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Vol. 18 No. 1 (2025)
Enletawa Journal

Research Reports

A Decolonial Journey Through Collaborative Narrativization in English Teacher Education

https://doi.org/10.19053/uptc.2011835X.19368

Published 2025-04-28

  • Jairo Enrique Castañeda Trujillo

Jairo Enrique Castañeda Trujillo
District University of Bogotá image/svg+xml

Abstract

This article presents a decolonial collaborative autoethnographic approach to Initial English Language Teacher Education (IELTE) in Colombia. Through narrativization and dialogic reflection, it explores how pre-service English teachers in South Colombia co-constructed and theorized their practice amid institutional, cultural, and linguistic tensions. Grounded in decolonial theory, poststructuralist identity models, and narrative research, the study highlights how future teachers (hereinafter co-researchers) resisted normative discourses and reclaimed pedagogical agency. Co-researchers engaged in writing collaborative autoethnographies, reflection circles, and re-narrations, unveiling colonial residues in language policy, curriculum, and identity formation. Five narrative weaves illustrate how linguistic shame, displacement, familial resistance, dialogic reflection, and cultural knowledge shape their praxis. These are not autobiographical accounts but epistemic counter-narratives challenging dominant representations. The findings call for IELTE programs to foster epistemic dignity and cultural affirmation, enabling teachers to theorize from their realities. The study positions collaborative autoethnography as ethics-based praxis and advocates for a pluriversal IELTE rooted in justice, care, and community, reaffirming storytelling as a situated, political, and epistemological act of becoming.

Keywords

Collaborative autoethnography, Decoloniality, Dialogic reflection, Narrativization, Initial English language teacher education

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