opportunities to write about their experiences in the education field (this explanation

will be described in a more detailed way in the conclusions chapter).

There were three final narratives from each teacher which were written, read and revised

by themselves before submit them to me for the data analysis section, in this final part of revising

their own narratives, participants argued the reflective space that was allowed to them in order to

reflect upon their stories, teachers’ worries about the safeness and protection of their identities

were discussed and stated to them thanks to the big amount of key and important information in

their words. The next paragraphs are going to explain how narrative analysis worked, this section

is also going to show the organization of the analysis.

Narrative Inquiry: the Autobiographic Experience

As it is intended to describe, after the process of data collection there are different aspects

to take into account into the Narrative analysis, as a first instance, I am going to explain the initial

phase that the research approach states:


Table 1 Narrative analysis (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990)

Heading This part presents the participant, giving a general idea about

his/her narrative with a short fragment of his/her story2.

Orientation It exposes the main ideas about the character and the environment

related.

Abstract Tells the general idea of the narrative

Complicating

Action

Gives a strong idea about the most important event of the story

Resolution or

coda

Has the outcomes and presents the analysis of the texts.

(Adapted by Villarreal, 2018)

Starting with the analysis of data, I would like to tell the experience of renaming the

participants to protect their identities. When I started to read the teachers’ biographies, I started

understand some connections with those teachers’ personalities and some similar stories that

were shown to us when we were kids. In this process, I took some particularities in teachers’

descriptions of themselves and some famous characters who possessed specific characteristics;

this activity conducted me to assign the following names:

Table 2 Participants’ names

2 This section is constructed by the author of this Project and is not included into Connelly and Clandinin‘s proposal of narrative analysis.

Participant 1

Frida

Participant 2

Pocahontas

Participant 3

Hércules

Participant 4

Jafar

I called her Frida

thanks to the

metaphors that she

implemented to

exemplify her

thoughts. As the

analysis shows, this

participant

represented herself

This female teacher

showed in her

narratives how

important was to

fight against

different realities

that were oppressing

FD students inside

He was a male and

novice teacher that

as Hercules did, he

did not recognize

the power of his

abilities, trying to

fight as a hero but

without

implementing his

I decided to call this

teacher as a villain,

not because he

played a bad role in

his students’

education; I gave

him this name, to

make some relations

to an experimented


(Own elaboration)

Frida’s Narratives: “Facing a White Board that Was Myself”: Knowing the Reality of

Inclusion.

Enfrentarme a un telón blanco que era yo misma: mi propia persona, mi propio quehacer

docente. Con las manos llenas de insumos de pintura de miles de colores, pero sin saber cómo

dibujar. Sabiendo que quería dibujar pero sin saber cómo debía ser.

Facing a white board that was myself: my own person, my own teaching practice; with my

hands full of colorful paintings but without knowing how to draw. Knowing I wanted to do it but

without knowing how it shall be

Frida.

Orientation: Knowing the Writer

When I arrived to school I met Frida, she is a 40 years old teacher from Barranquilla,

Colombia, she studied in the Universidad Nacional and graduated two years ago, we started as

new teachers in the institution at the same time and we got friends at the beginning of the year.

As it was normal to see in a group of friends, Frida and I started to talk about the difficulties of

our classrooms as same as some positive things that we were having at the moment of teaching,

in this informal scenario I started to listen to her worries and concerns about some students that

based on her opinion were no easy to manage and understand. She also said she was the typical

teacher who wanted to change the world despite difficulties; these problematic situations were the

ones which motivated her to improve and change her realities and the ones of her students.

as a painter who felt

lost and judged in

the process of

teaching FD kids

and outside the

classroom

skills to improve or

make any social

change.

man, who did not

want to be touch or

criticized, defending

himself against

colleges’ comments.


At that moment I was focused on being an observer and I started to take notes about her

opinions and stories, but then I wanted to know more about those experiences that were attractive

for me, so I started to ask her about her anecdotes in a more detailed way that was the moment

when she started to write. Frida was a strong teacher, she did not matter to speak the truth and

she seemed to care the same to be heated or to be loved, but she was concerned about the fact of

teaching values more than language, and ethics more than grammar and rules. Based on her

students’ opinions she was an excellent teacher but they did not like to take her classes because

she was correct and strict, she taught English to the biggest population in the institution and she

was in charge of directing ninth grade in the school.

The way as she gave love to her students was particular because she did not allow

students to hug her o even to touch her because she loved to maintain a teacher-student

relationship in which the value of respect must be applied and followed, but she was also

interested in listen to their lives and problems with the main purpose of helping them in what

they could need. Now, her relation with functionally diverse population was primary focused on

trying to understand the realities around her students who were not identified, classified or

diagnosed with a specific condition.

In her thoughts the relation with these students was something unknown in which she had

to explore and learn, so in her narratives she described herself as a painter who had to use all

material to paint and create a good construction: she divided the creation into two parts: the

students as white boards to paint knowledge in and she as her own white board who needed to

shape herself and her own teaching practice. In the following section of analysis, I am going to

summarize the experience of her narrative construction and how she told her biography based on


functional diversity, in the same way there is going to be a support of her experience with some

extracts from her own voice.

Abstract: Key Moments in her Story.

The stories of Frida were full of metaphors and anecdotes in which there were different

feelings that allowed to understand and recreate Frida’s role in her stories. During the

composition of her oral and written texts she divided her process into three parts: past, present

and future which is accurate to classify as Connelly and Clandinin (1990) proposed in their

narrative analysis. In these narratives she located her opinions and experience with examples of

her ideas, Frida made emphasis on the first past experiences which were related to her first

practicum experiences in which she shaped herself adopting strategies and perspectives of her

daily practice. In this aspect she started by talking about how she started to work and the time she

spent in each process: She argued and discussed the importance of this first experience making an

emphasis on the theory that university gave to her when she was studying and also how as

student and practitioner she could not apply what was taught to her. In this fragment we can see

how she argues the importance of the connection between practice and theory, and also how was

her first experience in which she found her first functionally diverse student:

Estoy trabajando con estudiantes de bachillerato noveno décimo y no ha sido del todo

fácil porque siento y percibo que ni a la universidad te brinda un acercamiento, siempre

lo consideré y lo constato ahora. Así como médico y como los estudiantes que se preparan

para ser médicos y estudiantes de medicina tienen unos periodos de observación de la

realidad a la que se van a enfrentar desde casi sus primeros semestres de la carrera.


Complicated Action: Her Reactions towards Inclusion.

In this part Frida connects her preparation as a teacher and her realities that she has been

facing during her practice, she also argues the difficulties that she had since her first practicum

experience until now when she feels not prepared despite possibilities. She struggled with the fact

of feeling empty about the knowledge and preparation about functional diversity and its

processes, but she centered the problem not as the university which prepared her, the school

where she works or even the academic community as well: she considers herself as the main

problem, highlighting her insecurities as the main fact to affect functionally diverse kids learning

process.

Me preparo para esa realidad que es el quehacer docente me tocó a mí yéndome hacia ella

y con miles de espectadores mis estudiantes mi profesora era profesor titular y

demás. Enfrentarme a un telón blanco que era yo misma eh mi propia a mi propio

quehacer docente. Con las manos llenas de insumos de pintura de miles de colores. Pero

sin saber cómo dibujar. Sabiendo que quería dibujar pero sin saber cómo debía ser.

Pocahontas’ narratives: “I'm very interested in helping” Commitment among a Social

Change

Es evidente encontrarse siempre con ese choque de pronto entre los mismos colegas, que

para ellos la fácil es dejar a un lado el estudiante: a mí no me han dado la orientación o a mí no me

han dicho y uno choca mucho con eso.

It is obvious to always find a shock maybe among our own colleagues. For them it is easy

to leave the student aside: I have not received guidance or I have not been told: that is something

that makes me hit many times.


Pocahontas.

Orientation: Knowing the Character

Pocahontas was a young teacher who had been working in the school for more than

three years, she worked in the language team but also she taught science in primary and

secondary school. She is married with two little children and she argued her interest for helping

diverse social conditions. Their students described her as a commitment teacher who always

offered her work in service to the others, they also described her as a sweet teacher who played a

role of mother in their learning practice. During my work in the school I had different

opportunities to talk with her and what students said was not so far from reality, this teacher

manages a good and kind relationship with all people in the institution and always offers her

talents in service to the others.

Abstract: the reason why she plays as a fighter

This story summarizes the experience of thinking differently, this teacher tells the

process of generating change and transformation in spaces where the rest of teachers do not think

in the same way. She noticed different problematics in the school where some comments and

actions from some colleagues were evident for her and some students around the academic

community.

She argues the internal conflicts she had when she listened to those partners who

referred to students with diverse negative labels and also the ones who were evident in reject and

select students with functional diversity as the ones who were different or negative. In her

narratives there are diverse experiences from past to present that help to understand her position

as an actor of change, she includes her personal experience and also her thoughts about how she


imagines the reality of inclusion. In her biography, she also told the stories of some students and

how they have shaped her life and professional development.

Complicated Action: her Position against Exclusion

Even her commitment about fighting against teachers’ behaviors that affected her

students’ development, this teacher argued how she struggled the topic of inclusion from her own

classroom where the rest of students rejected functionally diverse students and also complained

about different treatments that teachers used to have for many reasons, but she argued how a

teacher can interfere in the process of learning that she had been constructing with her students

with attitudes as indifference and accommodation.

Hercules’ narratives

“It looks like the life gave me the most difficult challenge from my entire vocation”

“Dentro de todo lo experimentado no he podido dar un parte positivo de mi trabajo y hasta

la hora no he descubierto las prácticas de inclusión que tanto alardeábamos en el salón de clase

cuando fuimos estudiantes”.

“In my experience I couldn’t give a positive report of my job and even now I haven’t

discovered the inclusionary practices that we boasted in the classroom when we were students”

(Hercules).

Orientation: Knowing the participant.

He was a novice teacher who had not finished his undergraduate program in language

teaching and that was his first year of experience as a teacher. Hercules worked in primary and

secondary teaching Spanish and English at the same time, he was defined for his students as the


nicer teacher who allowed them to do whatever they wanted, but they appreciated him for being

kind and tolerant with their behaviors.

