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https://doi.org/10.15446/prole.v25n2.104627
Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English
Suggested Curriculum for High School
Desarrollo de la agencia docente en la implementación del
currículo sugerido de inglés
Cindy Valdelamar González
1
Luzkarime Calle-Díaz
Universidad de Córdoba, Montería, Colombia
is case study reports how three high-school teachers from two state schools in Colombia enacted the
National English Suggested Curriculum by the Ministry of Education. e teachers’ trajectories of action
were analyzed through semi-structured interviews, teachers’ narratives, and lesson observations. Using the
ecological model of agency as a framework, we situated teachers’ steps within projective, iterational, and
practical evaluative dimensions of agency. In this paper, we provide additional dimensions of teacher agency,
which can help to expand theoretical and empirical knowledge in the eld. Findings show that teachers cope
with the changes derived from policy dierently. e analysis presented in this paper can inform the creation
and promotion of future curriculum policies in similar contexts.
Keywords: curriculum implementation, language policy, national suggested curriculum, teacher agency
Este estudio de caso reporta la agencia de tres profesoras de inglés de dos instituciones educativas públicas
en Colombia en la adaptación del Currículo Sugerido de Inglés del Ministerio de Educación Nacional. Se
analizaron las trayectorias de acción de las docentes a partir de entrevistas semiestructuradas, narraciones y
observaciones de clase. Usando una adaptación del modelo de agencia docente, situamos las acciones de las
docentes en las categorías iterativa, práctico-evaluativa y proyectiva. En este artículo presentamos dimensiones
adicionales de agencia docente, con lo que buscamos contribuir al desarrollo empírico y teórico del campo
de estudio. Los hallazgos demuestran que las docentes abordan la adaptación curricular de forma distinta.
El análisis presentado puede aportar a la creación de políticas curriculares en el futuro.
Palabras clave: agencia docente, currículo sugerido de inglés, implementación curricular, políticas lingüísticas
Cindy Valdelamar González https://orcid.org/--- Email: cindyvaldelamarg@correo.unicordoba.edu.co
Luzkarime Calle-Díaz https://orcid.org/--- Email: luzkarimec@uninorte.edu.co
is article is based on the master’s thesis completed by Valdelamar (). Professor Calle-Díaz was the thesis advisor.
How to cite this article (APA, th ed.): Valdelamar González, C., & Calle-Díaz, L. (). Teachers’ agency development when adapting the
Colombian English suggested curriculum for high school. Prole: Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 25(), –. https://doi.
org/./prole.vn.
is article was received on September , and accepted on April , .
is is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives .
International License. Consultation is possible at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/./
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
Introduction
English language teachers, who specifically
adopt English as a foreign language (EFL) policies,
provide valuable information about the constraints or
accomplishments involved in implementing successful
or unsuccessful EFL policies. Hence, increasing interest
has been in describing EFL teachers’ challenges as they
interpret, enact, or resist policy discourses. In Asia
and Europe, several authors have addressed teachers’
agency and its inuence on teachers’ activities in the
classroom (Hamid & Nguyen, ; Liu et al., ;
Priestley et al., ; Verástegui Martínez & Úbeda
Gómez, ).
Although foreign language education has under-
gone numerous reforms in Latin America over the last
few years (Cronquist & Fiszbein, ), research that
addresses the specic actions carried out by teachers
at the micro level in response to language curricu-
lum reforms still needs to be explored. In the case of
Colombia, a signicant body of literature addresses
the relationship between EFL policy and stakehold-
ers’ adaptations (Araque Cuellar, ; Le Gal, ;
Miranda, ). However, there is still limited knowl-
edge in varied contexts where the curriculum was
implemented about how teachers specically coped
with the challenges of EFL policy reform.
In , the Colombian Ministry of Education
(MEN, for its acronym in Spanish) issued the Basic
Learning Rights and English Suggested Curriculum
(ESC) for middle and high school (Grades to in
the Colombian school system), addressed to English
teachers, education secretaries, and schools (MEN,
a, b). Working as a complementary plan
to support curriculum development and language
teaching at state schools, the ESC proposes English
learning goals inuenced by elements of peace, health,
environment, and democracy (MEN, b). Likewise,
the ESC states that teachers possess curricular
autonomy to analyze and adapt each element within
its suggested scope and objectives (MEN, b).
Although some studies have described the experi-
ences of public-school teachers when implementing the
reforms derived from the adaptation of new English
language policies (Araque Cuellar, ; Quintero Polo
& Guerrero Nieto, ), none of them has inquired
into the inuence of the ESC when adopted in Colom-
bian EFL classrooms.
We believe the exercise of teachers’ agency can
only be described by analyzing teachers’ decisions and
the reasons behind their action patterns, described in
detail in their own oral and written narratives. is
study explored these aspects as we interpreted how
each teacher developed their own framework for
action. is, in turn, provided varying results based
on how teachers enacted the ESC for high school.
