Liliana Paternina Soto²
Instituto de Promoción Social. Beneficencia de Cundinamarca - Colombia ]]> Grupo de investigación HISULA
lpaternina@hotmail.com

Recepción: 3/02/2011
Evaluación: 2/03/2011
Aceptación: 30/03/2011
Artículo de Reflexión

RESUMEN

Este documento presenta el resultado de la investigación que centró en analizar el rol del texto escolar sustentado en la resiliencia como herramienta didáctica del aprendizaje del inglés como lengua extranjera en adolecentes de poblaciones vulnerables de Fusagasuga Colombia. Este texto escolar nace de la preocupación de la docente para entender  "las voces de sus estudiantes" e interpretar y describir el sentido de vida.  El problema se enmarcó en ¿Qué incidencias tiene un texto escolar, dentro de los factores de la resiliencia Grotberg (2008) y Paternina (2011), para el seguimiento en los cambios de conducta socio-cultural de estudiantes provenientes de poblaciones vulnerables de la ciudad de Fusagasugá en el período de 2008 a 2011?. El método Grounded Theory o teoría fundamentada en datos desarrollado por Charmaz (2010)  y Glaser (1978) para el análisis de este estudio se sustentó en la investigación cualitativa, descriptiva e interpretativa de acuerdo al marco teórico de los enfoques: constructivista social Guba and Lincoln (1986, 1989, 1990), Smith (1991) y humanista de Roger (1962) y Maslow (1958). La metodología se guió desde la historia de vida, historia oral y la educación comparada. Las estrategias se sustentaron en las fuentes a través de las entrevistas, el texto escolar que se elaboró, archivo del colegio. Se concluye que el texto escolar con un perfil resiliente motiva al estudiante para realizar el autoconocimiento pero este debe estar mediado continuamente por el profesor. Asimismo, se establece la relevancia de continuar la investigación con los estudiantes que han logrado ingresar a la universidad para estudiar su capacidad de integración al sistema universitario y la deserción en el mismo.

Palabras claves: Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana, resiliencia, texto escolar, población vulnerable.

ABSTRACT

This document is the result of the analysis on the school text role based on resiliencia as a didactic tool of English's learning as foreign language in youth vulnerable population from Fusagasuga- Colombia. This school text was born by the teacher educational concern about understanding students' voices to interpret and describe the sense of life. The problem is framed in What incidences a school text has inside the resilience factors of Grotberg (2008) and Paternina (2011) to pursuit in the changes of students' socio-cultural behavior coming from vulnerable populations of the city of Fusagasugá in the period of 2008 at 2011?. The method Ground Theory developed by Charmaz (2010) and Glaser (1978) for the analysis of a qualitative, descriptive and interpretive investigation according to the theoretical framework focuses on: social constructivist Guba and Lincoln (1986, 1989, 1990), Smith (1991) and humanist of Roger (1962) and Maslow (1958). The methodology was guided from history of life, verbal history and the compared education. The instruments were mainly interviews, the text that was made, and school files.

To conclude that a school text with a resilient profile motivates the student to carry out their self-knowledge but it should be oriented continually by a practitioner. Also, the relevance is to keep going the research with the students who can study at the university to know their desertion or integration from the university system.

Key words: Journal of Latin American Education History, resilience, school text, vulnerable population.

RESUMO

Este documento apresenta o resultado da pesquisa que objetivou analisar a função do texto escolar sustentado na resiliência como ferramenta didática da aprendizagem do inglês como língua estrangeira para adolescentes de populações vulneráveis de Fusagasuga, na Colômbia. Esse texto escolar nasce da preocupação da docente em atender "as vozes de seus estudantes" e interpretar e descrever o sentido de vida. O problema é formulado da seguinte forma: que incidências tem um texto escolar, dentro dos fatores da resiliência Grotberg (2008) e Paternina (2011), para o seguimento nas mudanças de conduta sociocultural de estudantes provenientes de populações vulneráveis da cidade de Fusagasuga no período de 2008 a 2011? O método Grounde Theory desenvolvido por Charmaz (2010) e Glaser (1978) para a análise deste estudo é fundamentado na pesquisa qualitativa, descritiva e interpretativa de acordo com o marco teórico dos seguintes enfoques: construtivista social Guba e Lincoln (1986, 1989, 1990), Smith (1991) e humanista de Roger (1962) e Maslow (1958). A metodologia foi pautada pela história de vida, história oral e educação comparada. As estratégias são sustentadas nas fontes através das entrevistas, do texto escolar elaborado e do arquivo do colégio. Conclui-se que o texto escolar com um perfil resiliente motiva o estudante para realizar o auto-conhecimento, mas este deve estar mediado continuamente pelo professor. Assim mesmo, estabelece-se a relevância de continuar a pesquisa com os estudantes que lograram ingressar à universidade para estudar sua capacidade de integração ao sistema universitário e a deserção no mesmo.

Palavras- chave: Revista História da Educação Latino-americana, resiliência, livro população, vulneráveis.

INTRODUCTION

On the other hand, the textbook is sustained in the resilience of the vulnerable population of the college Institute of Social Promotion in Fusagasugá³. It originated from the teacher´s concern for understanding "the students´ voices ", interpreting and describing the sense of life that they develop through the text: "A sign of resilience in my life"- with the impact in the transformation of their imagination and in the construction of a personal future. Therefore, this text, "A sign of resilience in my life ", works with communicative English, but the students´ contributions are realized from the reflection that every young person does with his/ her life, and the manifestations of his/her attitudes inside the individual student´s project.

In the result obtained, the text turned into a teacher´s strategic ally in order to understand the students, as well as into a pedagogic tool that provided reading and writing activities, which allowed the pupil to be a researcher of his/her own life, considering they have gone forward with their problems and developed the projection of their futures.

