ELT policy interpretations and translations in rural Colombia

Drawing on a study of English language teachers’ practices and identities in rural Colombia at a time of active education policy promoting English, this paper reports on how such policy has been “interpreted” and “translated” in rural schools. Informed mainly by the theory of policy enactment [Ball, S. J., Maguire, M., & Braun, A. (2012). How schools do policy: Policy enactments in secondary schools. London: Routledge], the paper shows how school contexts, external pressures, values of teachers and schools, as well as infrastructure and resources available are factors that filter policy implementation and, in turn, generate reinterpretations and practices of both resistance and accommodation to policy. Particularly, the analysis suggests that although teachers’ views on the importance of English seem to converge with those of policy-makers, they have reinterpreted policy goals in more socially sensitive terms. Likewise, it is shown how teachers’ professional judgement has come to counterbalance the idealisations and demands of policy. However, the analysis also indicates that some pressures are harder to resist and teachers are then led to adapt their practices in an attempt to comply.