Although the curriculum being implemented was
the same, the uniqueness of each participant teacher
provided a stance on how their agency influenced
curriculum implementation. e analysis could also
conclude convergence and divergence across the three
participant teachers.
Literature Review
Agency is the ability to evidence responsiveness
to situations conceived as problems within the present
and inuenced by past and future orientations (Biesta
& Tedder, ; Emirbayer & Mische, ). This
ecological notion of agency describes how an individual
acts considering paths that influence development,
decisions, and actions. This perspective of agency
addresses the actions performed rather than the
qualities or aspects waiting to be awakened in people
(Priestley et al., ).
is study takes this ecological notion of teacher
agency as the primary construct to address agency
theory. We adopted a model of teachers’ agency put
forward by Priestley et al. (). This model, also
known as the Chordal Triad of Agency, describes
the development of teacher agency within three
dimensions: (a) iterational (past orientations); (b)
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Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for...
practical-evaluative (present orientations), and (c)
projective (future orientations).
The relationship between teacher agency and
policy adaptation within EFL teaching reflects a
signicant connection between teachers’ adaptation
of policy discourses and classroom practices. Recent
years have witnessed an increase in new learning
curricula in various contexts, so teachers are expected
to take roles that reect the policies in their teaching
practices. is view considers the role of teachers as
an indicator of successful or unsuccessful EFL policy
implementation (Goodson, ; Hamid & Nguyen,
; Nieveen, ; Priestley et al., ). is shi in
responsibility from the macro (policymakers) to the
micro level (policy actors) results in a critical discard
of the duty shared between the two levels.
A dierent perspective by Priestley et al. ()
describes the responsibility of teachers when they
engage in policy adaptation as an opportunity to
exercise their professional agency. Teachers are
usually given autonomy in teaching practices rather
than deprofessionalized by imposed methods and
institutionalized teaching procedures. Constraints,
change, and activism within classroom life can foster
agency development in teachers. erefore, teachers’
adaptation to the EFL policies also results from the
interplay among teachers’ perceptions of the policy
discourse, motivations, and the contextual elements
fostering or hindering their professional practice.
Teachers engage in dialogues between their
paradigms and the outer world to construct a consistent
guideline for policy adaptation (Hamid & Nguyen,
; Sannino, ). Teachers’ individual practices
display a certain level of variation based on a teacher’s
capacity to interpret policies, and transformation of
teachers’ practices at the micro-level occurs as they
exercise their agency to enact the new policy discourses.
Hence, the process of EFL policy adaptation begins
with policy writers (macro level), moving towards
the role of researchers and communities (meso level),
and nally being reshaped by teachers and students at
the micro level. e last few years have seen emerging
local studies addressing policy actors’ adaptations and
teachers’ agency development at the classroom level in
Colombia (Fandiño-Parra, ; Gómez Duque, ;
González, ; Guerrero & Camargo-Abello, ;
Mosquera Pérez, ).
e unique view on each teacher’s policy interpre-
tation explains why some teachers successfully adapt
it while others fail. Teachers adjust the policy in their
work setting to respond to the constraints or enablers
in policy discourse. Hence, the actions and decisions
of teachers might restrict the school’s methodology
and ethos (Hamid & Nguyen, ; Liu et al., ;
Robinson, ).
Similarly, teachers’ agency makes a dierence in
students’ learning outcomes. A mismatch between
students’ cultural background and curriculum
expectations meets at the micro-level, and the teacher’s
activities play a fundamental role in responding to
it. Teachers’ mediation is a tool to transform policy
discourse into what can be dened as performative
action or agency work in the classroom context.
In Colombia, policymakers have traditionally
promoted a top-down approach to policy writing,
dismissing that teachers’ work lies at the core of
policy implementation (Ayala Zárate & Álvarez, ;
Cárdenas, ; González, ). is is reected in
the way policies have been designed and implemented.
Language policies in Colombia do not start at the
core of reforms implemented by teachers (from the
bottom-up) or informed by contextual information that
nurtures how the policies should be designed, written,
and published; instead, some authors argue that policy
discourses in Colombia follow a bureaucratic model
(top-down) that has institutionalized teacher’s practices
with few considerations of their role in a variety of
contexts (Correa & Usma Wilches, ; de Mejía,
). In addition, Hernández Varona and Gutiérrez
Álvarez () state that the nature of education in
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
Colombia remains distorted as it regards teachers as
policy consumers rather than policy creators, which
deprofessionalizes teachers’ activities and leaves little
space to navigate the impact of teacher’s work within
policy implementation.
erefore, considering that research on teacher
agency development in EFL contexts is a novel trend
in Colombia (Hernández Varona & Gutiérrez Álvarez,
), the current study analyzed three teachers’ agency
development to contribute to the understanding of
how state school teachers in the country enact or resist
policy discourse implementation, specically, the ESC.