The question was focus on the problem as to what incidents a school text has, inside the resilience factors, according to Grotberg⁴ and Paternina⁵, in order to follow-up on the sociocultural behavior changes and the learning of students from vulnerable populations of Fusagasugá in the period from 2008 to 2011.

The research was based on the method of "Grounde Theory", which was developed by Charmaz⁶. For the analysis of this study, it was sustained in the qualitative, descriptive and interpretive research according to the theoretical framework of the approaches: social constructivism of Guba and Lincoln, Smith, and humanist of Roger, Grotberg and Maslow⁷. The methodology guided from the history of life, oral history and compared education that allowed organizing the components of the study.

The strategies were brought about using the sources taken from interviews, the school text and in the institution´s file. The study began with 20 students and concluded in six cases that authorized the publication of the results.

We will refer in this research to the above mentioned authorized works. We take the school text´s role from the Colombian legislation that is held in article 21 of the General Law of Education⁸ which arranges the general limits for the education of English in basic and higher education.

To conclude, the textbook by a resilient profile encourages the student in order to realize self-knowledge, however, this should be regarded as half-full for the teacher. Likewise, relevancy is established in the continuing of the research with the students who have managed to gain entry to the university in order to study their capacity of integration in the university system, and the desertion in the same one. In particular, we demonstrate the relevance in the following-up of the graduates from an institution with vulnerable populations of social⁹ exclusion.

1. The resilience in the school text

The globalization and the publishing market of English texts in Colombia lead to focus on education using the Common European Frame´s standards, with standards that keep in force the dream of the National Plan of Bilingualism from 2004 to2019¹⁰. The majority of the teachers have re-evaluated these concepts due to the multiple changes in the evaluation system, made by the Department of National Education. The texts have evolved from indicators of performance, then achievements, and now to the competences.

From this perspective, the school texts are the result of the educational "gangplanks", where the educational reforms come connected to a political project, each one from the government. Nevertheless, a great number of teachers of public colleges cannot demand their pupils buy a school text, because the level of poverty separates them from this privilege. Thus, the teacher who wants to work with his/her pupils has to create her/his own workshop guides, and to ask them to go to the library to search in different school texts, or they have to do photocopies of web pages or, maybe as a last resort, the teacher must learn how to design and create a school text in order to orientate the processes of education learning¹¹.

On the other hand, in the English culture, with the approval of the Free Trade Agreement in Colombia, there is an industry that moves a million illusions for the American dream; as it promotes an incentive for the learning in young people through the textbooks. It is necessary to say, these texts do not present poverty in their designs, there the imaginatio n is presented with the idea that all have mansions and cars. To tenor all of this, the economic imagery gets into the academy by means of school texts, and allows the subconscious of those who are taking their first steps in a foreign language to dream, in this case in English. Nevertheless, the reality has shades that cannot be hidden. In this respect, we think that a text must facilitate the reflection on reality in order to achieve personal success.

The school text that was sustained in the concept of resilience was written by Grotberg, Blienesser and Koferl, Vanistendael, Rutter, Suárez Ojeda, Osborn, Bernard and the Institute for children and resilient families - ICCB¹². Definitively, in this study, the resilience is considered a human process where the individual gets over school adversity as the learner reflects and confronts each issue; working successfully in the measure that achieves an adjustment and assimilates the external and internal factors of resilience.

The role of resilience was demonstrated in this research across the school Text¹³, which presented directives about a life project¹⁴; the students can face difficult situations. Consequently, the text developed three factors of resilience, according to Grotberg¹⁵: "I have " (the persons who love me and trust in me), " I am " (always a responsable person for my acts) and " I can " (speak about my wonderings ). Three new factors that were added to this study were: 1. "I feel" (I feel love and empathy) it refers to the emotional intelligence. 2. " I choose" (personal decisions that show autonomy, independence and identity). For example, "I choose my music" (it shows personal determination). Another example: there is a traffic jam, I am in a bad mood because I am going to be late but "I choose to turn on the radio and listen to a history lesson by Diana Uribe, then, I feel that I have learned. I love learning ". (This is a recipient act because I faced an adversity and learned history ". 3. " I value" as it relevant to personal, social and emotional competences. For example, "I value my life", thereby leading to feel self-esteem and dignity to be given to the person.

It is crucial to insist on writing a project of life, suggesting a humanistic approach. In this research, the long breath biography¹⁶ dove into English learning as a foreign¹⁷ language. Thus, we interrelate the fact of learning a second language by revising grammar, vocabulary and syntax, while at the same time being guided across the text; to re-discover the life of the pupils in the different stages of life, such as childhood (the past), adolescence (the present) and the adulthood (the future). We recognize that the study of genre¹⁸ should be relevant, however, when considering the sociocultural problems of girls, another specific research on this field is needed.

It is necessary to annotate that the aim of the class was to develop the linguistic and communicative skills, and in turn we repeat the resilience component as being included. From this perspective, the structures were revised in different verbal times, as not only had they communicated their ideas in writing, but also passed at the level of verbal communication. It was, in effect, the school text with different activities that oriented the students to create a project of life, turning them into authors of their experiences across the autobiographical and expressive writing fields into a second language. Nevertheless, we observe that the principal difficulty of writing in English for the participants of this study was vocabulary, followed by grammar.

It becomes crucial to know that writing skills depend on the objectives of the task, which in turn suggests the school text according to Lasern-Freeman, Hylan, Flower and Hayes¹⁹. Then, this model of Flower and Hayes, which was developed across 120 empirical studies in order to analyze the differences in conduct, over the process of writing for eight years, until they were creating "a writing of their experiences, a natural enough task when the events that they write to themselves grow in complexity of agreement with the competence of each writer²⁰ ". This frame of reference I constitute in one of our guides for the process of this study. For that reason, we apply the strategy that the success of a writing task is in the individual differences that begin with a brainstorm; to write a diary, to take notes and finally to share what they have written.