This teacher wanted to generate a real change in academic environments in which

language teaching could be given differently, for that reason, he considered that teachers were the

same as students; teachers are not more important than learners and education must be seen since

a horizontal perspective.

Abstract: The Impact of the first teaching practice

As a said in the orientation, this academic year at a school in La Granja Neighborhood,

Bogotá, was the first experience of this novice teacher, and also, as he had not finished his

bachelor program yet, he had some insecurities that maybe are normal and seen in the first years

of teaching. In his narratives I could evidence how this participant wanted to transform some

teaching paradigms but he did not know how to do it, confusing teacher-students relationship

with friendship treatments, something that conducted him to lose the management of his teaching

practices, making him feel lost.

Now, when he centered in his FD students, he argued different amount of feelings and

thoughts about this inclusive field, indeed, his knowledges of language teaching and learning

were fresh and recent in that time, he did not have the preparation to teach language to a diverse

community.

Complicated action

This language teacher demonstrated a very noble and kind personality when he faced FD

kids for the first time. In this aspect, he highlighted the fact of being commitment with the

processes of inclusion and mostly, with the students who were identified as functionally diverse.

When this happened, his reactions towards those kids were positive despite the difficulties that he

had when he noticed their presence in the classroom, but, what I considered important in his


narratives, is focused on his methodological procedures to empower his students in the

classroom.

Ha pasado medio año de conocerla conocer su entorno y pienso que, aunque no ha

avanzado en la materia como sus compañeros, el trabajo es satisfactorio puesto que ha

aprobado lo que le he puesto y he tratado de animarla en todo momento haciéndola sentir

bien con su trabajo. Pienso que es la mejor práctica inclusiva que pude hacer porque esta

con sus compañeros compartiendo en la misma aula no importe el trabajo ve gente y ve

sus clases como cualquier otro estudiante.

This teacher just accepted his students and was happy with the fact of making them feel in

the right way, in this case, he just normalized the way as they behaved. Despite his good

intentions to understand students’ feelings and actions, this participant did not create inclusive

environments where FD students and the regular ones could be integrated during the English

classes; he did not look for methodologies or processes of following in order to understand FD

development in the language learning field.

Even this teacher’s desire to change and transform education realities, he considered that

the understanding of students capabilities was enough to achieve a good process of inclusion.

Jafar’s Narratives

“He encontrado cientos de casos de niños o niñas, alumnos con algunas limitaciones, mi

reaccionar ante estas situaciones no ha sido, para muchos de la mejor forma, pero para mí como

docente, como profesional y como formador de personas capaces de manejar los idiomas, me

parece correcta”


I have found thousand cases of students with limitations. Based on many people my

reactions towards these situations have not been the correct ones, but as a professional in

languages and as an educator of people I think I am right”.

Jafar.

Orientation: Knowing the Participant

Jafar was a language teacher who considered himself as an experienced worker, who had

been working in the language field for more than thirty years and he also positioned himself as a

strict and conservative professional. Students argued to respect him and to feel sometimes fear

about his classes but also they said he was a good instructor teaching with excellent

methodologies. This teacher also worked in universities and had strong social and political ideas,

so, his arguments based on FD practices were centered on exclusion, separation and special

education without the incorporation of FDs in regular classrooms.

De acuerdo a esto he decidido que lo mejor para este tipo de estudiantes, es que el

gobierno acuda a programas de inclusión social o educación especial siendo este, el ente

encargado de, con profesores formados específicamente en el área, que entiendan,

comprendan e impartan como tal esta educación, reúnan todos estos estudiantes, y

dispongan de espacios en donde se les forme como tal, bajo sus condiciones.

Abstract: discussing the correct or incorrect dichotomy

This teacher had a strong position towards inclusion and functional diverse students, in his

narratives he defends his behaviors and acts as something correct and necessary thanks of his

experience of more than 30 years. Jafar justified the way as he acted with his students and

normalized his teaching practices having them as something natural, he showed no limitations to


talk about what he believed and he put in the text some of the experiences related with judgments

and difficulties based on his personality. He said that no one can mark his professionalism as

something negative because he had the security to be right:

He encontrado cientos de casos de niños o niñas, alumnos con algunas limitaciones, mi

reaccionar ante estas situaciones no ha sido, para muchos de la mejor forma, pero para mí

como docente, como profesional y como formador de personas capaces de manejar los

idiomas, me parece correcta

Complicated Action: Indifference or Accommodation Beliefs?

This teacher said that students must be divided in regular and special, he also uses labels

to refer to them as normal-abnormal and healthy-unhealthy. He strongly believed that having

inclusionary practices may affect regular students’ processes, but he did not pay attention to these

problematics thanks to his behavior as a disregard teacher. He argues that maybe his thoughts

were not the correct ones but he did not care about that.

Tengo la impresión y, espero no estar errado, que cuando un docente se dedica a educar

bajo estas condiciones, los estudiantes que no tienen “condiciones especiales” se atrasan

en lo que debería ser el ritmo educativo, para avanzar en los conocimientos y

competencias que se deben. Bajo este parámetro, me he desentendido un poco de estas

situaciones, haciendo, lo que muchos, colocar tareas, ejercicios prácticos y talleres

acordes a lo que puedo deducir de capacidad para aquellos estudiantes, dejando así, libre

el resto de estudiantes para impartir la clase que debería. Los estudiantes condicionados

hacen sus actividades dentro de su tiempo estimado y con la dificultad programada y lo

entregan, y yo las evalúo como tal dando así un concepto del aprendizaje traducido en una


nota, mientras los estudiantes “normales” hacen los trabajos talleres y evaluaciones que

van acordes a la unidad o el capítulo de trabajo que se adelanta en la materia.

Resolution or Coda:

Figure 6 Data analysis

(Own elaboration)

The previous chart explains the result of the analysis that emerged from the research

question and the objectives of the study, the above excerpts aimed to exemplify the mode

narratives analysis recognized repetition of ideas and words that teachers used and wrote when

they were called to write their autobiographies.

In the first part I am going to explain how I evidenced the strongest ideas based on

teachers’ positions taking into account the way they saw themselves through the construction of

their teaching practices, also I am going to reveal the main position that teachers defended with

their stories and experiences, it also is going to have the explanation of the words they used to

support their positioning followed by the analysis of each part. As it is necessary to clarify and

support the analysis, each fragment is going to answer the question: what generates this?

Frida: She Positions Herself as a Painter


This chart shows some of the phrases that were collected during the first stage of the

analysis which allowed me to understand Frida’s ideas related to the two research objectives.

This exercise was done with all the participants and the evidences of the process are shown as

appendixes at the end of the document. (See appendix 9) this exercise let me to know her

recognition as a painter as it can be seen in the table 3.

The participant positioned herself as a painter managing in her narratives metaphors to

give examples of her thoughts and feelings. She centered herself on a painter who is

experimenting in her work in an unknown filed where she is not able to work on, example:

Table 3 Extracts analysis: Frida

Extract Ideas that emerged from

the phrases

Feelings and actions

related to her voice

Me preparo para esa

realidad que es el quehacer

docente, me tocó a mí

yéndome hacia ella

-Teaching FDs is a strong

reality

-Teaching FDs is not

optional, is something

mandatory to face.

Fear

Decision

Compliance

Con miles de espectadores:

mis estudiantes mi

profesora, el profesor titular

y demás.

She is observed and

evaluated by the academic

community, even by her

students.

Risk

Observation practices

Judgments

Evaluation

Enfrentarme a un telón

blanco que era yo misma:

mi propio quehacer

docente.

Her task is to work with

something empty. (She

refers to her knowledge of

FD).

Fear

Uncertainty

Nerves

Insecurity


Con las manos llenas de

insumos de pintura de miles

de colores, pero sin saber

cómo dibujar.

Sabiendo que quería dibujar

pero sin saber cómo debía

ser.

She had the correct

material, the disposition,

will and the spaces to work,

she is still missing the

knowledge and the

preparation.

Frustration

Expectation

Disappointment

Inspiration cannot flow.

(Own elaboration)

What Generates this?

As it was evidenced in the chart, some feelings emerged based on her experiences in her first

practicum experience. She thinks her lack of preparation limits her to work in the way she wants,

for that reason, she does not know how to react experimenting feelings of frustration and

insecurity. This generates the idea of:

Understanding the importance of a good connection between theory preparation and

constant approaches to observation and activities with functionally diverse students inside

regular classrooms. After her understanding she argues the importance of applying these

kind of practices to all curricula in all teaching programs even their emphasis:

La práctica es la semilla: así como un médico ejecuta una observación directa

hacia una práctica. Naturalmente el docente debe tener su semilla, sé que en la

práctica docente debe ser por mucho tiempo.

She feels as a novice and as a constant learner: The last phrase in the extract below and

some of her ideas in her texts let me to understand the second position in her practice:

novice and apprentice. She said that even finishing the process of being professional in a

university, having functionally diverse students makes her a learner of something

unknown, so she has to go back to the learning process


Allí fue donde yo dije: bueno tengo esta paleta de colores, voy a ver como dibujar

sobre este sobre este telón: cómo dibujo sobre el lienzo. Sí no sé cómo hacerlo ni

yo misma, empecé a estudiar, mirar por internet y por fuentes bibliográficas cómo

podría trabajar con ellos […] .Teniendo otra estrategia distinta, incluso algo más

personalizado que pudiera hacer y no sentirme frustrada en alguna manera, porque

sentía que me faltaba y sigo sintiendo que me hace falta muchísimo.

Pocahontas: She Positions Herself as a Fighter

As in Frida’s narratives, there are some characteristics to guide me in order to understand

this participant’s position, I decided to name her in this way thanks to the strong declarations that

she did against the conditions that are not helping inclusion and functionally diversity students. In

her biography she argues how some students do not understand the inclusive practices proposed

by the school, generating fighting and discussions about what they think are special and

preference treatments among their partners, but mainly she went against some teachers’ behaviors

who based on her ideas, are graining and negative for the processes of integration and inclusion

carried out by her during all her professional work in the school.

Table 4 Extracts’ analysis: Pocahontas


the phrases



Siempre hay una

vulnerabilidad, de una

situación de: ¿Será que

estoy actuando bien?

-She is vulnerable; she can

be hurt too.

-She is not secure about her

acts.

Fear

Sadness

Vulnerability

weakness

Esto es labor de nosotros,

nuestra ética de licenciados.