Method
This study followed a qualitative case study
research design (Creswell & Creswell, ; Denzin
et al., ), which allowed us to study the issue of
teacher agency by analyzing three cases in a bounded
system (participant teachers in the state school system).
We were external to the research context. Author
was a master’s student when the data were collected
and is currently a university teacher. Author is a
graduate professor. Both researchers participated in
data collection and analysis.
Data were collected through semi-structured
interviews, lesson observations, and teachers’ narra-
tives. e interviews allowed access to the teachers’
interpretation of the policy (ESC) as well as further
descriptions of the nature of their actions in the past,
present, and possible future inuencing their teaching
process. e interview questions were open-ended to
get as many details from the teachers’ experiences as
possible and to allow the participants to elaborate on
their responses.
Lesson observations, on the other hand, aimed at
exploring the enactment of the ESC as the participants
acted upon policy adoption and adaptation dynamics
within classroom life. Information gathered through
lesson observation also served as an entry point to
validate or contrast teachers’ expressed agency devel-
opment from the interviews. is ultimately allowed us
to analyze how the teachers’ trajectories of action were
reected in day-to-day decisions at the micro-level (the
EFL classroom).
Finally, we used teachers’ narratives to assess a
more in-depth depiction of their teaching decisions
and agentic moves when enacting the ESC in their
educational context. The narratives provided an
account of the participants’ discourses and perceptions
of their teaching practices as portrayed in their own
words, retrospectively, and in detail. We sought to
identify the interplay of the three dimensions of
agency embedded in their experiences, as these reect
trajectories of action.
Context and Participants
Two state schools in Montería, Colombia, were
selected based on their recognition for being part of
bilingualism projects promoted by national and local
educational authorities, including implementing the
ESC. School has been implementing EFL policies
since , which means the schoolteachers have had
dierent professional development opportunities to
enhance their knowledge in English language teaching.
School has been recognized due to its high scores
in state exams that test students’ prociency levels in
various subjects.
ree high school female teachers were purpose-
fully selected for this study: Dorcas, Yua, and Mirabel.
Dorcas and Yua are teachers in School , while Mirabel
teaches in School . Teachers’ selection was based on
three primary criteria: (a) seniority (teachers with over
eight years of experience); (b) role (in-service English
teachers belonging to the language department at the
selected schools); and (c) closeness to curriculum cre-
ation (teachers who did not participate in the writing,
evaluation, or piloting of the ESC).
Pseudonyms are used throughout the paper to protect the
teachers’ identities.
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Data Analysis
To analyze the data, we followed a two-step
analytical procedure. First, we adopted the teacher’s
Chordal Triad of Agency Development model, as
dened in Priestley et al. (). It served as a frame-
work that guided part of the data collection process
since the categories were considered for structur-
ing the interview and subsequent data analysis.
Accordingly, we situated the data within the three
dimensions of teachers’ agency (iterational, practi-
cal-evaluative, and projective) in codes and themes
derived from the semi-structured interviews, lesson
observations, and narratives. Second, we used the-
matic analysis, as new categories from each teacher’s
framework for action emerged from the data to ana-
lyze the report of the participants’ experiences and
strengthen the use of the model for teacher agency.
is involved following a deductive approach guided
by the steps defined in Braun and Clarke (),
namely: familiarization, coding, generating themes,
reviewing themes, dening and naming themes, and
nally, writing up.
Interviews were transcribed. One interview was
conducted in English and two in Spanish, based on
the participants’ preferences. e latter was translated
from Spanish to English and analyzed using a color-
coding technique, first using the chordal triad of
agency and then following thematic analysis, as
described above. e same procedure was applied to
teachers’ narratives. Lesson observations were rst
recorded using a protocol for lesson observation we
designed based on the lesson stages derived from the
ESC. e protocol allowed the systematization of data
by registering a synthetic description of lesson stages
that included teachers’ and students’ doings. The
instrument was validated using the member-checking
technique (Birt et al., ) with the participants
aer data collection. Lesson observations were then
coded following the same two-step analytic procedure
described above.
Findings
Teachers recontextualized the ESC inuenced by
autonomous decisions derived from their teaching
experience, students’ needs, and institutional context.
This section presents three models that reflect the
elements involved in teachers’ adaptations of the ESC.
Each teacher’s framework for action is described and
analyzed separately. First, we present a comprehensive
visual representation that summarizes each teacher’s
framework for action. en, we describe each element
in the framework, supported by instances found in the
data. Additional general interpretations are made at
the end of the section.
Mirabel’s Framework for Action
Mirabel’s adaptation of the ESC was permeated
by critical views on policy documents, substantial
autonomy over her work, and low alignment with the
objectives of the ESC. We dene it as the interplay of
resistance, autonomy, and the evidence that teachers’
agency, in particular cases, can become a constraint for
successful language policy adaptations.