However, we were interested not only in increasing their vocabulary but also in taking these students to a higher level of fluency by means of a socialization of the writing. Thus we were guided by Faigley²¹, who demonstrates that the writer acquires the creative expression and uses concepts depending on the subjective and cultural variables such as: the originality, integrity and spontaneity.

In this way, during the research we were interested in seeing if the English school text would guide us to modify the individual conditions (the self-confidence in the personality when they succeeded, and dealing with hard situations, having handled emotions and having improved behavior). Equally, the external conditions were kept in mind as culture and the community that implied socio-economic, familiar aspects and the support of an adult, which promoted social integration to improve personal development.

We can add that the resilient factors of Grotberg²², and the three that we have added to the text, in this study, were oriented in order to use the writing as a dimension of self-strengthening, the personal fortitude to overcome the difficult and to give an education in life, across a perspective of personalized education. Therefore, the aim of the text placed in the process of the students´ improvement generated a personal projection, and an improvement in English writing as a foreign language as well. So, in these six young people, the concept of resilience appears immersed in a culture that, according to Donas²³, takes from the popular idioms and sayings: "To bad time a smile "and "to do of guts heart ", which pretty much breaks down to mean to be happy despite the circumstances, whatever they may be.

According to the sample we have indicated, it is placed in the case study as qualitative research, where multiple factors of vulnerability for every individual who faces the adversity are confronted in a transverse way, where they need to express their pain and feelings to face the present and the future. In this way, Chapetón²⁴ affirms that a projection of resilience into the environment, a person would need suitable support that gives the leverage to recover from adversity.

In the same fashion, love and co-operativism to listen without judging are essential aspects in helping students.

Taking this into consideration, the school text designed by us examined the life projection that each one of the participants had, and it was specified that each one of them had to internalize the destiny he/ she was determining. In this way, the text oriented the student to face the adversity with tools such as emotional intelligence and rescuing the interior forces which allowed them to turn into leaders of their own lives.

2. A methodology correlated with the resilient school text.

The role of the researcher - teacher implied creating strategies in order to get the data and select the best instruments that allow us to obtain the pertinent information from the problem. The instruments of this study were sustained in interviews²⁵, direct observation²⁶, surveys²⁷ and the school text²⁸. These various types of information were correlated to understand the voices of the students from different angles, which then took form in the text. Actually, the resilient text centered on the experiences, opinions, fears, hopes, traumas, beliefs, perceptions, and actions to improve their realities. In this context, it is not a fact to report, the expressive and autobiographical writing allowed analyzing the factors of resilience in the participants´ lives. In addition, we worked with the school psychologists²⁹, one from the institution and an external one, both specialists in young women in vulnerable contexts. It was, in effect, a highly positive contribution from a professional perspective as they guided us in the right direction, since there was a developing of the process in overcoming of personal adversity.

It is worth noting that the initial sample corresponded to 20 pupils of which were 16 girls and 4 boys, aged from 14 to 17 years. They were in the 10th grade in 2008. The same students started again in the 11th grade in the following year, just to repeat the same resilience activities. Then, a year and a half later, in 2011, they interviewed six students, two children and four girls who gave consent to show the results of the research. This group presented the following individual characteristics:

1. This young participant lost his mother when he was 10 years old. His father is an alcoholic and his unique affective link was his little brother; he has a difficult relation with him. This child had left his aunt´s house for a year. He thinks that "he can live on the street ". He was put in the College of Social Promotion by his aunt. I withdraw from him from the same one in 11th grade. It demonstrates that he feels unstable but he presents goals to confer a graduate degree. He is currently employed at different trades. 2. This young woman was considered "an active girl", even when she was 9 years when her mother did not allow her to continue her studies because she had to work. Nevertheless, she was put in the College of Social Promotion and she earned her degree in 2009. Presently, she is a single mother. She was studying at the university but she quit due to her maternity. She foresees going back to the university next semester. 3. This participant was in a state of neglect by her mother - she let her alone with her father, and was traumatized by her father who left her. She was put in this institution of Social Promotion. She earned her degree in 2009. In the project of life she presented the idea in belonging to a religious community. Now, she is studying modeling and nursery. 4. This participant was placed by his father and his relatives in the College of social Promotion where he obtained his degree in 2009. Right now he is employed by a construction company which helps pay for his paramedic's studies. 5. This participant comes from a dysfunctional family, where there were problems of violence, and he came as displaced by the population of Fusagasugá. Then somebody hospitalized him in the College of Social Promotion where he earned his degree in 2009. This young man expresses changed views of overcoming adversity throughout the study. He aspires to study "child psychology" at the university. Currently, he is reaching his studies of pre-school in an institute of non-formal education. 6. The sixth participant was abandoned by her parents. She grew up with her grandmother and then was put in the institution since primary school at the Institution of Social Promotion where she earned a degree in 2009. Presently she works and studies to be a secretary.

The second aspect is the place where the study was carried out. The Colegio Promoción Social is an institution that has existed for³⁰ years. I became a member of the Association for Social Promotion. Nowadays the institution is under the administration of the Franciscan community, but depends economically on Cundinamarca's Welfare. In the year 2008, there were 220 students and 13 teachers who are named by the Secretariat of Fusagasugá's Education. 90% of the student population is internal in the institution. The school is located next to the suburbs of the population of Fusagasugá. This city has approximately 110.000 inhabitants and is located 50 Km from Bogota. It has a cool climate with a temperature that ranges between 18° and 22° degrees on average. It comes as little surprise that tourists love this climate, and as such has become something of a tourist destination, and is well known for orchids and a variety of fruits and flowers. The school has its own farm.