Los mismos docentes

atacan con comentarios y

situaciones. No todos tienen

-Teaching FDs is a matter

of ethics.

-Based on her experience,

teachers are main actors in

the process of inclusion,

Decision

Strength

Will

Duty


el enfoque de ayuda. Es

fuerte

even when they are not

committed.

Pienso que si el docente

tuvo su carrera profesional,

obviamente escuchó de esto

(FDs)

-She have heard about

excuses to avoid the

responsibilities to teach

FDs, she considers is not an

unknown field for a

professional in education.

Responsibility

Implications

Nosotros no estamos

ajenos. Obviamente es

fuerte porque el proceso

que uno lleva, el apoyo,

viene otro docente te lo

baja, te lo daña porque no

hay un proceso en

ellos. […]

-She takes this topic as a

reality.

-She believes that team

work is necessary but the

indifference practice from

some colleagues is

destructing her work for

FDs

Commitment

Compromise

Support

Frustration

Disagreement

(Own elaboration)


This teacher reveals her interests in helping people, and the topic of finding people with

functional diversity makes her feel motivated to work. She previously said that she is able to hear

their students’ needs opening herself to allow change and improvement in their lives. By the

other hand, Pocahontas feels her work as something maybe unique and different from the rest of

the ones she evidences in her job. This participant shows big interest in working with FD

communities even her lacks of specific preparation.

Hercules: he positions himself as a motivator

Hercules showed a big interest on teaching FD but, he revealed some lacks of knowledge

in the distinction between Integration and Inclusion. I consider that this teacher had the regular

and common mistake of giving affection without the exigency that could be asked to this

population. I could also infer that this teacher struggled with the fact of how to deal with the

treatment of these students and the regular ones. He clearly made a distinction between FD


students and regular ones, highlighting a special and differentiated treatment to the students who

were considered special for him.

Table 5 Extracts analysis: Hercules.


the phrases


related to his voice

Afortunada o

desafortunadamente durante

mi estadía en la universidad

no me encontré en alguna

de mis clases algún ejemplo

de estas prácticas inclusivas

para poder tomar como

ejemplo a la hora de ejercer

Teaching FD is still a

problem in new and recent

Bachelor programs.

Frustration

Disagreement

Responsibility

La sorpresa y entrando en

punto a la pregunta inicial

con la que empiezo a narrar

esta experiencia, en uno de

los cursos encuentro una

niña extraordinariamente

tierna, no era del todo igual

a los otros y eso me

asustaba

He realized for the first time

that inclusive practices are

real, and discovering

specific cases, this teacher

felt scared.

Fear to the difference

Frustration

Fear

Estuve equivocado

subestimando la

complejidad de técnicas

usadas para la correcta

metodología de clases a

aquella niña.

He was wrong

underestimating this

student’s capabilities.

Maybe his thoughts about

FD were related with

inabilities and restrictions.

Undervalue

Senses of normalization

Insecurity

Ella no se da cuenta de sus

limitaciones y al felicitarla

por hacer trabajos que le

dejo le estoy inyectando un

pulso de animación

psicológica que en pensar,

le ayude a superarse como

persona a pesar de sus

condiciones.

He thought that students

were limited and he tried to

improve their restrictions by

giving them motivation.

Frustration

Disagreement

Sadness

weakness

(Own elaboration)



In this narratives I could understand that is not enough to feel compassion by functional

diversity realities, but there is a big necessity to act towards mistakes, looking for opportunities to

change students’ difficulties. In this case I also understood that vocabulary use is not just

important in the relation with students, but also in the way as we refer to them, in Hercules’

narratives, I evidenced how he used words as: Limited, special, conditioned and abnormal,

something that did not affect his students directly, but could generate a position that possibly

allows discriminatory acts.

Jafar: He positions himself as untouchable

Jafar said he was an experienced teacher who was in the educational field for so long, he

based his experience as the main strength of his development and based on what he said, he had

traditional methodologies for teaching. Related to FDs he managed a strong vocabulary which

had selective labels, for example: abnormal, limited, conditioned and special.

Table 6 Extracts analysis: Jafar


the phrases



Durante mi experiencia

educadora, he encontrado

cientos de casos de niños o

niñas, alumnos con algunas

limitaciones

-his opinion towards FD is

related to be limited

Attentive

Thoughtful

Incomprehensive

siempre he tenido la

mentalidad un poco

allegada a mi doctrina de lo

que aprendí en mí tiempo,

en donde, como yo, todas

Everybody needs the same

level of rigor

No special or differentiated

treatment

Strict teacher


las personas tienen el

mismo nivel de exigencia

mi reaccionar ante estas

situaciones no ha sido, para

muchos de la mejor forma,

pero para mí como docente

me parece correcta

-he is aware about some

behaviors he has but he

argues to defend them

Responsibility

Implications

que cuando un docente se

dedica a educar bajo estas

condiciones, los estudiantes

que no tienen “condiciones

especiales” se atrasan

He considers inclusion as a

weakening process for

students who are not

functionally diverse.

Exclusionary practices

Disagreement

(Own elaboration)


The main message in these narratives locates a position that goes against inclusion where

FDs must be separated from regular classrooms. This participant also argues that the benefit of

this activity helps not only students but also teachers who are not prepared for accepting

functional diversity in their daily classrooms.

Based on the previous analysis I can identify what are the research categories, the

conclusions are presented as a first part with the similitudes of thoughts that teachers expressed in

their biographies, in the following charts it is going to be exemplified the emerged ideas from the

research objectives:

Objective number one: To describe how English teachers see themselves through the

construction of their teaching practices to English learners with functional diversity.

Table 7 Objectives’ chart

Frida Pocahontas Hércules Jafar


1- They position themselves as novice in Functional diversity practices

2- They see themselves as apprentices in an unknown field

(Own elaboration)

The teachers agreed with considering themselves novice and apprentices in the FD field

when they had to teach English.

Objective number two: To identify teachers’ beliefs about their practices in regular

classrooms and ELLs with functional diversity.

Figure 7: Objectives diagram

Figure 8: (Own elaboration)

There are three strong beliefs that teachers agreed to have in their practices with functional

diversity students:

Students need separated and differentiated treatment because the variances of attention

labels, concentration and language abilities. In this aspect teachers argued to have specific

methodologies with FDs and others with regular students. Jafar said he applied his

beliefs

Closeness to functional diversity realities

actors of change

vs

passive commitmed

students need a differentiated treatment


strategies in the same way to all of his students even their diagnoses, thanks to the

importance of managing the same label of exigency for everyone.

There were divisions between believes in which I saw Frida and Pocahonas as actors of

change and Hécules and Jafar as passive commitment. This makes me think about

possible differences of gender interest about reacting towards Functional diversity when

women were more concern with fact of helping but men presented accommodation

practices with no reactions to change environments of exclusion.

The final belief is related with the second one where the closeness to functional diversity

and its implications allow to generate feelings of commitment and compromise with FD

people. In the case of the two first participants, they argued to have family and close

friends who were functionally diverse, by the contrary, the two last participants did not

mention about any kind of close experiences with this topic.

English teachers claimed to lose efficacy when they had to teach English to FD students.

These EFL teachers wrote the way as they felt impotent and incapable when they had to

apply their language knowledge to these diverse population, arguing that the English

methods which were given in the university were not useful enough to apply them with

FD kids. In this case, Frida, Pocahontas and Hercules contended to be not qualified to

assume in the right way the process of teaching English to this population, instead of Jafar

who strongly believed that he was capable enough to teach the but he was not the

indicated teacher to do it.

Categories and Discussion

This section discusses the categories that emerged from the previous analysis and entails to

describe and argue how they reveal teachers’ positioning in their narratives. In this section I also


organized the subcategories which were extracted from the autobiographies depending of the

amount in their repetition. As it has been shown during the previous chapters, the following chart

is going to illustrate the main research categories and their subcategories, below the chapter is

going to be discussed the relation of them allowing final thoughts about the research process.

Table 8 Categories’ relation with the research question and objectives

Research question Research objectives Categories Subcategories

How do EFL

teachers position

themselves in

connection to

Functional Diversity

practices in the

school?

To describe how English

teachers see themselves

through the construction of

their teaching practices to

English learners with

functional diversity.

Teachers

positioning

themselves as

novice in Functional

diversity practices

Deficiencies in the

curriculum bachelor

programs

Struggles of the self

(Teachers’

emotions)

To identify teachers’

beliefs about their practices

in regular classrooms and

ELLs with special needs.

Students need a

differentiated

treatment

Educational

integration

Educational

inclusión

Vocabulary use to

refer FD students

Actors of change

vs passive committed teachers

Closeness to functional diversity realities.

(Own elaboration)

Category One: Teachers Positioning Themselves as Novice in Functional Diversity Practices


As the analysis has shown, one of the main teachers’ ideas about the processes of teaching

FD students is related with the fact of taking inclusion as a new experience. Teachers argued to

be new in the FD field, connecting their learning experiences as students in their undergraduate

program with their formal teaching practices when the identification of functionally diverse

students has been difficult and shocking, although their preparation as English teachers, they

argued to lose efficacy when they taught to this kind of population. Even the differences on

teachers’ life stories they concluded to see FD as a new experience.

I also identified some factors to understand this teachers’ positioning towards FD, in this

case, I am going to explain those elements based on the participants’ narratives:

Deficiencies in the Curriculum of Teachers’ Bachelor Programs

Lacks of FD subjects and seminars: It reveals that the programs of teaching that

participants took were not enough to cover and prepare teachers in the FD field.

Participants argued the absences of theory that they need to identify, manage and

understand students with functional diversity in their regular classrooms. Teachers argued

how difficult is to manage their regular classrooms when they have students with diverse

functionalities too. In this case, there is not only the necessity to learn about learning

difficulties or physical functionalities, for those English teachers it is important to know

how to integrate all students without having processes of segregation, accommodation and

even ignorance established by lacks of knowledge:

Nuevamente me surge la pregunta de: bueno ¿por qué no se me enseñan esto en la

universidad? ¿Por qué no se me habló de estas realidades a las que yo tenía que

enfrentarme con el pasar del tiempo? Frida.