Figure represents the orientations Mirabel
brought into her teaching. e outer circle represents
how the teacher’s model is situated within the practical-
evaluative dimension of teacher agency, as proposed
by Priestley et al. (). e middle circle displays
the categories already existing within the dimension
and undertaken by the teacher. The inner circle
represents the intersection of the elements pertinent
to Mirabel’s framework for action, which permeate her
recontextualization of the ESC.
Language as Culture. e ESC includes cultural
knowledge by motivating teachers and learners to
evaluate the main pitfalls or dilemmas around the
country’s situation. Globalization, health issues, and
environmental problems are some of the critical
scenarios the curriculum presents. In this respect,
Mirabel opposed the “Colombian-oriented” approach:
“Every time I say, ‘OK, don’t talk about Colombia, do
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
the research about Asia…Europe,’ so, I always try to
force them to do something overseas.”
In this perspective, Mirabel pushed her students
to be culturally aware of other ways of living beyond
contextual information. These views motivated
students to go overseas without ignoring the cultural
elements involved in language learning and how
these shape forms of life within varied countries and
realities. e implications these adaptations have on
policy enactment can be translated as high interest
from the teacher to help their students based on their
needs, lacks, and wants.
Material Design Adaptation and Autonomy.
When referring to using textbooks for English language
learning at her school, Mirabel stated: “We don’t use
the books that the government sends…We don’t use
them because our students are a little bit higher level.”
As noted, in her use of the word “we,” teachers
decided as a team the type of textbooks that would suit
their context, as opposed to the books the government
designed and sent for use. Teachers reacting to the
constraints of the inaccuracy of materials for students’
use resulted in acting out together to create instruments
that would help them opt for a dierent book: “We had a
bunch of books, so we were using the checklist, and then
we got together and, so it came out [sic] to two books.”
We evidenced high usage of the book selected,
including other teaching materials such as a webpage
and a worksheet. Mirabel expanded on the stages
involved in her lessons’ development: “First, I need
to pinpoint the goals of what I will be teaching, then,
I’d try to get some knowledge into [the students’]
current state (diagnostic); I’d try to dene the stages
and materials.”
None of the steps directly states that Mirabel
considers the themes addressed by the ESC when
planning, claiming autonomy over material use,
and lesson development. Her perceptions towards
enacting the ESC portrayed a critical view on the type
of practices occurring at her school, talking about the
Figure 1. Mirabel’s Framework for Action
Resistance
Like real-life
encounters
Language use Cultural
Practical-evaluative
Physical resources
Social structures
Material design
autonomy
Language
as culture
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Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for...
role of teachers when adapting the policy or stating her
thoughts towards the work done. Hence, when moving
towards choosing another book for EFL learning at her
workplace, Mirabel disagreed with the option selected
and nally went against the collective agreement. ere
was a shi from one type of agency (collaborative) to
another (individual). From including herself within the
group of teachers, to nally stating that she separated
from her coworkers and chose something else, as
evidenced in the following extract:
I was the only one who wasn’t really happy with [the
book]…so [my coworkers] chose the other [book], and
I don’t like it, I hadn’t worked with it. I only worked with
it one year. and then when I worked with it, I was like,
“no, I don’t think it is appropriate.”
e extract reects how much a teacher’s thinking
patterns influence what ultimately goes into the
classroom. Despite what the policy stated, Mirabel
chose her path to enact the EFL policy even against
what her fellow teachers decided as a team. Although
Mirabel built up a strong awareness of collaborative
work, her agentic moves were characterized by
individuality and deep-rooted beliefs opposed to other
teachers’ views.
is experience, where teachers take the initiative
to adapt EFL policies to their classrooms, lies beyond
policymakers’ control. us, with or without the school
administrators’ knowledge, the teachers lead a process
that moves beyond the policy text and opens spaces
for change within schools. Ultimately, the students are
directly exposed to the teachers’ policy adaptations.
Motivating Language Use in Real Life. In terms
of students’ language learning development and usage,
Mirabel sought to help students go beyond the basic
grammatical structures that were usually taught,
involving students in the reality of the language as it
inuenced their lives. In this respect, she stated: “I’m
always like, ‘use it in your real life, say something
related to your own personal experience.’”
Mirabel motivated students to think about the use
of a second language since she thought about language
learning as something that transcended the classroom
context: “I always try to look for that kind of activities
and exercises and tasks that are like, from real life or
that will help them, you know.”
How Mirabel approached language development
in her school context was motivated by her desire to
inspire students to use the language in situations from
the real world. When contrasting her strategies against
what is stated on the ESC, Mirabel aligned with the
curriculum regarding using real-life issues to promote
language use.
