Citizenship Education

A great number of researchers, scholars, and teachers contemplate education as the answer to many of the issues that humans face in society, with educational institutions playing a big role in this area. According to ^{Shaaban (2005)}, a designer of a proposal for incorporating moral education into the English as a second language (ESL)/EFL classroom in Beirut, Lebanon, “all schools have the obligation to foster in their students personal and civic virtues such as integrity, courage, responsibility, diligence, service and respect for the dignity of all persons” (p. 201), since all of these values are believed to develop distinctive traits of good citizens. Currently, education aims to educate a student who can achieve understanding in the different fields of knowledge, develop critical thinking abilities, behave as a responsible citizen, and who can positively commit to the building of a more inclusive society where there is equity. In the late 20^th century, with the development of an increasingly globalized world, there was a marked emphasis on directing education as a means to ensure youth employment. As pointed out by UNESCO (1998), due to the competitiveness that the globalized economy brought about in the early 90s, policymakers focused on the development of students’ employability skills, leaving aside the fostering of citizenship values. Thus, citizenship education has gone from being an essential foundation for instruction, to being removed and even outlawed by schools to then being again a significantly important focus of attention in schools’ syllabuses.

Studies have investigated direct, significant benefits from having introduced citizenship education to the students, the school environment, and the community at large. ^{Harecker (2012)}, in her research in Austria, stated:

Using exercises in schools which are based on a “values-centered” pedagogy is considered to be a worthwhile investment, which brings even more worthwhile dividends with it. In many cases, teaching can become easier, more enjoyable and has more effect; the pupils become more focused, more active and more independent. (p. 3)

^{Hébert and Sears (2004)} also claim that “citizenship education should not be limited to one subject or school discipline, but shared with other disciplines-for example, with language and literature courses” (p. 8). Since language art does not have an explicitly detailed content, ESL/EFL has the perfect characteristics, materials, and resources to implement citizenship education (^{Shaaban, 2005}).

Citizenship Education in Colombia

In Colombia, the concept of citizenship education has been viewed as a crucial issue in the pursuit of peace. It is believed by many that, due to the circumstances lived by Colombians through the last 50 years, it is crucial to take action to prevent acts of violence and intolerance from continuing; therefore, the government has decided to implement citizenship education. According to the Ministry of Education (Ministerio de Educación Nacional [MEN], 2004):

Education is one of the ways that can make peace a reality . . . if we give our children quality education, we will be not only getting them away from poverty, but also, giving them the opportunity of living and making a country of peace. (p. 3, our translation)

The Colombian education system in the last decade has paid attention to the development of the citizenship competences within schools. Thus, the “Educational Revolution Program” has been created to help students gain, through a good education service, all the competences to develop as global citizens, with the ultimate purpose of ensuring students with values and ethical behavior.

Educational centers are crucial to establish strong foundations to promote citizenship education, but this teaching has to be experiential instead of just theoretical. That is why citizenship education is not meant to be just a lecture where students are filled with information and facts, but a lesson where students get to interiorize the values and put them into practice in their lives. The MEN (2004) issued the standards for citizenship education, which introduced an integral program in civic and citizenship education. But the question is what to teach?

The teaching should be contextualized according to each community and its needs, thus, special relevance in this project is given to two important values: respect and responsibility as they are closely linked to the three main groups of competencies (i.e., coexistence and peace; democratic participations and accountability; as well as plurality, identity, and appreciation of differences) proposed by the Ministry (MEN, 2004) in order to categorically encourage the development of citizenship behavior.

Communicative and Task-Based Language Teaching

Hymes (1970, as cited in ^{Johnson, 2004}) called the ability to express utterances with the appropriateness of when to use them, according to the context, sociolinguistic competence. For him, in addition to the knowledge of structures that enable someone to express ideas, feelings, and opinions, language is a means to communicate. His concept of communicative competence includes both the knowledge and the ability to use the language. ^{Canale and Swain (1980)} proposed a second language communicative competence framework comprising three elements: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence. The goal in many ESL/EFL educational contexts is to equip learners to interact successfully with native speakers or someone who uses English as a means of communication, and to make the person more competitive for a globalized world.