Poor and weak approximation to FD students during the pedagogical practices: In this

part, teachers argued to feel disconnections between what they received in terms of theory

and what they experiment in the spaces of practice. All teachers said that their

pedagogical experience was the first approximation to FD practices but those processes of

inclusion were not followed and controlled by their professors or the titular teachers in the

classrooms. Teachers claimed that they observed students with multiple functionalities

based on their behavior and academic performance, but it was a result of their own

development as teachers and observers and not because there was a constant process of

following from the school or the university.

Struggles of the Self (Teachers’ Emotions)

The biographic study has shown different emotions that emerged from these teachers who

experienced FD realities. In this part, teachers showed a very humanistic perspective which

revealed how difficult is to adopt inclusion and make it worth. During the experiences that were

told, teachers expressed to feel positive and negative feelings that helped them to shape and

modify their profession as English teachers. In this part, I comprehend how teachers struggled to

teach and participate in FD scenarios, their emotions in different situations and showed that they

cared FD students and regular ones and they have been trying to improve their practices, rejecting

their comfort zone.

It was remarkable to see negative feelings that made them reconsider not just their

behaviors and beliefs as teachers but also the difficulties that they evidenced in the support of

inclusion processes. Some of those feelings were:


Fear and uncertainness: “Realmente muchas veces se nos lanza y hay un choque. […]

no estamos ubicados en un contexto, no se nos ha mostrado la realidad” (See

appendixes).

Frustration :“me frustro, me siento como experimentando y como si yo misma fuera

un conejillo de indias” (See appendixes).

Anxiety: “salgo a enfrentar a la vida formalmente ya sin escudos de profesores, ya sin

tutor si nadie quien me aconsejara dentro del aula” (See appendixes).

Worry: “Pero lo hacía siempre de una manera un tanto agresiva y despectiva […]

incluso muchas veces y lo debo confesar sentí miedo” (See appendixes).

Indifference: “Bajo este parámetro, me he desentendido un poco de estas situaciones,

haciendo, lo que muchos, colocar tareas, ejercicios prácticos y talleres acordes a lo

que puedo deducir de capacidad para aquellos estudiantes, dejando así, libre el resto

de estudiantes para impartir la clase que debería.” (See appendixes).

As an opposite element, teachers expressed to have positive feelings that ensured them to

work to transform and overcome negative situations, some of those feelings were presented in

fewer opportunities than the negative feelings, something that made myself think how difficult

was the process of inclusion and its acceptance for these participants, in this part, I could see how

his identities as teachers, parents, citizens etc., made them feel encouraged to transform what was

generating problems in their teaching practice. (Méndez, 2017).

Category two: Students need a differentiated treatment

Based on the previous experiences from teachers’ preparation, there were different

realities that participants concerned to have based on the results in their training. Even their


position with FD students (against or in favor) teachers said to treat students differently thanks to

the conditions around the students and around themselves as professionals. In this section I could

evidence the importance of the context and the realities where the teachers were involved, in this

case, I claimed to divide this category into two emerged ones:

Educational Integration

I understood the main differences between Educational integration and Educational

inclusion. In this first, we assume that we have a group of students who are able to stay in a

regular classroom: in this case, functionally diverse students can be integrated in any group of

kids but, the follow-up processes to their needs are not controlled or supervised by any

responsible organization, group or even worse, when the in charge teachers see them as regular

students, ignoring differences in learning styles, rhythms and needs. Based on (Wade & Moore,

1998) educational integration goes against segregation and looks forward the application of

diverse number of conditions which can be related with social, economic, historical and political

patterns that entail to cover and follow processes of embracing students with FD, validating

strongly their human rights giving equal number of opportunities.

This previous concept fixes in what it has been seen during the data analysis. Teachers

used to have and recognize students with FD, for that reason some of them accepted the challenge

of including them in the classrooms and teaching the English but they had struggles with the fact

of knowing how to make them learning despite the conditions that were around them.

Educational Inclusion

Knowing the first part that was related with Integration, I found how different is to

generate inclusion. Even curriculum content, directors’ guidelines or teaching policies, it is a


teacher’s task the fact of looking for diverse tools that can be adopted and adapted to FD students

in regular classrooms. In this aspect breaking down barriers of segregation and exclusion goes

beyond the attendance of diverse students in a classroom, in this case we must deconstruct special

education to construct inclusion” (O'Hanlon, 2003, p. 10).

In the analysis I also evidenced some difficulties that teachers had to make their FD students

learn and improve, it was relevant to highlight that inclusionary practices are closely related with

desires of change and will. Teachers took inclusion as a fact of human responsibility that

concerned with their moral formation as teachers.

Vocabulary Use to Refer FD Students

Teachers used to manage different vocabulary to refer to FD kids, their reasons were not

identified but the way as they presented students with functional diversity was clear to understand

some gaps in the management of the topic3. This behavior represented diverse attitudes that

participants materialized in their labor as teachers, in this aspect it is important to clarify the role

of language and its use in the treatment and teaching of functionally diverse students (Harré,

1999).

3 . The term “Functional diversity” was not used by the participants. Based on informal talks,

they claimed to have any knowledge about specific and specialized terminology. This concept is

used by the author of this work as part of her speech.


This category was key to understand how teachers positioned depending on the way the

referred and treat their students inside and outside the classroom. This process had a particularity

that was centered on teachers’ speech during the construction of their narratives and teachers’

opinions and expressions in informal conversations and daily work. As an observer I also

identified that teachers tried to control their language and vocabulary during the collection of

data, despite this process, when they were immersed in environments of stress and anxiety, they

did not pay attention to their words and used negative labels and jokes.

Concluding the discussion of in this category, I evidenced that teachers had differentiated

treatment to FD students and regular kids inside their classrooms. Those behaviors depended on

individual attitudes and personal interests that went beyond their teaching preparation and were

also done as conscious and unconscious acts. This special and differentiated treatment was also a

result of teachers’ inabilities to recognize and treat processes of teaching FD students, confusing

integration with inclusion actions.

Category Three: Actors of Change vs Passive Committed Teachers

The data showed a big difference in participants’ personalities that were exposed in their

stories, I evidenced a strong position among them in the treatment and management of FD, seeing

that the first two participants: Frida and Pocahontas demonstrated more interest and commitment

with processes of inclusion than the other two: Hercules and Jafar. In this case it is important to

mention that gender role could be a determinant factor in this study that discloses teachers’

behaviors and beliefs in their acts and thoughts in functional diversity.

Frida and Pocahontas as Actresses of Change


The participants expressed internal and external fights that made them feel commitment

with all type of difficulties in their classrooms. I decided to call this category “actors of change”

because I realized an important desire of improvement in these two participants, even though

their negative feelings about unknown fields as FD. For this reason, Frida and Pocahontas

revealed in their jobs how they worked trying to search, defend and protect students with

functional diversity, investigating new trends of teaching to get close to their students, trying also

to cover gaps between inclusion and indifference.

Hercules and Jafar as Passive Committed Teachers

On the other hand, I decided to call these participants “passive commitment” thanks to the

accommodation practices that they have been taking during their teaching practices, in this

aspect, the narratives let me infer two types of realities based on each participant:

In the case of Hercules, I saw a young teacher with no experience who acted with a partial

position about processes of inclusion, this teacher tried to give his best understanding the

realities surrounding his practice and his students; his intentions and procedures were not

intended to generate segregation or rejection. The important fact to highlight is the way as

the lacks of experiences shaped the way as he integrated his students inside the classroom,

making himself a passive teacher who evidenced the realities since his own perspective,

believing his actions as appropriate and generous.

Analyzing Jafar, I understood his position as a big armor that was perpetuated by his

context and environment, for that reason he wrote his story as a possible shield that could

protect him from negative opinions again. His procedures towards FD kids are seen as

crude and strong, showing actions in his stories that could be interpreted as negative and

disinterested thanks to the strength of his affirmations when he referred inclusion as


something unnecessary and time wasting. This passive commitment showed that inclusion

could not be achieved because his main focus of attention was centered on his regular

students, for that reason, he admitted to receive FD students in his classrooms but he

confessed to do not pay special attention to particular necessities in the classroom.

Category four: Closeness to Functional Diversity Realities

It was remarkable to see how these participants related FD practices with their own life´s

stories where the experiences that were beyond teaching practices constructed and transformed

the way as they treated diverse type of students. Experiences made teachers move around their

realities in different ways, but in this case participants were motivated to contribute in the

building of knowledge of functionally diverse students thanks to the closeness to the reality of

inclusion.

The autobiographies exposed that teachers who had strong family’s experiences towards

functional diversity were the most committed to the labor of inclusion, teachers saw themselves

in a position where they could be part of exclusionary practices that made them feel encouraged

to change. Secondly, Frida and Pocahontas expressed interests for improving some kids’

realities, imagining hypothetical situations in which their sons and daughters could be immersed

in, so, their desires to change exclusion and their feelings of helping were translated to their own

children, giving to their students something that they want to receive from the contexts when

their sons are.

Conclusions

This narrative study attempted to understand EFL teachers when they had to work with

functionally diverse students inside regular classrooms, this process has shown different


perspectives, which were shaped by the revision of the literature, the construction of the research,

and the findings that were exposed by the research categories.

As a first instance, I am going to describe some generalities that I found important during

the process of research before analyzing the connections between theory and findings. Indeed,

these general ideas about this work show the experience of constructing narratives with a

perspective of change and self-looking that allowed participants to reconsider their own attitudes

and experiences towards inclusion.

At the beginning of the process, teachers complained with the fact of exposing their

ideas about FD and their teaching practices in these scenarios, but, the narrative

inquiry process allowed them to feel free and safe when they constructed their stories.

Functional diversity resulted an intimidating topic.

Teachers’ language was inappropriate allowing also wrong treatments and relations

between their teaching experience and students with FD.

Teachers illustrated their stories with a big number of metaphors, which exemplified

their feelings, thoughts and experiences.

Participants constructed written and spoken narratives, but the last ones outcropped

more emotions and realities than when they wrote their stories.

