Stand Up to Children’s Rights: An Exercise in Listening in English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

This paper reports an experience conducted to understand the social representations of children’s rights that emerged when discussing them in the English class at a secondary school in Bogota D.C. The variables identified were: children’s rights education; social representations; and listening competence. This qualitative action research project gathered data from observations, questionnaires and artefacts to identify the perceptions and understandings of the rights of the child from 27 participants. The findings indicate that they became aware of the social relevance of rights, of the agents who may violate their entitlements, and of the responsibility of promoting rights. The data also indicated that most of the 27 English language learners gained in language development, specifically in listening for general understanding and listening for specific information as well as in the use of listening strategies such as note-taking and translating. Data also revealed that they grasped vocabulary related to the discussion of rights.