On the other hand, the ESC serves four dimensions
in which health, environment, education, and
democracy are widely explored to guide the students’
critical thinking on their country’s development
situations. However, Mirabel’s curriculum
implementation diverted from the dimensions
presented, including different topics in her chosen
materials. She claimed:
I think they are just taking things that are fashionable
worldwide and then bringing them to Colombia with
no research whatsoever, and it’s just that they say, “Oh,
everybody else is doing it, so we have to use it here,” yeah,
but they don’t really see that we need more background.
This also resulted from the perceptions she
had about the curriculum, and that permeated the
adaptation process of the ESC.
Dorcas’ Framework for Action
Dorcas’ work became a guide for other teachers to
rely on, as she designed strategies beforehand, brought
forth new ideas, and became the rst to design and
implement teaching materials that other teachers
later used as a reference for their teaching practice.
Her framework for action was shaped by a view of
teaching permeated by collaboration with others.
is perception of teaching aligns with a new view of
agency that goes beyond analyzing individual duties
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
involved in policy implementation and considers the
analysis of collective work when teachers rethink and
adapt policies. e following themes derive from the
construction of Dorcas’s framework and promote
evidence on how networks of teachers are relevant in
EFL policy enactment.
Dorcas’s framework for action (see Figure )
describes the interrelation among her leadership roles;
interest in participating in curriculum design, reform,
and implementation; the conception of students’
needs as the core of her teaching; and promotion of
the presentation of products in the school community.
Leadership Roles. Dorcas’s agency construction
was mainly characterized by acting upon ideas and
roles that made her a pioneer in several aspects of EFL
policy enactment. When referring to her role among
networks of teachers at her workplace, she stated:
“I’m always going a little bit ahead because I’m more
intense.”
is is supported by a second comment in which
she stated that, during the pandemic, “I was the rst
that designed the English worksheets, and I gave all [the
other teachers in the team] my guidelines; then, based
on my format, everyone worked on their guidelines.”
Although Dorcas begins by describing her eorts,
she includes them within the umbrella of teamwork. In
the statement, she reects upon the changes that the
pandemic brought and the enactment of the policy that
demanded public-school teachers create worksheets to
help students advance their education remotely.
is leadership is linked to teaching experience
derived from management roles in the past. She
recognized that, while working at a private school, she
gained the “basis for school organization”; therefore,
the roles taken at her current workplace were
inuenced by that expertise. Connections between
past decisions and present challenges reect the role
of professional histories and previous experiences in
shaping teachers’ agency development. ey reect
teaching exibility as an exercise that is not always
steady or limited to the present constraints.
Teachers move across past and future projections to
dene trajectories of action. erefore, Dorcas’s views
about school curriculum, teaching, and schoolwork
Figure 2. Dorcas’s Framework for Action
Collaboration
Leadership roles
Professional histories
Short/Long term goals
Social structures
Material Ideas/Values
Projective
Iterational
Practical-evaluative
Life histories
Curriculum
design Products
Students’
needs
Context-based
adaptations
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Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for...
inuenced how she enacted the curriculum, not from
an individual role but considering collaboration among
other groups of teachers as well.
Curriculum Design. Dorcas’s framework for
action brought forth an understanding of how teachers
at her workplace designed, adapted, and used their
teacher knowledge to create curricular guidelines
before the ESC was introduced and adapted: “We
had created before the education ministry released a
suggested curriculum, we had come up with curricular
English learning guidelines for the city.”
Derived from the necessity of having organized
and clear guidelines when she arrived at the new
public school, Dorcas and her colleagues worked
together to help. is resulted in a series of documents
that motivated English teaching from a different
perspective. For example, she mentioned that she
had designed a curriculum structure for the grades
she taught, ensuring the scope of topics to instruct
English at the school. She recognized: “I felt out of
place . . . we need to have a route and know how we
are going to teach what students must know in sixth,
seventh, eighth…we have to sit down and create a
syllabus.” Therefore, when the ESC was brought to
their workplace, she commented: “We had already
been working, super! Let’s integrate it to what we have.”
Teamwork among her colleagues also was
enhanced by the necessity of going beyond teaching
by the book. When referring to adaptations to the ESC,
Dorcas stated: “I don’t like working with a book, so we
le it beyond the book.” In her narrative, she continued:
“At that time, we were thinking about functions of
the language more than grammar, so when the ESC
came, it was a perfect match for what we expected. We
adapted it to our specic needs and context, and now
we are working with the results.”
Whatever Dorcas’s vision for the school promoted
changes in how the ESC was conceived and adapted,
rethinking the role of teachers’ aspirations might
provide valuable evidence on why they achieve more
than is expected, even as the context is filled with
constraints. Teachers often act upon interests and
necessities unknown by policymakers and school
administration, only tangible when their work’s high
or low quality is visible.