Secondly, theory has exposed different aspects that are related with this specific context

but that can be useful to analyze in a widespread environment. Nevertheless, this revision of

literature helped me to understand the social and teaching realities that we have in terms of

inclusion, revealing how difficult is to achieve good inclusive practices and how difficult is to


find precise and useful information that could guide and fortify knowledge about teaching

English to FD people. For that reason, I can accomplish the following ideas:

Colombian context needs to increase this teaching field since all perspectives, because

despite a constant effort to modify and strength new trends in education, there are

significant gaps in the construction of good curriculums and follow-up process of

inclusion. During the construction of my theory analysis I found some documents that

intended to adjust and monitor practices of inclusion in regular classrooms, documents

as PIAR (Ministerio de Educación Nacional, 2017) is an example of good practices of

searching and exploring diverse opportunities to FD people in general academic

spaces, but there are still breaches in EFL field in order to support academic

community.

Students are taken as the problem to solve and their contexts are being ignored,

discounted and normalized. This affirmation resulted motivating for my own research

practices when I found diverse studies which attempted to improve students

“disabilities” as if their conditions were the real problem to address. In this aspect I

did not find a study which could be focused on the context as a problem and not the

student as the difficulty, for that reason I understood how important is to focus the

attention on the problematics surrounding those kids, rejecting the idea of changing

functional diverse people to make them fit in our regular spaces.

Teachers’ efficacy (Paneque & Barbetta, 2005) was effectively reduced when

participants found functionally diverse students in their classrooms, this phenomena

was given by the lacks of preparation in the special education field, being also taken

as an unknown field for EFL teachers.


Positioning theory helped me to understand teachers’ behaviors and infights. Harré

(1999) illustrated how language allowed performance and attitudes, constructing

personality and acts; something that fits in the comprehension of teachers procedures

based on their experiences and own formation. Therefore, teachers positioned

themselves in different aspects and their narratives helped to discover the reasons why

they portray diverse procedures to achieve FD kids in their practices.

English teachers who position themselves as actors of change can be seen more as

educators. This type of subjectivity (Méndez, P., Garzón-Duarte, E. and Noriega-

Borja, R. (2019) covers more personal and professional aspects to relate to pedagogy

and education, in which English is an important component of identity but not

overshadows issues of education

This applied linguistic field, helps to focus the attention of the academic community to

those teachers’ daily experiences that almost are unseen and hidden. The process of

constructing narratives let people to understand diverse realities and to develop better

skills to improve language teaching scenarios.

Finally, there were important facts to disclose in the data collected, also the research

categories which emerged from the research question and its objectives unveiled final remarks

that allow to generate further research around this topic, afterwards, this research ideas and

implications are going to be specify in the following chapter.

Figure 9: Teachers’ positioning: conclusions


Figure 10: (Own elaboration)

The previous diagram explains the main teachers’ positions which were exposed by

themselves during the composition of their biographies. As it can be seen, teachers presented

themselves in different aspects which resulted key to understand social and teaching practices in

inclusive environments. Participants described their jobs with specific characteristics that differed

from all of them in diverse aspects:

Time of experience

Personal interests

Personal preparation

Teaching styles

The main differences among them were presented in the discussion of the categories in

which I addressed the main two research objectives:

To describe how English teachers see themselves through the construction of their

teaching practices to English learners with functional diversity.


To identify teachers’ beliefs about their practices in regular classrooms and ELLs with

Functional diversity.

The main findings can be synthesized in the following chart that explains teachers’

opinions about themselves when they had to teach FD students and also their beliefs in relation to

those inclusionary practices that represented challenges and new opportunities in their EFL

practice:

Table 9: Teachers’ ideas and beliefs: conclusions

How teachers see themselves Teachers beliefs

They feel novice. Students need special and differentiated

treatment.

They feel learners. Teaching FD is something new.

They think they are observed. FD practices made them lost teaching

efficacy

They have feelings of frustration and fear. Teaching FD is a group job

They think they are explorers. FD students must be followed by special

entities.

(Own elaboration)

This study showed a reality that concerns all academic community, during the planning,

data collection and analysis it was remarkable to see how important is to listen to all voices that

cannot be heard, attending to those scenarios where the existence of FD people live, grow and

experiment the reality of exclusion and segregation. This research demonstrated how important is


to advance in the recognition and preparation on inclusion, understanding how significant is to

comprehend teachers’ daily certainties that go beyond simple images of knowledge.

Implications

This narrative experience wanted to achieve a more human view about teachers’ stories

that sometimes used to be taken as something mandatory or regular in our daily experiences.

With this research process I intend to motivate and empower teachers to recognize their own

realities, thinking about the big power that we as teacher have to transform thousands realities of

our students and their families.

This research helps to discover how teachers are using language in order to address their

own inabilities to face new experiences as inclusion, for that reason, I invite novice and

experienced teachers to start having control of new and unknown situations. New trends in

educations have to be taken not as a distant field but also they have to be treated since the first

moment of their recognition. Teachers in the classroom have more power of what is thought,

being those the initial actors to change and modify policies, actions and routines which are

affecting education.

Students with Functional diversity are everywhere, their functionalities can be identified

or ignored and their processes of learning can be explored and harnessed in the best possible

ways; their abilities go beyond their capabilities and they are also mediated most of the time by

motivation and certitude given by their nearest examples. For that reason, teachers can have the

key to help and improve those students’ realities even the difficulties and struggles during the

teaching practice.


As a final remark, these inclusive practices that involve teachers’ commitment and will,

must be seen from diverse perspectives. In this case, this research work taught me how to be

more sensitive towards students’ realities, specifically when teachers are not interested or

informed about their life’s styles. In this process, I understood that some of the teachers’

behaviors that we normally find exclusive or discriminatory are not carried out in a conscious

way. For that reason, I invite all academic community to reflect upon our processes of teaching;

some of the most common mistakes that we have in our classrooms, are the result of internal

fights and struggles that we have as teachers and we tend to hide.

English teachers should go beyond teaching language as a subject; communication gives

us an important tool to identify students’ difficulties and realities which cannot be hidden or

ignored. Indeed, these processes of inclusion invite us to assume a position of change and

transformation, converting teachers as empowered people who can improve education even when

changes cannot be seen.

This research work was presented in the research line of Processes of Teacher Education

and Development for the Master’s Program in Applied Linguistics in the Teaching of English as

a Foreign Language.

.

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Appendixes

The following appendixes were selected and organized by the researcher with the

objective of illustrating the research work. Not all narratives collected were put in this work

because the stories were extensive and sometimes repetitive, for that reason, the most powerful

manuscripts and recordings are the ones who are in this section of the work.

Appendix A4

Fridas’ Extracts

Bueno hablando de mi experiencia como docente la cual no es mucha tendría que hablar

de 3 períodos hasta el momento. Uno que fue mi práctica docente que fueron dos durante 6 meses

y En la siguiente que fue pues cubriendo una licencia de maternidad. Luego tuve 2 oportunidades

de trabajar ya después de graduada porque los anteriores fueron sin haberme graduado. Allí

estuve por medio año con estudiantes de primaria Dictando español, inglés y filosofía para niños

algo nuevo para mí. Desde grado jardines tarado quinto. Y la otra en la actual. Estoy trabajando

con estudiantes de bachillerato noveno décimo y no ha sido del todo fácil porque siento y

percibo que ni a la universidad te brinda un acercamiento, siempre lo consideré y lo constato:

ahora qué es así como médico y como los estudiantes que se preparan para ser médicos y

estudiantes de medicina tienen unos periodos de observación de la realidad a la que se van a

enfrentar desde casi sus primeros semestres de carrera para luego si tiene que hacer su año rural

como se le dice en la educación deberíamos tener de él la oportunidad observar la realidad mucho

desde mucho antes de enfrentarnos a ella, porque en la práctica docente en realidad y aunque se

piense tiene un contacto con pues con ese quehacer docente y pues bajo la presión de un

4 These teacher’s narratives were transcribed. The original audios are attached in MP3 format.


observación de un maestro de práctica docente del maestro titular de la clase incluso de los

mismos se siente uno frágil; nunca hicimos una reservación nunca tuvimos el contacto

directo. Aunque es válido que nosotros siendo estudiantes conocemos lo que es un aula de clases

un salón de clases pero que debemos tener en cuenta que lo hacemos desde el rol de estudiante

que no es lo mismo que el rol del docente. Desde ese entonces aquella experiencia, fue la verdad

puedes motivador, ahora en cuanto a mí, bueno voy a poner en práctica todo lo que ha aprendido

y pero es en realidad no es aquella experiencia que te va a permitir aprender y reconocer ciertas

situaciones. Y que tú vas a tener que enfrentar como maestro en un ámbito escolar en el aula de

clase. Durante mi práctica docente bueno, fueron estudiantes de grado sexto había niños hasta la

máxima edad recuerdo claramente era mi hizo un estudiante de 15 años que eran ya remitentes

que teníamos problemas comportamentales bastante fuertes y que además tiene que tener una

consideración con ellos porque tenían una perdida de año y problemas comportamentales

entonces ya No podían perder el año porque luego de esa edad sería una desventaja pasar al

siguiente año que siguió grados séptimo. Y si ellos no lograban promocionarse a grado séptimo.

Buenos en el análisis de la población que hicimos antes de, porque lo hicimos nosotros como

estudiante como proyecto también mas no por qué tuviéramos una reunión previa con entrada con

nuestra maestra titular del curso que tomábamos los practicantes, nosotros fuimos fue a un

chapuzón. Sin un conocimiento previo de la de la población y sin saber siquiera la problemática

que había en ellos sí que nos dijera qué problemas de aprendizaje tenían, que problemas

comportamentales y a los niños qué problemas socioeconómicos o como una situación

socioeconómica que problemas familiares puedan estar inmersos los niños asumió por no querer

pensar que son fueron irresponsable al hacer esto. Después cuestiones de

privacidad. Efectivamente durante esos 6 meses, bueno el desarrollo y práctica fue bastante

satisfactorio para mí porque me permite conocer precisamente. Que la universidad había


enseñado y no a una teoría unas bases teóricas muy buenas excelente base teórica porque las

evidencias cuando estaba ahí sin embargo. Me preparo para esa realidad que es el quehacer

docente me tocó a mí yéndome hacia ella y con miles de espectadores mis estudiantes mi

profesora era profesor titular y demás. Enfrentarme a un telón blanco que era yo misma, mi

propia a mi propio quehacer docente. Con las manos llenas de insumos de pintura de miles de

colores. Pero sin saber cómo dibujar. Sabiendo que quería dibujar pero sin saber cómo debía

ser. Luego tengo otros 3 contextos donde en el ejercido una labor, unos estratos socioeconómicos

totalmente diferentes la primera oportunidad que fue escasamente 2 meses en estratos niños de

estrato uno y dos porque uno mismo ingresada en ese transitar aprende a conocer, y pues por

algunos signos que los niños muestran. Recibida algunos el distanciamiento algunos de apatía.