Concerning task-based instruction, ^{Willis (1996)} proposes tasks as helpful goal-driven assignments that foster meaningful communication and thus support the language learning process.

^{Nunan (1989)} offers two types of tasks: Real-world tasks designed to practice or rehearse those tasks that students are likely to face in daily situations, and pedagogical tasks, which are theory-based and aimed at facilitating language acquisition, but which are not necessarily similar to real-world tasks. For the sake of this research, a pedagogical task is proposed in its three basic forms: pre-task, task, and post task. In other words, by using tasks, it is possible to introduce “children to the global goals as part of foreign language lessons, which can redress this balance and integrate a more holistic, personalized approach to children’s education into our classroom practice” (^{Maley & Peachey, 2017}, pp. 10-11).

Context

This study was carried out in a public school that offers integral education from K to 11 to approximately 2,200 students coming from the lowest income families around the southern part of the city of Montería. The high school is dealing with issues as bullying, rude manners, disrespect, lack of discipline, campus violence, and poor academic performances. Additionally, disciplinary reports evidence the students’ negative attitude to study, failure to complete homework or bring material to classes, purposeful interruptions of teachers’ classes, and lack of engagement in their learning process. In terms of English teaching and learning, students are taught using a mix of strategies with no clear definition of the method to guide their learning process. In regard to the syllabus, it is annually designed by the teachers, which means that the content is changed frequently with little monitoring of the sequencing of the lessons.

However, there does not seem to be any concrete action plan for bringing about a true transformation of the situation or any specific follow up plan to track students’ progress in terms of citizenship and values education.

Participants

The ninth graders formed a large group of 44 students: 25 young women and 19 young men, whose ages ranged from 12 to 15. They had been learning English for three years and were dynamic and liked working hard when they were fully engaged in doing tasks, especially tasks that required movement. They love asking questions and taking surveys among themselves; this aspect was discovered in a survey project class in which most of them fulfilled the requirements of the activity. Thus, they were easily attracted to work when something new was brought to the class.

Another participant was a female English teacher (part of the research team) with five years of experience working at the institution. Her language level was B2. She had taught the target students for two years in a row. Her role involved the design of the activities, rubrics, and the implementation of the unit.

Procedure

This small-scale project followed the principles of action research, which requires a thoughtful process by which the teacher-researcher reflects on their own educational practice and, at the same time, collects and analyzes data to provide solutions to an identified problem. The problem, as described above, stems from the urgent need to implement methodologies that will develop citizenship competences in the schools and, specifically, the need to assess the methodology implemented in the ninth grade EFL classroom at a local high school in terms of its contribution to the development of both citizenship and communicative competences.

Action research, as mentioned by ^{Cohen et al. (2017)}, aims at improving practice by acting and reflecting on it. It is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice and, as a form of “self-reflective” inquiry,” it allows researchers to examine their practice in context and thus find ways to improve it so that it can have a positive impact on social justice. As Cohen et al. discuss, action research turns practical problem-solving into a systematic tool to collect relevant data to expand knowledge; it enhances the competencies of participants to be able to do research. The researchers immerse themselves in an ongoing cyclical process that allows them to gather robust information to better understand particular complex social situations, which may ultimately explain processes of change within social systems at large. Thus, there is an implied ethic principle to improve the quality of human actions starting from specific problems that practitioners face in their professional practice.

Design of Activities

A task-based unit was designed with the purpose of providing opportunities to expose learners to learn English and use it meaningfully, as well as to promote civic awareness about a global problem. The topic chosen by the researcher in consensus with the teacher-researcher was global warming. As a result, the unit proposed has some linguistic features, competencies, and evaluation and a general plan of action made up of details that are more specific about the lesson such as timeframe, objectives, procedures, and materials needed (see Appendices A and B).

Data Collection Techniques

Analysis of the Observations

After the observations, it was possible to state that students’ communicative competence was promoted. Next, we present some evidence of the pragmatic, linguistic, and sociolinguistic competences in practice. Turns 7 and 8 in Excerpt 1 show that students understood what the teacher was requesting from them and there was some behavior that responded to what she had just asked them to do. Something similar happens in Turns 9 and 10 where the teacher once again asked and students used English correctly to provide non-elaborated answers.

