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Curriculum guidelines provide a framework to guide teaching, assessment and reflection on the curriculum and students´ learning. Most of the time teachers seem to have a global understanding of the rationale behind curriculum guidelines, but when it comes to classroom teaching; do they put into practice what those guidelines recommend? This book presents a qualitative study carried out with five Colombian English teachers. The aim of the study was to explore public school teachers´ understandings and practices about curriculum guidelines for foreign languages. These guidelines were a shared construction of teachers from different institutions in Colombia. The government recommends the document as a pedagogical orientation. In particular, the study examined how these guidelines oriented teachers´ educational practices and how they were reflected in their classes. Data collected during this study was drawn from different sources: class observations, interviews, questionnaires and documentary analysis. The main findings indicate multiple aspects about the real teachers´ practices in their classes and how they differed from what the government promoted in the curriculum guidelines.

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Diana Quinchía is a full time teacher educator at Universidad de Antioquia,Colombia. She holds an MA in English Teaching from Universidad de Caldas. She is also a member of the research groups Ense¤anza y Aprendizaje de Lenguas Extranjeras and Pedagogía y Didáctica de las lenguas Extranjeras. Her research interests focus on these same areas.

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