Uno empieza a conocer cómo son los niños y tiene que ser uno muy creativo. Y en mi caso yo lo

hacia a través de narraciones de historias de la vida para poder conocer y descubrir en ellos cuáles

serán aquellas condiciones y persona nada le socioeconómica asociada a la de sus familiares que

pudieran estar afectando su proceso de aprendizaje porque debo aclarar. Ya me produjo una

oportunidad no me, si tuvo la oportunidad de saber y algunas condiciones médicas de los niños

porque el colegio responsablemente si es una retroalimentación de qué condiciones médicas.

Ahí de más de uno nos hicieron saber, más no nos hablaron de niños con algunos problemas de

aprendizaje sino de unos diagnósticos claros sí niños con síndrome áspero y niños con problemas

médicos tan graves que pues que los niños tenían un tiempo de vida situaciones así.

Con ellos sé que trabajar así con ellos el trabajo porque yo asumo que. Y también la asumirán

estos dueños de estas personas de la institución las instituciones académicas quea un profesor se

le prepara en la universidad.

En el quehacer, analizando a los chicos, teniendo otras estrategias, algo más personalizado para

poder trabajar con eso sin seguir sintiéndome frustrada porque sentía que me faltaba y sigo


sintiendo que me falta. En cualquier licenciatura normal una licenciatura sin ningún título o

nombre en especial es decir claro y presenciado en educación. E infantil licenciado en educación

especial o como quisiera que se le llamara. Sino un estudiante una licenciatura en español y aquí

mi confesión. Entonces yo me imagino que los de estas personas asumen que nosotros de ellos

saben cómo poder trabajar y dentro de un ámbito dentro de una jaula aquellos diferentes

situaciones aquella diferentes personas con las que nosotros tenemos contacto día a día a las que

no podemos encasillar.

Así podemos decir que en un gran porcentaje cómo podemos trabajar ciertas estrategias y de lo

que cada uno de ellos irá tomando porque son personas que no tienen una condición de

aprendizaje y por así decirlo desde atención distinta a la que tienen algunas personas que se les

presenta es en este colegio que yo les comento.

En la escuela pues me hicieron una retroalimentación, aparece en ella un niño con aspecto de

presión el mío con indicios de autismo sin embargo no es un diagnóstico dado no es sino

sencillamente lo que asumía la orientadora en ese momento que además de la psicóloga Allí fue

donde yo dije bueno tengo esta paleta de colores como dibujos sobre este sobre este telón como

dibujo sobre el lienzo. Sí no sé cómo hacerlo ni yo misma empecé a estudiar, a mirar por internet

y por fuentes bibliográficas como podría trabajar con ellos y ya en el quehacer en el aula de clase

analizando los chicos, teniendo otra estrategia distinta con ella incluso algo más personalizado

que puede trabajar con ellos y no sentirme frustrada en alguna manera porque sentía que me

faltaba y sigo sintiendo que me hace falta muchísimo. Luego tuve estas oportunidades y las

generalizarse porque son estrato socioeconómico iguales y son niños de la prácticamente en el

mismo sector entonces pues viven la misma condiciones de barrio porque hubo también aclarar

qué een los contextos en los que yo he tenido la oportunidad de ejercer quién está licenciatura de

ejercer como maestra es un contexto social pesado como varios alrededor.


En ese aspecto también son como parecido a los estudiantes. Bueno en estos colegios se no

puedo decir que hay una mayoría estudiantes con problemas de aprendizaje. Hubo algunas

situaciones con algunos niños pero yo lo recuerdo claramente lo recuerdo por qué en clase me

pasó con un estudiante de grado quinto. Cuando estamos en clases se daban las opiniones y se

abría un espacio para que los muchachos también participaran, encontré una niña que siempre

tenía una posición distinta a la de los demás y su mirada era diferente era siempre un poco

encorvada hacia el pupitre no conversa con además incluso supuesto su ocupante decía nadie toca

este puesto. No quería hacerse con los compañeros cuando se trazaban actividades en grupo sino

ella quería únicamente en su manada en la gran culto además tenía una abundancia de un léxico

abundante, es una terminología utilizada en no era pues la de un niño a su edad. Ya en vista de

que yo empecé a notar estas cositas en cada clase; su recelo hacia lo que yo siempre decía todo el

tiempo estaba como cuestionando lo que cuenta para mí en realidad. Pero lo hacía siempre de una

manera un tanto agresiva y despectiva veces incluso muchas veces y lo debo confesar sentí miedo

que él sabía lo que estaba hablando porque inicialmente pensé que quiera sólo por hacer un

saboteó la clase pero luego entendí que sabía lo que estaba hablando inicio su pensamiento me

saca de mí como de mí de aquello que yo pueda pensar o de lo que habían encasillado a niños de

esa edad. Entonces tuve que ir a la orientadora nunca le cuenta la condición de mi estudiante

consejo cuando ella me dijo que había una condición cognitiva en Él que por eso él era así.

Nuevamente me encuentro con como trabajo con él qué es lo que sucede con él afortunadamente

es este niño no tenían por autismo, sino como tal sino más bien como algo de socializar con los

demás y ser muy introvertido era un niño muy inteligente, bueno, ya en el momento de la clase o

algo así no tenía una situación distinta con él porque se mantenía como entendían todos los

demás muchachos lo que yo he explicado ya no tenía que hacer una clase distinta ellos tenían que

tratar estratégica para él. Cuando tenía que hablar, cuando teníamos que hacer trabajos en grupo


o talleres con un compañero. Porque él no le gustaba interactuar con los demás y allí, bien

nuevamente esa duda cesa a esa a esa dicotomía entre g actuó en mi como el procesador en chile

y se indaga sobre estudiantes actuó como el psicólogo que no soy o actúo como el profesor

autoritario y no importa o actúo como el profesor indiferente si hace no hace es asunto de llega

allí toda esa cantidad de pensamientos y uno empieza a divagar entre cómo lo hago cómo hago

mi quehacer docente en este lugar nuevamente surgen las preguntas surge la pregunta de bueno

por qué no se me enseñan esto en la universidad porque ge no se me habló de estas realidades a

las que yo tenía que enfrentarme con el pasar del tiempo lo que entiendo es que no es problema

de como se traza el pensó en la universidad. Pero sí que siento que en aquellas que en el caso del

irán y la sociedad actual. Con asuntos comportamentales tan delicado como los que. Y tenido que

enfrentar mi aula de clase, mi semilla así como para un médico ejecuta una observación directa

allá una práctica, me involucraba también al maestro necesito naturalmente y la lenteja con

ministerio uno recuerdo ahorita y sé que en la práctica docente debe ser por mucho tiempo. Pero

pues infortunadamente ya yo una graduada cuando esa ley se había promulgado y se iba

empezara y empezará a regir desde. Porque yo consideró que aunque sean solventes innecesaria

más en esta sociedad actual y he tenido que enfrentar mi aula de clase: mi semilla así como para

un médico ejecuta una observación directa allá una práctica me involucraba también al maestro

necesito. Naturalmente y la lenteja con ministerio uno recuerdo ahorita, y sé que en la práctica

docente debe ser por mucho tiempo. Pero pues infortunadamente ya yo una graduada cuando esa

ley se había promulgado y se iba empezara y empezará a regir desde. Porque yo consideró que

aunque sean solventes innecesaria más en esta sociedad actual. Ahora hay algunos problemas de

aprendizaje en los niños es cierto y es un niño los puedes encontrar en todo la década quizá en

una mitad quizá no la cuarta parte pero uno o dos si lo habrá porque la evidencia en esta

oportunidad con la que estoy tengo mi por cada curso estudiantes con una condición especial. Me


refiero especial no ascensional con problemas cognitivos no como con síndrome mi nada, me dijo

que se salga de si de esa condición que podríamos decir entre comillas normal pero sí que tienen

una situación que también afectan su proceso de aprendizaje, también qué hacer y es donde me

frustró me siento como experimentando y como si yo misma fuera un conejillo de indias lo que

puedo hacer con conmigo misma y de cómo me construyo como maestra y con mi estudiante por

no tener aquellas porque tienes las herramientas porque ahora considero que la universidad sí me

rindo pertenecía y las estrategias quiero conocer cual es la que debe utilizar como la de utilizar

entonces en esta en esta sociedad se debía permitir al maestro tener contacto con las aulas de

clases con el ámbito escolar con todos los procesos académicos que seguía en la escuela desde

muy temprano desde que empieza su carrera. Para que sean una base sólida cuando el g c no se

nos envía al ruedo como maestros a experimentar porque en la vida de nuestros estudiantes y

nuestra propia vida en nuestro desarrollo personal como ella y nuestro desarrollo profesional

como maestro histamina vida aquel estudiante que se deposita por más de 6:00 horas al día en la

que también tiene un mundo un contexto propio cuyo tengo un contexto propio y que esos dos

mundos se encuentra en un solo lugar. Allí en esa integración cada uno con sus propias

predisposiciones con sus propios estigmas con su propia cosmovisión del mundo.