The fourth aspect refers to the goals of the pedagogical design of the textbook. This design was based on teaching how to use affection and reason³². Therefore, this material looked at flexible learning through free writing practices in the different activities proposed in the textbook. We must indicate that all of the participants showed their attitudes, and were very active during the process of applying critical thinking. We consider this aspect as perhaps one of the most outstanding in order to promote skills, of which dealing in solving life problems. From this point of view, the textbook -supported by resiliency, personal experiences as well as the socialization of such experiences- aimed at the strengthening of identity and social competences, especially the dignity of the person.

We reiterate that the research was framed in the qualitative methodology, and the case study³³ as a work in which researchers do not start from hypothesis verification, but they observe what is pertinent to their approach, and therefore data are free and can vary during observation development.

In the results obtained in the period between 2008 and 2011, the lapse of time in which was carried out the tracking of the students, we discovered that in the first stage of the diagnosis it became clear that the traumas were caused at home. Likewise, it was found that writing as a communicative skill in EFL was an element that students wanted to study in depth more by text. It is worth mentioning that during the second stage of the project, the survey showed that personal topics were the activities that really motivated the participants. As to this this aspect, personal life and favorite sports were emphasized.

It is necessary to state that data was collected regarding interior dimensions (problems, questions, objectives) as well as external dimensions (the purpose of the research, sources, conceptualization and data on planning). Such data were analyzed in a reflexive cycle between the purpose and the literature of the research, as Lankshear and Knobel (2004) indicate it. The matter was that in a parallel way four activities were worked on with the six students. In this activity, the following were related: present, past and future tenses along with the question "Who am I?" All of these aspects took part in the "Life Plan" of life that contains the text.

We highlight that there is a student profile submerged beneath the psycho-affective problem of social exclusion, where the common topics persist: experiences, necessities, feelings and values. On the whole, according to the main question, it was conceived a triangulation to develop the analysis regarding the students' favorite topics, and the following was shown:

1. About the perception of the country, most of the students expressed fear of violence, lack of jobs and poverty.
2. Risk and memorable life experiences are lenses to appreciate the sense of life.
3. Resiliency through each stage of life. ]]> 4. Auto discovery, recognition and identification of aspects to improve.
5. The most important dreams or ambitions of the participants.

The impact of the research is shown through the personal interviews after a year and a half of finishing 11th grade, and culminating all of the activities in the book. In order to compare the information taken from the writing practices and interviews, the same topics developed in the thematic units were used.

In the interviews carried out in 2011, Spanish was used as their native language and the life code was analyzed, taking into account the participants expressions. For example, a young participant wrote: "My mom's death is the toughest thing that has ever happened to me". As it can be seen, within this context, for this young man death has brought the most difficult experience in his life. It is recognized then that the semantic meaning of the activities provided by a school book may go beyond the literal aspect of each word. Personal expression may go across semantic boundaries to come to a conception of life through experiences.

Within the general importance that we granted to axial codification to connect the categories of the research in the text³⁴, we could establish the following analysis conditions under the next topics:

The first, "Expressive writing as a mirror of the experience", made it possible to check that the students' voices expressed their life sense, demonstrating in the Life Plan, regarding characteristics of resiliency that each one of the participants possesses.

The second one, related to the "Life Plan through the text", explains what their voices show us about their resiliency process; what kind of resiliency is expressed, and, the characteristics of resiliency of every one of the participants.

Finally, the third one has to do with a "New hope defined through a sense of life", to answer how the students' voices communicate such a sense of life.

3. Expressive writing as a mirror of the experience

In fact, and as we have indicated, one of the impacts of the study can be found in the thoughts expressed by the six students one and a half years after their graduation from high school. Of course, by then they found themselves in a different world from the one they lived in during their studies at a boarding school, with specific characteristics brought about from sharing with boys and girls who had had similar problems to the ones they had lived with before.

We reiterate that after a year and a half, as we have seen in the last interview, "the sense of life towards the past" in most of the students is associated with the memory of their parents or of their relatives and friends. Apart from this, it was revealed how students' lives were affected by conflicts and family dis-association. Some of the students expressed their sense of life regarding military conflict, as they were displaced from their hometowns because of it. However, other group of students found their "sense of life towards the past", looking back on their memories when they were younger and played with friends at school.

In the project "the sense of life towards the present", feelings of happiness were revealed, because some of the students had achieved emotional stability thanks to the presence of an adult who protected them. Likewise, it was found that the rest of the participants identified the feeling of sadness to the fact of being far from their families. So far, the main idea is that the six students we approached in the last interview established a relationship between their concepts of the present with their academic life. We located three women going to school; one of them was attending university to become an accountant³⁵. The rest of them were carrying out technical studies. However, the two young men that were not attending school communicated in an open way of their wish to go to school once they resolved financial issues or responsibilities that have to do with maternity.

Finally, "the sense of life towards the future" through the voices of the high school students revealed that this group of participants emphasized their wish of going to school. What is more, it is very meaningful that all of them agreed on going to school as a means of personally overcoming adversity.

In this sense, a very important commonality can be identified, which is that most of the students wanted to study a professional career, such as medicine and health sciences, while others said they wanted to study international business or a military career. It should be added that the future for the majority of the group is based on "the achievement of studying a career"³⁶, while with less relevance they expressed their wish of having a good job. As it may be seen, their attitude towards the present and future made them resilient.

