In this chapter, we describe how we have revised our teacher education curriculum to take a more developmental approach to critical pedagogies, and we share the experiences, classroom practices and insights of three Colombian public school teachers who learned how to see and use their urban contexts as resources for an English language learning curriculum. Through community mapping, workshops on curriculum development, and community-based pedagogies, these three teachers learned how to connect la vida cotidiana, everyday life, with their subject areas and national/international standards. The experiences provided the teachers with the tools and inspiration to critically reflect upon the social, economic and cultural issues in their communities and see their students’ worlds as the starting point for their English language curriculum and worthy subjects of study with global relevance. The resultant curriculum projects shared here include student-generated inquiries into the use of English in local businesses; investigations into social issues in their barrios; and the development of elementary children’s literacies through the construction of their life projects. The teachers' work and reflections highlight how becoming critical seems an organic, developmental process and how community-based pedagogies can facilitate rather than force this process in English language learning and teaching.