Similarly, integrating the ESC into their local
curriculum reflected how each teacher’s vision
influenced how EFL policies were adopted. Dorcas
commented how colleagues embraced their role as
English teachers from the “bilingualism program,”
reflecting the affection placed on how they worked
since they were called to implement the EFL policy. In
this respect, she commented: “Well, the truth is that in
the school began with the bilingualism program;
since then, we are always working on anything so that
students learn.” Dorcas considered students’ needs the
core of the EFL teaching and learning process.
Context-Based Adaptations. Dorcas’s lesson
development evidenced a high usage of context-
based knowledge. Her teaching moves were framed
using questions to promote students’ participation.
is dynamic is aligned with institutionalized policies
within the school context, in which the learning model
encourages questioning. Considering policy guidelines
(the ESC and the school pedagogical model) at the
micro-level denoted the influence of policy text on
the classroom’s reality. However, as Dorcas’s narrative
further describes, most of the adaptation process
remains hidden. She stated that lesson development
involved a complex process: “I think and think about
possible activities: fun, academic, modern, challenging,
interesting, related to Saber test. en I plan, adapt,
implement…I feedback myself and start all over again.”
Hence, she reshaped further moves informed by the
e Saber is a national standardized test administered by the
Colombian Institute for the Enhancement of Higher Education (ICFES
in Spanish). e test assesses students’ learning and performance across
levels (rd, th, th, and th). e test at the end of high school determines
the students’ achievement of learning basic standards and competences.
e test also serves to measure the performance of schools across the
country.
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
role of her teaching in given situations within the past
and present.
Along the same lines, Dorcas’s work in her
lesson evolved around language and was framed by
vocabulary-oriented activities and collective-task
development. ese orientations were characterized
by including topics addressed in the ESC and following
the pre-, while, and post-task sequence, as suggested
in the ESC. Similarly, the grammatical structures she
used during the lesson aligned with the ESC, and she
motivated group work and critical analysis of topics
such as poverty, education, and climate change.
Products in the School Community. In Dorcas’s
perspective, English teaching needs to transcend into
the community. erefore, teachers designed activities
transcending the classroom, making learning products
accessible to the community. For instance, she referred
to a song festival in which students participated each
year. Teachers motivate students to choose songs with a
specic topic based on the four ESC curriculum areas.
is exercise requires students to select and practice
songs that talk about health, peace, democracy, or
social justice. In this respect, she commented: “e
song festival always has a core topic, so the student can
focus on those four pillars that we were working on
throughout the year.” erefore, the objectives of the
ESC were reoriented to students’ interests, promoting
activities that transcended the classroom and fostering
the development of skills to use English for a specic
purpose, like singing and performing.
Although it is unclear whether this dynamic
was permeated by past teaching experiences or
orientations toward the future, Dorcas displayed a
high level of consciousness of the impact of language
learning on her students. When analyzing the
song festival’s role in fostering students’ language
acquisition process, we noted that more than an
activity, it became an experience for students, who
ultimately brought more than the usually taught skills
into their performances.
Student’s Needs. Dorcas recognized that students
are most inuential in determining what is taught and
reshaped. In this respect, she commented: “I can take
the idea from the ESC guidelines . . . for example,
let’s work on health, but I adapt depending on the
population I have.”
Dorcas reconsiders what, when, and how to teach
based on the modifications needed for students to
learn the language. Despite the curriculum presenting
a selected number of topics and objectives, the teaching
points were determined by students’ strengths, weak-
nesses, or learning styles. In addition, the constraints
within the context permeated her practice. When
addressing the issue of large classes, for instance, she
commented:
e challenge is to know that all of your students won’t
be able to participate because there is not the time and
there are too many students in a single classroom. You
would spend the whole school term trying to do one thing,
trying to listen all of them, then you see that the ones who
dare are the ones who will outstand, and the shy ones
will remain lagging because there is not the possibility.
Dorcas tackled students’ needs by proposing
alternatives that help them develop language skills. She
added, “You mediate as you go; you mediate according
to the population you have.”
Yua’s Framework for Action
Strong relationships with other teachers and
collaboration determined Yua’s approach to policy
enactment. However, her speech was not as explicit
as the other participants due mainly to time con-
straints during the interview; her past experiences
inuenced how she enacted the policy and coped with
the changes from implementing the ESC. Hence, her
model for policy adaptation was framed within three
main aspects: teaching experience inuence, acting
out the policy, and collaboration (see Figure ). e
elements displayed in the model show the relation-
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Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for...
ship among the iterational, practical-evaluative, and
projective dimensions of agency. Her framework
includes the role of Yua’s life and professional stories
in constructing experiences that mostly permeated
her practice.
Teaching Experience. Yua commented that her
rst teaching experience tested what she could handle
as an educator: “It was a little traumatic at the begin-
ning. I said, oh God, I’m not going to be able to. I
felt frustrated when I started.” In this first teaching
experience, most of her students had personal issues,
and teaching demanded more than adapting objec-
tives taken from the ESC. In this respect, she gained
a perspective in which her actions depended on her
knowledge of the English subject and were inuenced
by the degree of incidence the context had on learners.