It can be said that it may not be possible to generalize findings through case studies. But the fact is that in our study it can be understood that a school text may save the life plan of each student. Furthermore, it had a great influence over the resiliency process in order to leave behind a traumatic past, in spite of being scared of lonely, as well as the thought of our own mortality, which are experienced by a population at risk. Specifically, with our students and their characteristics of family disassociation- as they were taken to a boarding school where they stayed for many years, and with a team of teachers, social workers and psychologists. But an additional explanation may be attempted, which is that a resilient text helps use tools in order to dignify the person and guide positive changes in their lives. Nevertheless, we observe that the text must vary the levels of difficulty of the language for Tenth and Eleventh grades, as well as to explore students' attitudes towards professional careers as a resilient component.

We consider the relevance in making a transcript in the case of a young man³⁷, who described an experience that changed his life:

"It was on May 8th, 2011. My mother died because she suffered from preclancia. We lived in Tunja (Boyacá). My mother left home at 4 a.m. to go to the Hospital de Cómbita, one of our neighbors accompanied her. My mother just told us that we needed to take care of and love each other with my younger brother. Then, she died at 12:30 in the afternoon and the baby she expected died too."

Of course, in this sample of autobiographic writing, so named by Ivanic (1998), we see the painful story of the participant, who omitted the personal pronoun "I" because the role of the identity is linked to his family. Through expressive writing³⁸, we understand the voice of the student and the set of events that happened leading up to his mother's death; although the feelings are not mentioned directly, the emotional charge of the story is highly outstanding. Feelings were not expressed in an open way due to the use of English as a foreign language that limited the vocabulary. However, the message is clear and basic vocabulary was used in order to utilize writing as a tool to direct feelings, according to criterion and beliefs.

So far, the main aim is to analyze how the voice of the student -about an event that affected his life-, demonstrates the risk he confronted, as he stayed by himself with his brother and their aunt, who took care of them for two or three years until their alcoholic father showed up again.

"My mother's death has been the toughest thing has ever happened to me. Of course, it lasted a month, I'm kidding, it lasted three months, but time past by and one realizes that still misses her, but distance and lacking in love make one moves away and kind of leave such a memory behind and, in somehow, to let her rest peacefully, to say it in some way."

We think this short declaration made by this young man allowed him to express his emotional awareness when he said: "My mother's death has been the toughest thing has ever happened to me." Here the student is very aware of the adversity he would have to face from now on. We may analyze this paragraph from a social constructivism approach, where the researcher understands participants' experiences from a perspective influenced by his own experiences. However, the perceptions obtained from the data are linked to the understanding of how these participants perform in the world. In the case of the 10 year old student, he understood and identified the process of acceptance lasting three months, the time needed in order to start a new life and move on. Nevertheless, he healed his pain with the time that passed by, and with self-realization to achieve proper adjustment, but his autobiographic and expressive writing reveals the interior need of this experience. Using his own words, "lacking in love makes one move away and in somehow, to let her rest peacefully". Definitely, we consider that as an example of self-expression to communicate ideas freely.

In Charmaz's words "a constructivist approach gives priority to the phenomenon of study, data and analysis of the experiences related to and shared by the participants"³⁹. The student shows a lack of love due to the risky situation he lives in, and makes him feel far from the memory of his mother in order to keep on with his life. The voice of  this student expressed the tough sense of life about an event that hurt him, but through time he is carrying out a process of adjustment.

The voice of this young participant is determined by his sense of life that is divided in two, before his mother died and after her death. We can assume that his pregnant mother was by herself with her two sons; the participant and his brother were alone because the person who helped them was a neighbor. From this sensitive experience, he recognized he would miss her forever. He remembers the exact date, time and all the pictures that surrounded this event.

To cite another case of a student who suffered from familiar abandonment and was told her mother had abandoned her, she writes her traumatic experience in this way: "I do not know my father and my mother abandoned me when I was two months old, but my grandmother took care of me and was I came to this boarding school since I was 6 years old. I was taken there forever". Using autobiographic writing, the participant narrates in a few lines her life far from home and in loneliness, but also she expresses that she had pain and sadness towards her family because of leaving her in a boarding school; however, at school she made friends who made her resilient trough strengthening her social competences.

4. A light of resiliency through a text that promotes the personal life plan

We consider that the text we elaborated and applied is characterized by a Plan Life oriented to: firstly, facing adversity and overcoming it during the self-realization or self-development process, as it makes a person focus on and emphasize adversity just to overcome it, getting support from individual and socio-cultural factors; and, in this way, to contribute in the construction of a personal resilient identity⁴⁰. Secondly, they are motivated to overcome this situation, orienting them to achieve a good adjustment through factors of resiliency that is present in their lives. Thirdly, it is used as a tool to re-examine their lives at different stages, such as childhood (the past), adolescence (the present) and the adulthood (the future). It is worth mentioning that at the same time this process is used to view the problematic situations as well as the aspirations of the students.

We will not spend a lot of time on the immense data collected at school and from the last interview. But we do point out the differences from the resilient aspects that we involved in the school text, and then evaluated in a comparative way the imagination of the students and the teenager within a world without institutional support.

It should be highlighted that the component "I am" in the voice of the majority of the population was associated to an interpersonal adjective⁴¹ when they were at high school. For this population, personal identity is built socially, as they see themselves interacting with others. In that way, resiliency is achieved in a social aspect. In order to be successful in life, the participants need to have inter-personal skills, such as sympathy and a sense of humor. The participants see how they perform and behave. The main thing is that after a year and a half, the voices of the students maintained similar proportions in relation to the "I am" with social skills, and their identity was built socially, as was their relationship with others.

Concerning the "I can" while they were at school: this sentence was linked to the skill of orienting themselves to the place they were born. However, in the last interview, the concept that the students have will change as they expressed awareness about their skills and capacities. The majority of the participants established a relationship with academic knowledge because of the awareness of understanding some of important topics for their plans in life.