Excerpt 1. Promoting Pragmatic Competence (Taken from Lesson 1)

7 Teacher: Could you please sit down?

8 Students: Thank you miss!

9 Teacher: How was your weekend, eh? How was last week? How was your Saturday? How was Sunday? OK, good, fine?

10 Student: Normal…

11 Teacher: Normal? What did you do?

12 Student: Regular.

13 Teacher: What did you do?

14 Student: We did party.

15 Teacher: Oh…you went to a party, OMG…whose party?

16 Students: [in chorus] Eimis’s

In Turn 15 the teacher recast a student error, giving this student the opportunity to notice the correct way to say it. Students also showed a budding ability to functionally use their linguistic resources to convey meaning and give an accurate reply when the teacher asked.

As seen from the last part of Turn 6 to 16 in Excerpt 2, the three students involved showed that they understood what they had summarized in the previous class and were capable of communicating their ideas orally using English as a means to transfer the message. Excerpt 2 also shows that the summary of the participants was good, which was in accordance with the unit’s aim of writing the synthesis of a video.

Excerpt 2. Promoting Pragmatic Competence (Taken from Lesson 1)²

8 Teacher: Let’s review, we are going to review our topic y luego de que ya recordamos entonces iniciamos con la lectura. Quién me quiere voluntariamente ayudar con la lectura. Entonces vamos a leer qué es global warming en la lectura [and after we have recalled, then we will start by reading the text, who voluntarily wants to help reading the text? OK, let us read what global warming is in the reading]. ¿Qué consiguió [Student 1] que era global warming? Please, read aloud for the rest of the class.

9 Student 1: Global warming. Global warming refers to the increase of the earth’s temperature due to the increase of the amount of gas in the atmosphere.

10 Teacher: In the atmosphere. OK, thank you. ¿Qué encontraron que eran las causas allí? Las causas. Quién quiere ayudarme con las causas. ¿Quién tiene las causas? Levante la mano. [Student 2], ¿me puedes ayudar por favor? [Could you help me, please?]

11 Student 2: Causes: driving a car, flying an airplane, greenhouse, contamination.

12 Teacher: Again. Read louder.

13 Student 2: Driving a car.

14 Teacher: OK, driving a car, driving cars, the greenhouse effect, ¿qué mas? [raising the voice tone to call everyone’s attention]

15 Student 2: Contamination.

16 Teacher: And contamination. Ahora sí, quién tiene los effects [Now, who has the effects?]. Thank you [Student 2]. ¿Alguien más? [Anybody else?]. Effects. Lady?

17 Student 3: And some animals are moving to new houses because of their natural habitats.

18 Teacher: Yes! Animals are moving to new houses or to new areas. Muy bien.

Sociolinguistic competence was also fostered during the teaching unit, as can be seen in Excerpt 3. The teacher was waiting for some students to begin their presentation, but they were having trouble with the electronic devices and a student used formal language to ask her to wait some more minutes.

Excerpt 3. Evidence of Sociolinguistic Competence (Requesting Time Politely)

Miss, Yanilis…Do you mind waiting, please?…We need some time. The computer does not accept my pen drive…we are trying. (Taken from Lesson 7)

The other category was citizenship competencies: The findings in this category come from observations made by the teacher-researcher who construed students’ interaction as an ongoing process where citizenship competencies took place. The promotion of citizenship competencies was an active component of the teaching and learning process of the English sessions. We acknowledge that fostering citizenship requires a long process, which in this specific context, had positively started.

In addition, this category recognizes the idea that students in the target group were and are experiencing a series of realities that may help them become better citizens in a long-term process.

As a whole, it is possible to say that classes presented opportunities for learning and practice, not only English but also civic behavior among students and teachers. This single factor matches the idea proposed by the socio-cultural theory where the learning process is seen as a social process within a given context and learners as active agents under the guidance of an adult (^{Vygotsky, 1978}).

