https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v22n2.87603
Editorial1
Looking Back and Thinking Ahead for Strengthening
the Profile Journal
Last February we held the xv profile Symposium, an annual local event aimed at inviting
teachers of English from different backgrounds to reflect on our profession, to share research
results and innovations, and to highlight the importance of doing research. We also took
the opportunity to encourage the participants to share their findings through publishing.
During the event, we presented the first edition of 2020 of the Profile journal and
celebrated its twentieth anniversary. We gathered four groups of authors who have published
in different moments of their professional careers. They were:
• Authors who first published in the section Issues From Novice Teacher-Researchers
of the Profile journal
• Authors who have participated in a Teachers’ Professional Development Program
• Experienced authors, that is, teachers who have published extensively
• Members of the Advisory Review Board of the journal.
Pedro Chala (Universidad Javeriana), Deissy Angélica Velandia (elt consultant),
Mireya Peña (Universidad Libre), Rocío Mahecha (Secretaría de Educación Distrital),
Carmen Helena Guerrero (Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas), Ferney Cruz
(Instituto Caro y Cuervo), Liliana Cuesta (Universidad de La Sabana), and Álvaro Quintero
(Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas) kindly accepted our invitation to take part in
the symposium, and to speak their minds around the following topics: First, novice teacherresearchers exchanged ideas regarding the worries, interests, and challenges as teachers of
English that have emerged since they published their articles, soon after they completed their
bed. They also talked about new perspectives in the teaching profession as a result of their
engagement in doing research and writing to get published. They agreed on the demands
research and writing pose, the need to engage in further studies, and the steering force they
acknowledge in the first publication experience they had with Profile.
On the other hand, school teachers who produced their articles within the framework of
a teacher development program that guided them to do research in their classrooms focused
How to cite this article (apa, 7th ed.): Cárdenas, M. L., & Nieto-Cruz, M. C. (2020). Editorial: Looking back
and thinking ahead for strengthening the Profile journal. Profile: Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development,
22(2), 7–10. https://doi.org/10.15446/profile.v22n2.87603
This Editorial was received on April 15, 2020 and accepted on April 30, 2020.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Consultation is possible at https://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 22 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2020. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 7-10
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Cárdenas & Nieto-Cruz
on the impact of their experiences publishing in Profile for the first time. They reflected on the
formation of their authorial identity and how our journal has contributed to the emergence
of an academic writing culture. They stressed the need to have a community of practice that
looks at teaching, classroom research, and publication as connected entities. The dialogue
present in that community, the willingness to share and support each other, and the common
interest in granting a protagonist role to teachers were aspects of the Teachers’ Professional
Development Program that enriched their professional practice. In their opinion, all those
elements were vital to getting published and have also contributed to upgrading teachers’
self-esteem, an aspect very much needed nowadays.
Experienced authors, who have published with us as well as in other journals, talked
about the role research plays in the professional development of teachers. They also mentioned
additional knowledge teacher-researchers should acquire in order to be able to carry out
research and make it visible through academic publication. In their opinion, besides pedagogical
and content knowledge, it is necessary to position ourselves as agents of change, as critical
professionals whose research agendas are based on local realities and on the commitment
to look for better quality and equal opportunities in education.
To close the symposium, two members of the Advisory Review Board of the journal
reflected upon new possible paths they consider research in English language teaching/
learning will take in the near future. Some challenges that the era of digitalization poses to a
scientific publication like Profile were mentioned too. Lastly, and based on their experience as
manuscript reviewers, they shared some recommendations to future authors. In their opinion,
it is expected that we can have epistemological emancipation, enhance our understanding of
reality, and bring our subjectivities to the classroom (teachers’ and students’).
Overall, the event was an opportunity for the participants to reflect on the importance of
research (and the subsequent publication of findings) to positively impact teachers’ professional
lives and to avoid reproducing practices that have proven ineffective or hegemonic. This
sort of reflection is at the base of educational changes that ultimately favor more inclusive
learning processes.
In this issue, we are very pleased to share with you 13 articles. Ten correspond to the section
Issues From Teacher Researchers, one to the section Issues From Novice Teacher-Researchers, and
two to the section Issues Based on Reflections and Innovations. The contributions come from
seven countries: Colombia with five articles, Chile with three, Mexico with two, Argentina
with one as well as Iran, and one written in co-authorship by researchers from Spain and
the United States of America.
The topics discussed by researchers in the current issue concern English language teaching
and learning as regards pre- and in-service teachers, school teachers, and higher education
students. The articles also reveal an interest in exploring issues such as collaborative learning,
content and language integrated learning (clil), and oral and written correction feedback,
among others.
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Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras
Editorial
The section Issues From Teacher Researchers begins with an article that examines the
quality of a tutoring program for future teachers in the bed program in philology and
languages (English and French programs) at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota.
The study by Deissy Angélica Velandia (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de
Monterrey, Mexico) revealed that a comprehensive, personalized tutoring plan was needed.