There is another difference we established and achieved in order to analyze during the school period, in what we have called final interview. We talked about the "I choose" as something important for developing the autonomy that was anticipated in the resilient skill. Now, in the first answer during the school period the sentence "I choose" was linked to selecting a profession, and the act of making a decision about their personal likes such as music, sports and friends. It is worth noting that in the last interview they maintained the same notions.

Another aspect, which does not have less importance, is the one that has to do with "I appreciate". In this case, during the school period they linked it to feelings such as love and friendship. Most of the students point to a text that appreciates social justice, equality and truth. In the last interview, this factor was linked to the success they had; appreciating their emotional links regarding their beliefs; utilizing cultural and personal experiences to judge and express things they appreciate. Most of the participants appreciated personal characteristics such as persistence, consistency at work, and kindness as a source of resiliency in their lives.

It should be noted that the sentence "I feel" is linked to expressing feelings. We consider that the text allowed them to express themselves and to build their own lives through the phrase "I feel" as a resilient factor. At school, most of the participants admitted that a familiar situation made them feel sadness, pain due to a parents' death or abandonment, and an immense feeling of loneliness. However, emotional bonds they have built -in spite of adversity- are critical in order to acquire more awareness and happiness in their lives. Besides, it is important to take into account that in this chapter the group expressed that the text, which had been given at school, had provided them with the necessary balance and awareness to build resiliency in their lives. In the last interview the sentence "I feel" was related to the feelings of the participants. Likewise, most of the students communicated that they wanted to study and to love their chosen profession. Finally, after high school some of the participants feel out of balance without social school support offered by the school because, according to them, they had had to start to build their lives within the real world outside school.

Overall, we believe that another difference exists, which is the one related to boys and girls who are "invulnerable" people⁴². In this sense, it can be established that the young people who developed resiliency obtained support from an important adult to them. In fact, resiliency is a personal process that should start at school and must continue for some years, by following graduate students from high school, in order to give them tools to transcend resiliency into their adulthood as a natural stage in life⁴³. In this way, invulnerable young people can be those have been included in a personal resiliency process, supported by an adult who provided them with a positive influence in ethical values to face adversity.

5. Final reflection and pedagogical implications

We want to emphasize some aspects that establish inter-relationships while learning a second language, such as English. Firstly, the context of a vulnerable population of social exclusion in which the research was carried out, which made us think about the positive results obtained from resiliency on personal aspects. When a teacher applies it, then when the student graduates from high school, there must be constant follow-ups until he/she gets another adult whose role of protection helps him/her to achieve balance at school and work.

On the other hand, it is a real fact that public schools do not have the appropriate texts to teach and learn. It would be only in a utopia that each student would have a school text, even more so when such schools have students from vulnerable populations. Before this situation, the author of this research had designed her own text. The main characteristic of the text was resiliency to support the learning process, and assimilating English as a second language through writing and a communicative approach. The text was done thanks to the categories obtained from the diagnosis given in the surveys, theoretical framework and six factors of resiliency, of which three of them are the final result of this research.

It is concluded, therefore, that the text must be mediated by the teacher, in the context of emotion and ethical values towards these student populations, where their principal problem is the lack of familiar love. It was possible to achieve this aspect because the researcher developed two functions: being their English teacher as well as their director teacher. It should be noted that this project emphasized knowing more in depth, the life of each one of the 20 students from Tenth and Eleventh grades.

With regard to the question, "How do students express their sense of life evidence in a textbook?" It was concluded that the feelings about "the past" in all of the participants were linked to sadness, primarily because of the traumas that had happened at home. The voices of the students are understood in the text through the writing, where they related their pain and suffering concerning a relative who had gone, a separation of their parents or abandonment. That is how the feelings of the students are mainly associated  with family as well as attending school. In this sense, the school text was a tool at which to direct those feelings. However, in the final interview, a year and half after high school graduation, the participants were worried about their financial situations and about finding a good job. Nevertheless, they had kept the same fears they had had before starting the text, relating to loneliness and death. The students expressed the need to obtain social support in order to face challenges in life and achieve self-realization⁴⁴.

As to the notion regarding "what voices of resiliency are captured in the text?", the voices of the students were analyzed as they pertained to their sense of life and resiliency, according to personal experiences, ideals and feelings. Their perceptions of life were interpreted in: the past, present and future. The voices of the students, with regard to the present, are maintained invariably in the text and in the interview, as the main concern is to get the opportunity to go to school and to hold a job in order to help their families. As the participants were completing the text, their notion about the present was the school scenery, where they felt togetherness because of their friendship. An element that linked them to school is friendship, and that element is one of their happiest memories during high school. The majority of the students represented school as a place that let them overcome difficulties in their social lives. In the final interview, they remember that the text not only contained knowledge, but also provided them with awareness and knowledge about themselves. It is fair to say that the text guided them into the process of knowing more about themselves by thinking in a second language. The activities promoted by the text were expressive writing about experiences that had provided them with resiliency.

Likewise, this project showed how to personalize a text for a vulnerable population by using EFL⁴⁵ without requiring a lot of money. Although it is true that nowadays the contents can be acquired on the internet, sometimes with ease, the role of the teacher cannot be underestimated or set aside, as the school text helps to achieve a meaningful base of knowledge and aids in discovery of different dimensions in human beings, and their thought process, and makes sense of a student's life.

The contribution of this research for the school was meaningful, as this text provided them with new perspectives at knowing the students through a different means, such as interviews with a psychologist, and to carry out an educative intervention through a school text as a didactic tool of the teacher. Of course, the text offered an opportunity to express and build life to create and increase factors related to resiliency

Therefore, with regard to our original research question, it can be concluded that the resilient text becomes an exceptional tool to motivate and overcome adversity through reflection and knowledge about oneself, but the teacher must constantly mediate it. Likewise, the relevance of continuing this research with the students who attended university is established in order to study their skills for integrating into the university system. In addition, it helps to discover if there is a university text that helps them to foster their level of resiliency, in addition to establishing what the level of university desertion is when there is a life plan.