The methodology (task-based learning) offered opportunities for social interaction between the teacher and the students; it seemed that the classroom was a democratic place where the participation of both (learners and teacher) was necessary for the success of the sessions; the teacher constantly invited students to participate and ask for the clarifications they thought they needed. We may argue that the teacher unconsciously applied some of the strategies proposed by ^{Shaaban (2005)} because she promoted students’ active involvement, cooperative learning, and explanation as part of the unit she was carrying. Though her methodology was based on a task-based approach, it clearly suits Shaaban’s suggestions as to teaching citizenship competences.

In this way, students were able to be actively involved and broke the pattern in which only the teacher asks questions. Excerpt 4 evidences that the relation was set to be bidirectional instead of unidirectional. Note that in the observer’s comment students are the active actors of the class, as one of the students asked what the word “anthropogenic” meant, followed by an explanation from the teacher who supported the definition with an example.

Excerpt 4. Asking for Clarification and Supplying Requested Information About New Words (Taken from Lesson 1)

125 Teacher: [The teacher is presenting the activity]. In the next activity, you have headings, headings are like titles. You are going to identify which heading goes with each picture, OK? I’m going to give you two minutes to try to find out which one goes with which one, one picture is left out, there are only five…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, so I’m going to label just five pictures, I’m gonna give you two minutes, think about which picture goes with each heading. Which picture with which headings?

126 Student 3: What is floods, miss?

127 Teacher: Look at me. The Sinú river is increasing [used body language] and then goes to houses, and then got floods. Another word that you don’t know?

128 Students: Flood.

129 Teacher: Yes, another word that you don’t know?

130 Student 2: Anthropogenic.

131 Teacher: Anthropogenic…Do you know what is anthropogenic? It is caused by human activity, if I for example cause the rain [body language], let’s suppose that I am doing things and then the rain will come, that is anthropogenic, so the rain is caused by my activity, anthropogenic means that people cause that…Another word? No? OK, let’s see which words go with each one. Another minute so you could finish. Again, you are going to put one heading under the picture, OK.

In Excerpt 5, more specifically in Turn 18, the teacher assigned turns for students who were willing to participate in the class and they responded positively to this routine. They were patient, they listened to each other; it is possible to see that students were feeling capable and competent when participating.

Excerpt 5. Assigning Turns (Taken from Lesson 2)

18 Teacher: Yes. Animals are moving to new houses or to new areas. Muy bien, ese es uno. ¿Otro efecto?, another effect? Student 3?

19 Andrea: Due to the earth heating…sea level are raising [and] people have to move away from the coast.

Although students were not all the time displaying responsibility, it can be argued that they could have been developing argumentative competencies. When the teacher called out a student, she told the teacher to allow her to do her group presentation next class, and when the teacher asked for the reasons, she sustained her position with an argument, trying to negotiate with the teacher. Apparently, the teacher allowed more time, and the students promised to make a better effort and present a quality product.

Excerpt 6. Negotiating and Reaching Agreements (Taken from Lesson 4)

33 Student 3: Teacher, can we leave it for tomorrow?

34 Teacher: Why for tomorrow? What is it for tomorrow that cannot be done today?

35 Student 3: For tomorrow, we are going to be more prepared.

36 Teacher: So, what do we do?

37 Student 3: We practice hard.

Student 3’s behavior was a confirmation that she was on the way to developing citizenship competencies, as she was able to manifest her position, listen to the uncomfortable situation, and ask for a second opportunity to comply with the task. The aforesaid performance paired with another standard typified as a communicative one in the documents for citizenship competencies (MEN, 2004). Thus, it was found that students were partially practicing values such as responsibility, which is a fundamental trait we considered when establishing a connection between citizenship education and moral values.

As part of the three citizenship objectives for the unit (see Appendix A), students reflected on a problematic situation, as shown in Excerpt 7. They were relating to the citizenship standards described by MEN (2004): “actively collaborate to reach common goals in my classroom and recognize the importance of rules to attain those goals” (p. 17, our translation) and “constructively work as teams [and] participate with my teachers and classmates in a project-oriented to a common welfare” (p. 19 , our translation).

