This book is the compilation of seven research studies. Six studies were carried out by the in-service teacher-students from the MasterÂ’s in Education with Emphasis on English Didactics at the School of Education in Universidad Externado de Colombia, and one study was conducted by three professors from the same Emphasis.
This issue includes seven chapters. The first article describes the findings from teacher professional development seminars to sensitise teachers towards child rights classroom practices. The second article reports how the implementation of teacher-designed portfolios, based on controversial issues, enhanced students’ argumentative writing skills. The third article analyses the contribution of task-based lessons to the development of writing accuracy. The fourth article explains how the development and implementation of contextualised materials based on memory strategies foster students’ vocabulary learning. The fifth article shows the findings of developing contextualised worksheets centred on the task-based learning approach to enhance two oral communication micro-skills. The sixth article presents the impact of Moodle-based worksheets on reading comprehension. The seventh article illustrates the results of the development and implementation of worksheets supported by metacognitive reading strategies in reading comprehension. All the studies innovate through development of contextualized materials that respond to the particularities of their settings and highlight the role of English teachers as agents of change of their teaching practices within the Colombian context.