Finally, the resilient school text can help students to develop skills for life and make them aware of their own value through writing in a foreign language, using vocabulary in English grammar, writing skills and verbal communication as an immediate result of the "I can" sentence, which is related to the resiliency text.

¹ This work presents the result of the research in order to have the Diploma in Language teaching MA, at Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnologica de Colombia. The director of the thesis was Professor Alvaro Quintero Polo and the advisor research professors Carlo Granados and  Dr. Clelia Pineda, I acknowledge to them who guided us in this work.

² Docente de español e inglés en el Instituto de Promoción Social, en Fusagasuga, Cundinamarca y en la Universidad de Cundinamarca, candidata a Magíster en Docencia de los idiomas en la Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia, es miembro del grupo de investigación HISULA.

³ Catholic school of Franciscan religious community - depends on the Charitable Organization of Cundinamarca, Colombia. To enter this institution, students must come from first and second social stratas and have bio-psychological problems. The school is located on the outskirts of Fusagasugá city. It is located 50 km from the capital of the country.

⁵ GROTBERG, E (2008) "New resilience´s tendencies". In Mellido, A. Resilience: "Discovering the own strengths". Buenos Aires, Ed. Paidos, pp. 19-30.

⁶ "A sign of Resilience in my life". Didactic text written in English by Liliana Paternina Soto for 10th graders of basic education of the Social Promotion School. The text has 50 pages. Size16x24. The author was an English teacher and the 10th grade coordinator in 2008.

⁷ CHARMAZ, K. (2010). Constructing Grounded Theory. A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. Thousand Oaks. CA, Sage Publications, pp. 50

⁸ "A person cannot teach another person directly, but a person can just facilitate the learning to the other". Because every single person has his/her own experiences and his/her own learning style. Thus, this project was a strategy in order to become easy learning throughout the self-knowledge. MASLOW (1961). Creativity in Self-actualizing People. In H.H. Anderson,(Ed.) Harper & Bros.(1959) p.51-56. ROGER (1951). Client- Centered Counseling, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. GROTBERG, E. (1995). The International Resilience Project. A guide to promote resilience in children: Strengthening the human spirit. Practice and Reflection series. Bernard Van Leer Foundation. GROTBERG, E. and Henderson (2006). The resilience in the today´s world, how to overcome adversity. Barcelona. GROTBERG, E. (2008). Op. cit., pp 28-29.

⁹ General Law of Education, 115 of 1994. In 2006 the foreign Language: English basic standards are created.

¹⁰ SOTO ARANGO, Diana, TRIANA, Alba Nidia, BEDOYA Olga Lucia, HERNANDEZ Gabriela, F Del Basto Liliana (2011) VULNERABLE POOPULATIONS. Research Project presented to ALFA III, March of 2011, p. 1. "Social and educative exclusions are defined as the interrelated categories that are emerged, in a logic way, from the social and economic conditions and the power relations, among group populations with disadvantages." Tunja, RUDECOLOMBIA. Unpublished.

¹¹ Bilingualism National Plan, 2004-2019 in Colombia, it expresses the level estimated for students of 11th grade, it should be of B1.Educational National Minister Webpage. http://www.colombiaaprende.edu.co/html/productos/1685/article-158720.html http://www.wbookcompany.com/arti04.html

¹² This was our case because we had to write a workbook in a didactic way - we used it to reach the objective about resilience in six different Young students of the study.

¹³ VANISTENDAEL S. (1993). Resilience: a few key issues. International Catholic Child Bureau, Malta. VANISTENDAEL S. (1995). How to grow up overcoming the troubles: Resilience capitalizes the individual forces. International Catholic Child Bureau, Ginebra, Switzerland. VANISTENDAEL, S. (2000). The happiness is posible. Barcelona, Spain, Edit. Gedisa.. WERNER, E. and SMITH, R. (1982). Vulnerable but invincible: a longitudinal study of resilient children and youth. McGraw Hill. New York, U.S.A. Institute about Resilience in family and Children.(1994).

¹⁵ ANGARITA, L., PINILLA, H. and CARDENAS, M. (1992). The Project of my life 1,2 and 3. Bogotá, Ed. LHEMA, pp.19

¹⁶ GROTBERG, E. (2008). Op., cite, pp 22.

¹⁷ Writing the biographies started with the impact that allow students to reflect about their future, and their current situation, where they are in an institution for children with social and psychological problems.

¹⁸ IVANIC, R. (1998). Writing and identity: the discourse construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam, John Bejauis Press. IVANIC, R and Weldon, S (1999). Researching the writer-reader relationship. In C.NCandlin and K Hyland (eds), Writing: texts, process and practices (pp. 168-92) Harlow: Longman. LARKSHEAR, C. and KNOBEL, M. (2004). A handbook for teacher Research from design to implementation. Open University Pres. LARSEN-FREEMAN (1993). An Introduction to second Language Acquisition Research. ESSEX: Longman.

¹⁹ Initially the research included 20 young students, 14 girls, 6 boys. From them, 6 allowed the publishing of the results, 4 of them were girls .From the final group, just one student got accepted into the university - she is studying to be an accountant, because her enterprise is paying for her studies. LUNA, Lola.(1994). History, gender and politic. Promotions and University publishing, p. 22-23. GUTIÉRREZ DE VELAZCO, Luz Elena. (2003). Gender and Culture in Latin America, Art, history and gender studies. Center of Sociologic studies. Interdisciplinary Program of women studies. UNESCO. Meéxico, Colegio de México. 259 p.

