Important aspects serve this year to introduce the twelfth edition of the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal (CALJ). For the first time in the history of the journal we include articles in Spanish and in English on issues related to applied linguistics in Colombia; we publish two issues a year with the goal of strengthening the education of an academic community in our field and we gain more international visibility and credibility through international directories and indexes such as Ulrich Periodicals, Modern Language Association Bibliography, Educational Research Abstracts and Latindex.

For the two latest issues we received articles by authors from Colombia, The United States, China, Chile, Brazil and Turkey and have invited peer reviewers from different countries in the Americas, Australia, Ireland, The United States and The United Kingdom. The high quality of academic articles from scholars working on language related research projects and pedagogical innovations at different educational levels gives the CALJ national recognition and credibility. We believe that the diversity of contexts and contents of the articles published in the CALJ provide our readers with great opportunities to find relevant experiences to their immediate educational needs.

Two main themes are addressed by Colombian authors in this issue:

• Holistic training and teachers' views of pedagogy, a qualitative study carried out with practicing teachers of public schools in Medellin by two researchers from Universidad de Antioquia in Medellin, and

• Fostering writing development with EFL learners through strategic instruction and materials used to engage them in meaningful learning activities. Writing, in Spanish and in EFL, is viewed by five different authors from different perspectives, modalities and pedagogical approaches used to evaluate, support and promote a good quality of language education for Colombian children.

We want to thank the authors whose articles were selected for publication in this issue for their contributions and the peer reviewers for their valuable feedback that helps us maintain the quality and standards of our publication.

We hope all our readers enjoy this new bilingual version of the Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal.

Amparo Clavijo Olarte
Editor