Excerpt 7. Promoting Citizenship Competences (Taken from Lesson 3)

8 Teacher: So that’s the problem that we need to talk about, because that is the problem that every day a guy is putting a lot of noise. Now, which would be the solution for that problem? One person!

9 Student 5: Dialogue.

10 Teacher: Yes, dialogue.

11 Students: Manners.

12 Teacher: Yes.

These competencies were developed thanks to the task-based methodology as learners were first exposed to situations that presented a problem affecting the people of the world. Afterward, they analyzed it, reflected upon it, and proposed possible solutions; later, as a task, students were asked to find a problematic situation affecting their community and then do some kind of research about the problem, the effects or consequences, and then propose possible solutions. This methodology promoted the planned citizenship goal since it prompted students to construct and celebrate agreements regarding what problem to discuss in their presentation, how to distribute the work and responsibilities among themselves, what text finally to present in their slides; to decide who would be those to present the work orally in front of the others. It is important to admit that students attempted to keep their agreement and sometimes failed, but what is more important to highlight is that they finally did what was required of them and made a presentation. The fact that students were able to look around in their communities with critical eyes and question what was perhaps taken for granted and accepted as an everyday reality constituted an important citizenship exercise.

Analysis of the Interviews

The interviews were analyzed in a systematic manner by splitting the text into significant components, creating categories and putting similar ideas together, thus helping the analysis make more sense (^{Burnard, 1994}). These categories were the teacher’s methodology, participation, diaries, learning, and motivation.

Teacher’s Methodology. In the first set of questions, students acknowledged the teacher’s methodology as a significant factor in their performance. Student 1 stated:³

I feel that now students understand a little bit more and participate in class. I don’t feel the teacher is explaining something, but that we all are constructing the lesson.

Participation. Students also reported that another factor that helped them was the stress-free environment, since the teacher motivated participation voluntarily, not obligatorily; therefore, they felt more at ease and were eager to participate.

I like the class because [the teacher] is not threatening us to participate, she doesn’t say it is a mark, but she says: “Who wants to contribute?” (Student 1)

Diaries (Notepads): Students’ impressions about the notepads were all positive.

We can let off steam with the notepad. We just have to write and learn, and by writing we can revise what we have learnt. (Student 1)

Since the teacher asks us to write about what happens in the class, we reflect on the topics and the experiences that the lesson gives us. (Student 3)

Such insights allowed the perception that the notepad was a tool that helped students delve deeper into their thoughts and feelings.

Learning. Likewise, in the second interviews, carried out at the end of the study, students displayed acknowledgement of improvement both in the academic part as well as in the personal one.

In the academic part I have changed, I felt that it has been better, the lessons, every day we have learnt more things, more experiences. (Student 2)

I have changed a little in the academic part, my mind is wider open. (Student 3)

Motivation. Motivation was another aspect students mentioned; they expressed the following:

Interviewer: Is there a word you could use to express how you feel now in classes?

Student 2: Motivated.

Before my mind wasn’t able to catch all those things in English, and now, I feel more motivated, more excited about English. (Student 3)

Analysis of Students’ PowerPoint Presentations

PowerPoint presentations in the foreign language classes have been used for quite some time and they have demonstrated several advantages, such as making both teaching and learning interactive and an enjoyable and rewarding activity (^{Musa & Al-Dersi, 2013}). Students who were part of this study had been working on the unit called “Global Warming.” Throughout the unit students were then asked to carry out a group mini-research project which included identifying a particular environmental problem affecting their communities, thinking of its causes, consequences, and possible solutions, and, as a final product, they were asked to make a PowerPoint presentation to report their findings to the class. This task was intended for students to continue developing the ability to identify a problematic situation, construct a problem-solution text, synthesize it in PowerPoint slides, and orally present it to the class.

We designed a rubric to evaluate the presentations (see Appendix D). The criteria used for that evaluation were completeness, use of discourse markers and connectors, clarity and coherence, and citizenship competence.