This article is followed by one that discusses gender in relation to leadership and risk-taking
skills tied to an academic writing professional development course. The writing course helped
the researcher, Anna Peñaloza (Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia), to
understand that there is a perpetuation of social gender roles, gender stereotypes, and the
patriarchy. The third paper is authored by Erika de la Barra and Soffía Carbone (Universidad
Mayor, Chile). These authors explore the use of cooperative learning through literature in two
vulnerable English as a foreign language (efl) classrooms in Chile. The cooperative learning
together with literature resulted in a suitable combination to improve learners’ learning
strategies and personal growth. In fourth place, Edgar Alirio Insuasty and María Fernanda
Jaime Osorio (Universidad Surcolombiana, Colombia) developed a collaborative action
research study whose main objective was to transform the pedagogical practices of teachers
of a Colombian school of foreign languages. The study evidenced favorable perceptions
about the impact of collaborative action research on the transformation of the participating
English language teachers’ pedagogical practices. Next, we have a joint effort between Daniel
Madrid (Universidad de Granada, Spain) and Steven Julius (University of St. Thomas, usa).
The researchers examined the profile of students in the bilingual university degree programs
that employ English as the medium of instruction. The researchers concluded that the input
provided by their study might result in the improvement of the university bilingual programs.
Natalia Ramírez-Lizcano and María Alejandra Cabrera-Tovar (Universidad Surcolombiana,
Colombia) dealt with telecollaboration to connect efl learners’ perceptions about language
learning with culture. Telecollaboration facilitated the understanding of the nature of language
situated within functional and humanistic perspectives and the understanding of the scope
of culture and cultural identity. English language teaching in the context of high school is
presented by Marco Cancino and Gabriela Díaz (Universidad Andres Bello, Chile). In their
article, the authors explore the code-switching practices between English and Spanish used by
school teachers to accomplish a number of functions in two classroom modes via the teacher
talk scheme. The eighth article explores the possible forms of professional yet personal–local
knowledge two language student teachers encounter and produce when they plan language
lessons. The authors are Diego F. Ubaque-Casallas (Universidad Distrital Francisco José de
Caldas, Colombia) and Edgar Aguirre-Garzón (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Colombia).
Findings suggest that through lesson planning, language student teachers manage to re-signify
certain methodological constructions of teaching and learning. The higher education context
is discussed by Edgar Emmanuell Garcia-Ponce (Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico) in a
study that examines the perceptions of employers, university authorities, English teachers,
and students concerning needs to promote English achievement in a Mexican university. We
Profile: Issues Teach. Prof. Dev., Vol. 22 No. 2, Jul-Dec, 2020. ISSN 1657-0790 (printed) 2256-5760 (online). Bogotá, Colombia. Pages 7-10
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Cárdenas & Nieto-Cruz
close this section with an article by authors from three different Iranian universities. The
authors are Sajjad Sepehrinia (University of Tehran), Nahid Fallah (University of Kharazmi),
and Soad Torfi (Islamic Azad University). The three researchers worked on how teachers
provide oral corrections for their students. Their research focus was about the role of students’
proficiency level in five English language teachers’ corrective behavior with special attention
to affective and practical dimensions. The findings carry important implications for teacher
education programs.
The section Issues From Novice Teacher Researchers contains an article by Yesika AristizábalJiménez (Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia). In her article, the researcher makes a connection
between critical analysis and YouTube contents. The results showed that the implementation
of critical media literacy helped students become aware of the content they were consuming
and improve their English oral performance by means of specific oral activities.
The final section, Issues Based on Reflections and Innovations, features two articles. The
first is a joint venture between Darío Luis Banegas (University of Strathclyde, uk, & Ministerio
de Educación del Chubut, Argentina) and Cristina Lauze (Escuela No. 713, Argentina). The
Argentinian researchers connected clil with comprehensive sexual education in their study.
After one month of instruction, students were able to deliver presentations on comprehensive
sexual education topics. We end this section and the current issue with a study by Benjamín
Cárcamo (Universidad de las Américas, Chile). This article presents a typology on written
corrective feedback (wcf) that aims to close the gap between an agreement on the definition
of this type of feedback and the effects of different types of feedback on students’ writing.
The author expects that the resulting typology will help to improve the effectiveness in the
comparison of wcf studies and serve as a reference for teachers interested in expanding
their practices.
While closing this issue, we learned that the Profile journal has been included for the first
time in the Scimago Journal Rank and that it is positioned in Quartile 2 in the “Linguistics
and Language” category. We see this as an indication of the growing international impact of
our publication and it motivates us to keep publishing high-quality contents for the benefit
of our expanding readership. We thank the members of our editorial, scientific, and review
committees as well as our authors for the interest they have bestowed upon our publication.
We acknowledge their professionalism and commitment.
As always, we hope our readers find the contents of this issue relevant for their professional
practice. You are invited to share and discuss the topics raised in this issue with your colleagues
and/or students.
Melba Libia Cárdenas
Journal Editor
María Claudia Nieto Cruz
Journal Director
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Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas, Departamento de Lenguas Extranjeras