Appendix B

Pocahontas’ Extracts

Buenos días mi nombre es ----------, soy docente. Yo ingreso en el colegio en el año 2016,

este año se cumplen 3 años en los que vengo trabajando con el colegio, yo asesoro el área de

español, Inglés y ciencias naturales desde el grado quinto a noveno, cuando ingrese al colegio

trabaje con grados novenos, los siguientes años he trabajado solo hasta grado octavo. El proceso

de mi experiencia frente a la inclusión comenzó en la universidad en el momento que nos dan la


catedra de educación especial, uno comienza a dar enfoques diferentes dependiendo del tipo de

población, debido a las dificultades que presente cada de uno de ellos. Me llama mucho la

atención el tema dirigido hacia la ayuda, el poder tener conocimientos diferentes hacia como

debemos manejar estas poblaciones, teniendo en cuenta que en el país ya es un hecho, que lo

tenemos día a día. En mi colegio no lo viví mucho ya que no era muy común ver en nuestro salón

de clase a alguien con condiciones diferentes, en la vida escolar no lo vivencie, fue en la

universidad que lo vivencie con la práctica al tener contacto con muchos niños de diferentes

poblaciones. En el colegio se vivencia ya que convivimos con personas de diferentes edades y

diferentes salones, es muy importante el nosotros saber y conocer cómo enfocarnos con estos

estudiantes por que requieren una atención diferente y para nosotros es complicado porque no

solo tenemos a estos estudiantes sino otros estudiantes que requieren de nuestra atención. Desde

el manejo del curso es complicado porque en el colegio hay casos específicos y para algunos

estudiantes es muy nuevo esto y cada vez que avanzan en su proceso escolar y suben de nivel se

encuentran con algún estudiante con esta situación y la mayoría de veces no tienen una posición

de ayuda y tienden a atacar, a excluir, aislarlos y para nosotros como docentes es difícil porque

los demás estudiantes piensan que uno tiene preferencias o que porque ellos tienen esta condición

pueden hacer lo que quieran, como docentes hacemos o permitimos demasiadas cosas pero es por

ayuda para que se mantengan o incluyan en un ámbito escolar normal. Una de las historias que

me marco fue cuando yo estaba realizando prácticas de la universidad, la realice en un jardín y en

grado transición había un niño de inclusión que tenía un síndrome de autismo y debido a esto era

agresivo, no seguía órdenes y su condición era muy marcada, era difícil manejarlo ya que se tenía

el temor de que de pronto nos golpeara, que no se dejara manejar, gracias a dios, a todos los

docentes y a el área de psicología logramos hacer que el niño comenzara a hacer cosas por si

mismo, a tener límites y pues algo que para alguien con su síndrome le sería muy difícil de


lograr, él era un niño abandonado, pero gracias a muchas personas que decidieron ayudarlo y

apoyarlo, llego a su vida un señor que lo adopto, en este país el apoyo médico y el apoyo

económico es muy difícil porque se necesitan muchas cosas, tales como terapias.

Cuando estamos nosotros entre colegas, para ellos es fácil dejar de lado a el estudiante, si

un docente tuvo una educación profesional en algún momento tuvo que oír de esto, también hay

casos o docentes especializados en esto pero los demás no estamos exentos a vivir alguna

experiencia similar, algunos docentes deciden tomar el camino fácil que sería decir que como el

no es especializado en eso y el colegio no le da las herramientas por solo no querer vivir el

proceso del estudiante. Pienso que es una labor de nosotros como licenciados, además de nuestra

ética, nosotros debemos actuar y tener un enfoque de ayuda, no solo enfocarnos en hacer la clase.

Siempre hay una vulnerabilidad y hay una situación de incertidumbre y pregunta, acerca de si

estoy realizando las cosas bien, de cómo actúo y demás.

En este año tenemos un estudiante que conozco desde que ingrese aquí, yo por ser

directora de curso conozco su situación directamente, su autoestima es una situación muy fuerte

ya que él fue abandonado desde muy pequeñito, las hermanitas que están a cargo del colegio lo

acogieron y su niñez fue difícil por que el estuvo en el sisga, una clase de internado que las

hermanitas tienen, allí fue la mayor parte de su etapa escolar y por una situación que tuvo de

desestabilidad fue expulsado de allí, una persona cercana a la familia de él lo acogió, la familia se

hace responsable de él y de su hermano gemelo con el estudio, alimentación y demás cosas. A

este Niño lo he tenido en un proceso desde sexto, conozco el caso hace 3 años y comencé a

trabajar En la parte de acercarme a él, ser su amiga, escucharlo, ser su compañera, que él me

viera como un apoyo, mi intención siempre fue que él supiera y estuviera seguro de que había

una persona que estaba preocupada por el, que estaba pendiente de sus cosas, que lo quería


ayudar, que lo tenía en cuenta en muchos aspectos y estar atenta a sus necesidades, siempre con

el apoyo del colegio y sus familiares. El proceso de él ha sido muy difícil ya que el año pasado

cambiaron más las actividades y fue más difícil estar pendiente de lo que hacía, esto para el niño

fue un retroceso, este año volví a cargo de dirección de curso y vuelvo a trabajar con el, estar más

enfocada en él, más atentes y saber que es lo que él quiere, necesita, cabe recalcar que he tenido

el apoyo de más docentes y del área de psicología, aún sabiendo que esto es un proceso que no va

a acabar rápido y va a estar un cierto tiempo. También hemos encontrado en algunos casos qué

hay profesores que no les importa a veces la situación del estudiante y que para ellos es mejor y

más importante una nota que lo que pueda a llegar ser o sentir el estudiante y es muy difícil por

que sería como si uno estuviera logrando algo y viniera alguien más y le pisoteara todo lo que ha

hecho, la idea es no decaer y mostrarle a él Niño que seguimos a su lado y que las cosas hay que

llevarlas para adelante. Su condición física es que es un niño grande pero su condición mental y

psicológica es un niño pequeño, pero con el tiempo cada vez más va agarrando madurez,

creciendo, queremos ayudarlo a un tenga un buen proyecto de vida, que tenga un mejor futuro y

que todo le sirva para cuando esté adulto.

Appendix C

Hércules’ Extracts.

Primero que todo me presento, mi nombre…en este momento he acabado materias de

licenciatura en lenguas modernas, énfasis en inglés, y me encuentro con una de mis primeras

experiencias laborales formales.

Para entrar en materia, durante mi experiencia como estudiante, los profesores tienden a

inculcarnos a nosotros una manera inclusiva de ver las aulas de clase puesto que allí es donde

ejerceremos. La mayoría de mis compañeros y yo durante la teoría nos es muy sencillo hablar de


inclusión, practicas inclusivas hasta desarrollar teorías y mecanismos para poder brindar la

educación de la manera más equitativa posible.

Afortunada o desafortunadamente durante mi estadía en la universidad no me encontré en

alguna de mis clases algún ejemplo de estas prácticas inclusivas para poder tomar como ejemplo

a la hora de ejercer, puesto que la mayoría de las coas que hacemos como profesores no es lo que

nos tratan de enseñar en la universidad si no lo que vemos que hacen los directamente implicados

en esto con nosotros, es decir como nosotros nos sentimos como estudiantes es como tratamos de

que, cuando nos toca, hacemos sentir a nuestros alumnos.

Durante mis practicas todo iba perfecto encontré diversos ambientes con chicos

completamente normales con normales ritmos de aprendizaje, variados pero dentro de todo sanos,

emplee lo que aprendí en la clase desarrolle mis propias técnicas de enseñanza, mis mecanismos

hasta mis actividades motivacionales y, la verdad, todo lo que emplee salió bien, ahí pensé, es

bastante “plano” ser profesor, las unidades que enseñaba me las iba pautando un libro de inglés

para el curso para el cual fue diseñado, y así con el material, mi iniciativa, mis prácticas y mi

actitud hacia ellos iba adquiriendo la experiencia requerida para continuar con mis labores de

enseñanza. Podría decir que casi todo lo que me propuse salió bien.

Duré aproximadamente dos años, podría decirse que en mi zona de confort actuando bajo

los parámetros aprendidos, llevando un ritmo de enseñanza parejo y llevando a mis estudiantes

por el camino del conocimiento, unos más rápidos que otros, pero al final el promedio en el salón

me alcanzaba para deducir que se había hecho un buen trabajo.

Termino mis materias el año pasado y salgo a enfrentar a la vida formalmente ya sin

escudos de profesores, ya sin tutor si nadie quien me aconsejara dentro del aula, y vaya cambio,


pareciera que la vida me puso la que hasta ahora ha sido la prueba más difícil de mi vocación, y

lo sigue siendo porque dentro de todo lo experimentado no he podido dar un parte positivo de mi

trabajo y hasta la hora no he descubierto las prácticas de inclusión que tanto alardeábamos en el

salón de clase cuando fuimos estudiantes.

Entro al colegio -------- dirigido por las hermanas de la orden Sagrado Corazón de Jesús,

Podría decir que de todos los lugares donde trabaje sin duda este es el de mejor infraestructura,

acondicionamientos para los profesores en perfecto estado, herramientas materiales de trabajo

individuales, una gran adecuación, un gran lugar para empezar la vida formalmente.

Trabajamos con mis colegas casi tres semanas conociendo las reglas del colegio, los

enfoques pedagógicos, conociendo de la orden, a la que, indirectamente, los que trabajamos allí

pertenecíamos.

A las casi tres semanas de trabajo entran los estudiantes, me sentía tan emocionado por

saber con quién iba a trabajar, a quien le iba a transmitir todo lo que llevaba dentro y todo lo que

había aprendido de mis maestros y de mis experiencias, quería ser el mejor y no había duda que

todo lo que tuviera a mi alcance lo haría por el bien de estos niños que venían a aprender de

ciencia cultura deporte y humanidades.

Durante mi primera impresión no note nada extraño, me nombraron director de curso en

un conjunto de niños que dentro de lo que yo conocía era normal y podía dictar mi clase

abiertamente y a mi ritmo ya adquirido, esta vez sin consejeros era lo que había aprendido y

podía transmitir y yo.

A diferencia de mis prácticas en este nuevo ambiente tenemos que rotar para enseñar a

diversos cursos, de diferentes niveles, entonces este tema hace un poco más extenso el currículo


que vamos a impartir en los distintos cursos, supe en esta primera semana que tenía en total 6

cursos a los que les iba a impartir mi enseñanza, ya era bastante extenso idear las practicas

necesarias para aproximadamente 150 estudiantes semanales. Aun así asumí el reto y era

emocionante lo que venía por delante.

La sorpresa y entrando en punto a la pregunta inicial con la que empiezo a narrar esta

experiencia, en uno de los cursos encuentro una niña extraordinariamente tierna, no era del todo

igual a los otros y eso me asustaba, pero mi primera impresión fue enternecerme ante semejante

dulzura.

Resulta para mi sorpresa, ella tenía una condición de discapacidad llamada Autismo. Me

sorprendió pero pensé que con lo que practicábamos en clase podría demostrarme y demostrar a

los jefes familiares y colegas que podía sacar adelante mi enseñanza. Estuve equivocado

subestimando la complejidad de técnicas usadas para la correcta metodología de clases a aquella

niña.