²⁰ The level of complexity and motivations in writing depend on the type of the exercise. LARSEN-FREEMAN (1993). An Introduction to second Language Acquisition Research. ESSEX: Longman; HYLAND, K. (2002). Teaching and researching Writing in Applied Linguistics in Action series. Great Britain. Pearson Education. Longman; HALLYDAY (1994). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (Second Edition). London, Edward Arnold. (FG); English N. 48. pp. 527. FLOWER, L. and HAYES, J.R. (1981). The Dynamics of Composing: Making plans and juggling constraints. In Cognitive Processes in Writing: An Interdisciplinary Approach, LEE G. and IRWIN S. eds. Hilldale, NJ, LARWRENCE E., FLOWER, L. and HAYES, J.R. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and communication, N.32, pp. 365.

²¹ FLOWER and HAYES (1981). Doc. Cit., p. 5.

²² FAIGLEY, L. (1986). Competing theories of process: a critique and a proposal. Cognitive and expressive focus. College English N. 48, pp. 527- 542.

²³ GROTBERG, E. (1995). The International Resilience Project. A guide to promote resilience in children: Strengthening the human spirit. Practice and Reflection series. Bernand Van Leer Foundation. Web page.

²⁵ CHAPETÓN, M. (2007). "Literacy as a resource to build resiliency" Genesis Press. Bogotá, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional.

²⁶ The printed transcription of the interviews. Taken from the interview´s video. It was realized when the study begins and the last part of the research.

²⁷ The observation done was not structured. We were restricted to share our assumptions with the psychologist of the school Elsa Rojas and the external psychologist Sandra Pineda. Thus, the study was focused on the initial interview and finally the students´ writings as resilient texts; these had important comments from the psychologists.

²⁸ The students´ writings in the school text.

²⁹ PATERNINA SOTO, Liliana (2011) op. cite, pp 5

³⁰ Dr. Elsa Rojas and Dr. Sandra Pineda

³¹ We assume the concept and the difference of a didactic school text established in SOTO ARANGO, Diana (SOTO ARANGO, Diana (2011): "The American Independence in the school text in Colombia", in Texts, authors and libraries. 190 years of the Biblioteca Mayor of UNC / Rosa M. Bestani ... [et.al.]. - 1a ed. - Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Biblioteca Mayor, pp. 457-469.

³² Desarrollada por Corbin (1990, 1998), Strauss (1987). Citados por Charmaz (2010). Pp.

³³ According to HENDERSON, N. and MILSTEIN, M. (1996). Resiliency in Schools. MUNIST M, SANTOS H, KOTLIARENCO M, SUAREZ, E. (1998). Manual of Identification and promotion of resilience in children and adolescents. California. Corwin Press.

³⁵ According to Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1998; Strauss 1987) and Creswell (1998) cited by CHARMAZ, K. (2010). Constructing Grounded Theory. A Practical Guide through Qualitative analysis, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

³⁶ This young girl is able to go to school because the place where she works at pays her the tuition, so that she can study at night.

³⁷ Realization is the maximum level of satisfaction of the necessities according to Maslow's pyramid. MASLOW (19619. Creativity in Self-actualizing People. In H.H. Anderson. (1959): (Ed Harper & Bros. p. 51-56.

³⁸ Participant number 1, who was 10 years old when his mother died.

³⁹ Developed by Elbow (1998) and MURRAY (1985). A writer teacher writing, 2nd edition. MA: Houghton Mifflin. Boston; ELBOW, P. (1979). "Writing without Teachers", Oxford University Press; ELBOW, P. (1998). Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. Inc., New York: Oxford University Press.

⁴⁰ According to Charmaz (1990, 1995 b, 2000, 2001).

⁴¹ According to Grotberg (2008), Bernand (1991), Wolin (1993), Paternina (2011) and Higgins (1994). GROTBERG, E. (2008).op., cite, pp.22-23: BERNARD B. (1996). Resilience research. Minnesota University pp23-32; WOLIN and WOLIN, S. (1993). The Resilient self: how survivors of troubled families rise above adversity. Villard Books. New York.pp.35 PATERNINA (2011) Op. Cit.4

⁴² For example: I am friendly, I am a good friend or I am a nice person.

⁴³ According to the study carried out over 32 years by Emily Werner (1992-1993). WERNER, E. (1993). Protective factors and individual resilience: Handbook of early childhood intervention (1993) Meisles, S. and Shonkoff, J (Eds). New York, Cambridge University Press. WERNER, E (1989). High-risk children in young adulthood: a longitudinal study from birth to 32 years. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, vol. 59, n.l, pp. 72-81.

⁴⁵ According to Maslow's pyramid.

⁴⁶ English as a Foreign Language.

Sources

1. Interviews to six students. Four girls and two boys.

2. Surveys to twenty students, sixteen girls and four boys from Tenth grades in 2008.

3. PATERNINA, L. (2011). A sign of resilience in my life. Workbook. Tunja, Fudesa. Hisula, Instituto de Promoción Social, Fusagasugá.

4. Interviews to two psychologists.

5. Basic Standards of competences in a Foreign Language: English (2006). http://www.colombiaaprende.edu.co/html/mediateca/1607/articles-115375_archivo.pdf

6. Institutional Educative Project at Instituto de Promoción Social.

8. National Plan of Bilinguism http://www.colombiaaprende.edu.co/html/productos/1685/article-158720.html http://www.wbookcompany.com/arti04.html

REFERENCES

]]> Instituto de Promoción Social Fusagasugá - Cundinamarca

PATERNINA SOTO, Liliana. (2011):
"El texto escolar sustentado en la resiliencia para poblaciones vulnerables. Fusagasugá, 2008- 2011"
en: Revista Historia de la Educación Latinoamericana N. 16,
Tunja, Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia,
RUDECOLOMBIA, SHELA- HISULA pp. 301 - 332