She said: “I had sixth graders that were over the stan-
dard age, they should be in th or th grade; students
on drugs and all that kind of things…aggressive…then,
it was a challenge.”
In terms of overcoming the experience, she stated
what it meant for her: “One learns dierent types of
strategies, let’s say, the methodology is not the same,
you learn how to know the kids, you learn that you will
not always nd the same type of students.”
Yua drew upon her experiences to make well-
informed decisions, as these experiences also enriched
her capacity to act. As an experienced teacher who has
enacted the ESC for various years, her perspectives on
teaching are deeply inuenced by her previous teaching
background. is shapes how her lessons develop and
how she acts toward students. is element aligned
with her present decisions, correlating her previous
background and possible trajectories of action growing
when facing current constraints and dilemmas.
Inuence of Contextual Factors. Yua’s approach
illustrated how variations at her workplace triggered
changes in the ESC: “Whenever I start to work with a
class, I realize that the topic is maybe too advanced for
students’ level, then, I have to readjust it.” Similarly, she
Figure 3. Yua’s Framework for Action
Teaching experiences
Networks of
collaboration
Social structures Material
Professional histories
Life histories
Iterational
Practical-evaluative
Projective
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
stated that the curriculum documents were adopted,
adapted, and adjusted depending on the population. She
explained: “It suggests, it guides, but it is not totally com-
patible.” is resulted in high autonomy over her work,
inuenced by the thought that “education is evolving,
times are changing, the students are changing.” us,
Yua adapted the policy based on contextual factors such
as the students’ level and the evolution of education.
Additionally, she highlighted that “in face-to-face
learning, one of the aspects that [has an inuence
is] the mood of the students.” She commented that
she made learning entertaining, avoiding students’
boredom during the lessons. Similarly, she pointed
out how she acts as a teacher and the main elements
she considers when teaching: “I am also a very
sensitive teacher that cares a lot about my students’
problems. I try to take into account their weaknesses
and strengths as well as their interests and learning
styles when planning my classes.”
Collaboration. e analysis revealed that Yua
built up a strong awareness of collaborative work. In
this perspective, her agentic moves were characterized
using pronouns referring to groups when talking
about her work:
It’s what we have done this year; actually, this year we
were already working and making some adjustments
because sometimes we saw that the topics repeated
too much, the topics we will teach, so we had to make
various adaptations of this kind.
Autonomy over her work included consulting
other colleagues on activities and instructional tasks to
be carried out in the classroom. Framed by networks
of collaboration among other teachers in her context,
her framework developed across the three dimensions
of agency with a high retrospection towards her
teaching experience and life/professional histories.
Similarly, social structures and material resources were
prominent since her students’ moods inuenced her
adaptations to the ESC.
Likewise, Yua collaborated with other teachers to
make informed decisions to foster students’ learning
process. Based on what previous teachers accomplished
with the students, she could gain a perspective on the
future elements that could be worked on. In this regard,
she commented:
e coworker that had [the students] the previous year
always gives me feedback: they are like this, these students
have these specic traits…then, well, that helps a lot in
fostering the language learning process, right, the level,
because we take into account what the teacher did, where
he got to in order to continue the process. Until now,
that has given us good results.
This sense of collaboration among coworkers
fostered students’ scaolding across dierent levels of
learning. Based on Yua’s comments, teachers consider
the results of other colleagues’ practices to address the
specic needs of learners.
The Agency Vessel
Figure visually summarizes the agency
development aspects shared among the three
participants. Likewise, it addresses the divergences
in their trajectories of action, influenced by their
iterational, practical-evaluative, and projective agency.
Teachers’ unique ways of managing the implementation
of the ESC varied across their practices since they
introduced elements from their background knowledge
and life experiences into the adaptations they made. In
other words, teachers did not come to the adaptations
empty-handed but were lled with the vital elements
they gained from their worldviews and past experiences.
Figure represents the teacher’s agency in the form
of a vessel. e elements surrounding the vessel are those
aspects that converge based on the data analysis: the
national policy (the curricular guidelines), teachers’
understanding of the policy’s role, and the national ESC’s
position in their practice. In this sense, the three teachers
agreed on the role of the ESC, not as an imposition but
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Teachers’ Agency Development When Adapting the Colombian English Suggested Curriculum for...
as a guide permeated by the adaptations the schools
and teachers made of it. In general, they considered the
objectives, activities, and proposed aims of the ESC,
but made changes informed by the context, ultimately
inuencing students and the school community. From
this perspective, the elements surrounding teachers’
adaptations must be considered as the interrelation
between introspective and retrospective elements that
aect teachers’ lives and, ultimately, teaching.