Al principio pensé que ella necesitaba un trato especial y diferente para el correcto

aprendizaje y me mantuve en esa posición mucho tiempo, no me moleste mucho en la

preocupación por lo que ella pudiera aprender si no como me demostraba que los trabajos que

ella tenía eran supremamente fáciles comparado a sus compañeros. Esas prácticas de inclusión en

realidad no son efectivas

Nunca idee una manera diferente de emplear el aula de clase y eso me mantuvo con

satisfacción pues pienso que el trabajo está bien hecho de esta forma, quizás pienso que

Ha pasado medio año de conocerla conocer su entorno y pienso que, aunque no ha

avanzado en la materia como sus compañeros el trabajo es satisfactorio puesto que ha aprobado


lo que le he puesto y he tratado de animarla en todo momento haciéndola sentir bien con su

trabajo, pienso que es la mejor practica inclusiva que pude hacer porque esta con sus compañeros

compartiendo en la misma aula no importe el trabajo ve gente y ve sus clases como cualquier otro

estudiante.

En conclusión, pienso que el maestro es autónomo de hacer este tipo de prácticas para lo

que crea conveniente para sus estudiantes en este caso siento que la empleada fue acertada,

aunque no avance como los otros ha avanzado en la medida que ella puede.

Apendix D

Jafar’s extracts

Buen día, la presentación personal sobra en espacios como este, cabe resaltar que soy un docente

de género masculino de 52 años, con 26 años de experiencia como docente en los grados de 3 a

11 mayoritariamente, en el área de inglés como lengua extranjera.

Mi Experiencia laboral empieza desde mis prácticas universitarias y he tenido bastantes críticas

quizás por mis maneras conservadoras de pensar, siempre he tenido la mentalidad un poco

allegada a mi doctrina de lo que aprendí en mí tiempo, en donde, como yo, todas las personas

tienen el mismo nivel de exigencia y todas las personas con un poco de esfuerzo, son capaces de

alcanzar los mismos resultados en el área que se lo propongan.

Durante mi experiencia educadora, he encontrado cientos de casos de niños o niñas, alumnos con

algunas limitaciones, mi reaccionar ante estas situaciones no ha sido, para muchos de la mejor

forma, pero para mí como docente, como profesional y como formador de personas capaces de

manejar los idiomas, me parece correcta, y lo que los educadores de las diferentes ramas ante

estas situaciones deberían hacer.


Basado en mis situaciones con estudiantes que he notado, han tenido una condición diferente a lo

que se considera “normal”, puedo deducir que el ente de educación, como colegio o universidad,

no está en la autoridad de impartir una educación o una formación acorde a lo que ello requiere.

De acuerdo a esto he decidido que lo mejor para este tipo de estudiantes, es que el gobierno acuda

a programas de inclusión social o educación especial siendo este, el ente encargado de, con

profesores formados específicamente en el área, que entiendan, comprendan e impartan como tal

esta educación, reúnan todos estos estudiantes, y dispongan de espacios en donde se les forme

como tal, bajo sus condiciones, en la ciencia, las humanidades, el arte y la cultura.

Tengo la impresión y, espero no estar errado, que cuando un docente se dedica a educar bajo

estas condiciones, los estudiantes que no tienen “condiciones especiales” se atrasan en lo que

debería ser el ritmo educativo, para avanzar en los conocimientos y competencias que se deben.

Bajo este parámetro, me he desentendido un poco de estas situaciones, haciendo, lo que muchos,

colocar tareas, ejercicios prácticos y talleres acordes a lo que puedo deducir de capacidad para

aquellos estudiantes, dejando así, libre el resto de estudiantes para impartir la clase que debería.

Los estudiantes condicionados hacen sus actividades dentro de su tiempo estimado y con la

dificultad programada y lo entregan, y yo las evalúo como tal dando así un concepto del

aprendizaje traducido en una nota, mientras los estudiantes “normales” hacen los trabajos talleres

y evaluaciones que van acordes a la unidad o el capítulo de trabajo que se adelanta en la materia.

Dentro de todo he podido manejar esta situación a como creo yo, de la mejor manera, y los

estudiantes que he tenido no condicionados han terminado el curso con muy buena competencia

en la materia y los estudiantes condicionados han concluido con un nivel más alto con el que

entraron, porque no he permitido que mi clase se disminuya el tiempo o el ritmo para ningún ca


caso de atenciones especiales y así he concluido el curso con múltiples actuaciones destacadas y

críticas a lo largo de los años, pero yo me he sentido satisfecho.

Espero sea objeto de estudio mi proposición para que aquellos estudiantes puedan tener un

espacio diferente en donde ellos y los docentes y los demás estudiantes se sientan cómodos

dentro de su tarea de adquirir el conocimiento y se formen como personas y como profesionales.

He sido docente por cerca de treinta años. La mitad de ellos trabajé en el sector privado.

He trabajado en todos los cursos de colegio y en universidades. Adicionalmente, he trabajado con

estudiantes de todos los estratos y características sociales, académicas y culturales.

Ha habido pocos estudiantes con discapacidades físicas. Afortunadamente, ninguno

invidente o sordo porque no estoy capacitado tampoco para comunicarme adecuadamente con

ellos. En alguna ocasión tuve estudiantes sordas en una universidad, sin embargo, contaban con

intérpretes. En cuanto a las dificultades cognitivas, cuando han sido reales, la mayoría de los

estudiantes, las han superado con esfuerzo y trabajo. La SED ofrece capacitación sólo para

maestros de educación especial y de apoyo. En las instituciones privadas, dependiendo del nivel

académico, hay profesionales a cargo de esa área.

He tenido estudiantes con necesidades especiales, Un par de estudiantes con audífonos a

quienes procuré hablarles con más atención y mirarlos de frente. Una estudiante con baja visión,

requería fotocopias ampliadas o apoyo de un compañero para lectura. Con respecto a las

dificultades cognitivas, estoy preparada para adaptar el plan de estudios a las posibilidades de los

estudiantes. Actualmente, hay una estudiante de octavo grado que trabaja a nivel de un tercero de

primaria en la asignatura.


En cuanto a los procesos que desarrollaba en el aula de clase. Las tareas, refuerzos y trabajo

personal independiente, guiado por mí, en la actualidad, adapto el plan de estudio, las actividades

y los tiempos de atención personalizada al nivel de la estudiante. Dado el número de estudiantes,

las exigencias de la SED y la convivencia en el colegio, es muy escaso el tiempo que puedo

dedicarles. Ahí entonces me dedico a dejarles trabajos simples que alcancen a realizar y no se

estresen, en algunas oportunidades les dejo trabajos para la casa para que los papás y los

acompañantes especiales los guíen porque a mí a veces se me dificulta ayudarles, quizás lo haga

mal o de la manera incorrecta para ellos, entonces no es desinterés ni ignorancia, es mi manera de

poder ayudarles mejor, quizás con lo que yo sé, con lo que yo soy y lo que hago, no le sea

suficiente a ella ni a ninguno de los niños con discapacidad. A veces hacerse a un lado no es

signo de cansancio o desinterés, sino de colaboración y preocupación por alguien.

Siento que se hace en papel y por razones políticas, sin programación, capacitación y

oportunidades apropiadas para los estudiantes. Me preocupa disminuir la calidad de mi trabajo

con los estudiantes regulares sin lograr satisfacer las necesidades de los que tienen discapacidad.

Mi experiencia docente ha sido muy gratificante, porque he aprendido mucho de los

estudiantes tanto personal como profesionalmente. Me ha enseñado a sobrellevar las diferentes

situaciones del aula de clase y como sortearlas de la mejor manera tanto pedagógica como

personalmente. Ha sido un trayecto donde he comprendido cómo trabajar tanto con niños,

adolescentes y adultos entendiendo que cada uno tiene sus propios ritmos y formas de aprendizaje.

He tenido muy pocos estudiantes con discapacidad y en estos casos he tenido la colaboración de

sicología para orientarme. En estas situaciones me funcionó la paciencia para orientar, y la

colaboración de los compañeros de clase, además de las pautas a tener en cuenta para tratar estos


casos particulares como un seguimiento y observación más continuo, entender sus limitaciones, el

trabajo en equipo con los padres de familia y la motivación.

Si, y sucedió en el colegio san José de Calasanz suba. Fueron 2 casos, pero en particular me llamó

la atención una chica que tuve durante 3 años (7,8 y 9 grado), la cual tenía una capacidad cognitiva

inferior a lo normal. Las directivas nos daban pautas para hacer el trabajo y seguimiento a hacer,

además de que la estudiante asistía a una fundación que le ayudaba. Fue una experiencia

constructiva. Lo más común es el constructivismo, aunque depende también del grupo, la

población y características particulares las que me hacen optar por una u otra. En este caso trabajo

mucho el cooperativismo, constructivismo, y tradicional buscando siempre un buen entendimiento

por parte del estudiante y que logre los objetivos propuestos dentro de sus capacidades.

En los estudiantes discapacitados se encuentran muchas limitantes para hacerse comprender. De

hecho, son estudiantes que la mayoría de veces al no comprender muy bien su lengua nativa

obviamente tendrán grandes dificultades para entender una lengua extranjera. En estos casos ayuda

mucho la orientación de sicología, instituciones alternas para problemas cognitivos y la

colaboración de padres, comprendiendo siempre que hay una limitante en el aprendizaje, en este

caso, me generan sentimientos como tristeza, frustración y esperanza. En mi caso, me siento peor

que los estudiantes, porque posiblemente ellos son más resignados a su situación particular, pero

uno como docente no puede resignarse, a uno si le toca mirar qué hacer con ellos, no solo por su

estadía en el colegio y la estabilidad económica, sino por los mismos estudiantes y sus procesos.

Puedo decir que en cada uno de los salones en los que he dictado clase toda mi carrera, me he

encontrado con estudiantes con discapacidad, lo peor de esto es que me he llegado a enterar de su

discapacidad hasta cuando ya se ha terminado el año o hasta que tenemos encontrones fuertes. Y

lo peor es que siempre uno piensa lo peor de ese estudiante hacia uno, cosas sencillas como: ese


niño me odia, odia en inglés o simplemente no le importa, y puede sonar difícil decirlo, pero en

oportunidades he llegado a sentirme fastidiada por ese niño por solo pensar que no tenemos apatía

o porque odia mi trabajo y me quiere hacer sacar.

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