Next, we summarize the findings after analyzing the slides of five groups. It is worth mentioning that all the students demonstrated in this analysis the capacity to identify an environmental problem affecting their community. Some of the problematic situations found by students were: the excessive pollution of water and soils (Group1), street contamination (Group 2), bad odors and mosquitos due to accumulation of waste (Group 3), noise pollution (Group 4), and security problems (Group 5). The content of the five presentations was organized taking into account the main four aspects (problem, causes, effects, and solution) which students discussed.

Regarding the identification of the issue, students were able to recognize relevant problems in their surroundings; most of them provided an example, made a comment, and showed photos of them. These three elements in their work also demonstrated that learners had understood and possessed clarity about their intended research, that they were able to have a critical look at their environment.

The students were also able to give more details about the problem, specifying what they considered to be the causes and the consequences. Groups 1 and 2 rightly identified some of the conditions leading to excessive pollution of water and soils (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Slides Showing Problems Found in the Community by Groups 1 and 2 

Regarding the identification of causes and effects, these groups were able to identify the precise effects of the problem they were stating. This situation was a good indicator to know that students did not only learn about the characteristics of a problem-solution text but also about how those issues have an undesirable impact on the environment and on people (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Slides Showing Causes Presented by Groups 1 and 2 

All the groups proposed practical solutions. Group 4 gave a peaceful and collective solution and Group 5 showed awareness and knowledge of their legal rights (see Figure 3).

Figure 3 Slides Showing the Proposed Solutions by Groups 4 and 5 

These proposed solutions were consistent with some of the proposed standards for citizenship education (MEN, 2004): “identify and analyze situations in which civil and political rights are violated” (p. 23, our translation). The slides also evidence the students’ growing command in English: They not only wrote fairly accurate texts, but most of them managed to give spoken messages during the oral presentations. The task-based instruction provided instances in which the foreign language was used to convey ideas and promote communication among the actors in the classroom.

Analysis of Students’ Notepads

Students were given the chance to self-evaluate their role during the class, and their attitude to face conflict while the sessions were taking place. Participants were numbered to provide confidentiality of the identities of the students.

Student 1 was concerned and understood that every action brings consequences either positive or negative. She wrote in the reflection for Lesson 3 that her classmates did not do the right thing; then, the teacher called students’ attention for not being responsible. She even recognizes that the teacher was scolding them, as they were not behaving as expected. In the same sense, she finally admitted that the “scolding part” was a good thing to do as the teacher brought them down to earth. She wrote: “But the teacher gave us a talk, one of those I called scolds, but I like them. She brings us down to earth. So, after this, everybody must present tomorrow.”

The form in which Student 1 expressed her consciousness about not coping with the objectives of the class and immediately starting a call for commitment was evident in her reflection for this class. Thus, she started to develop citizenship competencies, especially the one that refers to a person who foresees the consequences in the short and long term about his or her actions and avoid those that can cause harm to others or themselves.

In general terms, students showed that the class motivated them to talk in English as their oral participation was noticeable throughout as it increased throughout the lessons. The fact that students were able to write summaries, complete charts, read, comprehend, and give their own conclusions using the English language are proof that students’ communicative competence was being developed through the activities proposed in the unit. Some other aspects to highlight are that most students’ responses in English were fairly well-constructed, and they initiated verbal interventions in English, which means that they felt comfortable communicating ideas using the English language. The above-mentioned evidence may indicate that the task encouraged learners in a constructive way to learn language through meaningful interaction while developing activities and tasks, as ^{Feez (1998)} claims in his assumptions on task-based instruction.

In a general view, students understood and conveyed messages, but it is evident that they should work on spelling, syntax, and cohesion, among other elements (see Figures 4 and 5 where there is a sample of students’ synthesis from the video).

Figure 4 Transcription of the Synthesis of a Video Written by Student 6 [sic] 

Figure 5 Transcription of the Synthesis of a Video Written by Student 7 [sic] 

Figures 4 and 5 showed that English language learning was taking place during the implementation of the lessons. The students’ writings were more comprehensible, and ideas were organized. This evidence is coherent with ^{Willis’s (1996)} ideas about evaluating tasks in terms of achievement of an outcome as they bear some resemblance to real-life language use.