In terms of divergence, three elements were
crucial: the different ways teachers may conceive
and exercise collaboration networks, contextual
particularities, and teachers’ background knowledge
and past experiences. Although teachers worked along
networks that fostered collaboration, the reality of
what they brought to the classroom was shaped by
the transitions among iterational elements derived
from their experiences, lives, and present situations.
e study on teacher agency by Priestley et al. ()
concluded that the type of school influences how
teachers react to the constraints or demands when
facing policy implementation. Teachers are shaped
by the kind of teaching experiences they have,
whether these are supported, encouraged, or ignored.
Dorcas’s school, although not directly promoting
how teachers could cope with the ESC policy, held
a culture of recognition of the English language,
supported by the high level of freedom teachers had
to exercise their agency. e school emphasized the
role of collaboration by grouping teachers based on
the subject they taught—known as “nucleus”—which
widely inuenced their teamwork approaches. is
was evident when Dorcas spoke from the team
perspective instead of individual characterization. On
the contrary, Mirabel repeatedly opposed the notion
of teamwork, denoting discontent towards what her
Figure 4. Convergence and Divergence in Agency Development
Understanding of the role and purpose
of the Suggested Curriculum
Ways of
perceiving and
exercising
networks of
collaboration
Contextual and
institutional
differences
Teachers’
background
knowledge and
experiences
National Curriculum Policy
Curriculum (ESC) adaptation
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Valdelamar González & Calle-Díaz
team did. Aligned with what was stated in Priestley
et al. (), Mirabel held a “repertoire for maneuver,”
as her experiences (even beyond teaching) inuenced
what went into the classroom as well.
In addition, subgroups of teachers inside schools
provide evidence that collaboration promotes or hinders
change. In the current study, both perspectives are
reected by the participants. Two teachers recognized
collaboration as positively inuential in fostering the
ESC’s adaptations, while the other resisted change,
opposing cooperation with other teachers and exerting
autonomy over her work. ese discrepancies in the role
of collaboration reect how dierent the positions taken
by teachers within dierent schools are, increasing the
necessity of analyzing the realities of schools from the
perspectives of teachers and their experiences when
adapting any new foreign language curriculum.
Conclusions
is paper has described three high school teachers’
approaches to curriculum policy adaptation. Since each
teacher possessed unique ways of interpreting, adapting,
and adopting the ESC, we gained a perspective of the
different roles, actions, and thinking patterns that
permeated what they ultimately brought into the
classroom. We also explained how these adaptations
converged and differed, summarizing the most
prominent elements in what we called the agency vessel.
In this study, we drew essential elements from teachers’
discourses, which can help to explain how several
aspects of their context serve as enablers or constraints
of their agency, resulting in the construction of their
frameworks for action and working upon trajectories of
adaptation permeated by their past, present, and future
decisions. Additionally, we described the transitions
between individual and collective teacher agency,
evident during the ESC adaptation process.
Limitations in the data collection process included
the length of the teachers’ discourse to further nurture
the analysis of patterns across the data. For example,
although the prompts encouraged detailed descriptions
in the written narratives, recounting elements of
their experience was relatively short. However, the
data collected allowed us to obtain insights into each
participant’s agency development. Analyzing how
teachers cope with the changes derived from policy
discourse enactment provides signicant information
that can inform how future EFL policies are created and
promoted. Rarely are teachers consulted on adapting the
policies, leaving aside the valuable knowledge they can
provide to shed light on future EFL reforms and aspects
that might nurture their teaching practice.
Hence, it becomes fundamental to investigate
the inuence, design, and assembly of the teachers’
practices at the micro-level. Further research could
analyze the nature of these adaptations in rural contexts
or schools that lack networks that foster collaboration
or where teachers struggle to reshape policy discourse.
is suggestion stems from the necessity of exploring
the impact of reforms in peripheral contexts in a
country where policymaking is oen centralized in
the big cities.
In terms of teachers’ agency theory, this paper con-
tributes to its ongoing development by undertaking an
existing model and using it to analyze agency develop-
ment in three teachers. e conclusions gathered from
each participant can provide a robust understanding of
teacher agency development and its role in EFL prac-
tices or adopting new curricula in Colombia. Looking
further into how teachers enact, adapt, or resist policy
can also inform future curriculum developments in Latin
America and across global contexts at a time of increasing
interest in teachers’ agency development.
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About the Authors
Cindy Valdelamar González holds an MA in English language teaching and is an English language instructor
at Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia. Her research practices are oriented toward describing the eects of
English language policies on state schools, addressing the perspectives and practices of several stakeholders.
Luzkarime Calle-Díaz holds a PhD in Education from Universidad del Norte (Colombia). She is a graduate
professor at Universidad de Córdoba and Universidad del Norte (Colombia). Her research interests include EFL
research and practice, curriculum development, and the connection between discourse studies, language and
literacy development, and peace education.
