Introduction

International criteria for evaluating educational progress are increasingly focused on learning acquisition, inclusion, and educational quality, considering academic as well as psychological and social aspects. Thus, since 1990, Latin American countries have begun to outline educational policies and action strategies to improve the quality of education, influenced by the recommendations of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 1990) in the World Declaration on Education for All and the Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs.

UNESCO’s concern with the quality of education is not new; more than 20 years ago, the report Learning: The Treasure Within (Delors, 1996) reflected on the link between quality and equity. The report argued that an educated society requires quality basic education, for which good teachers are essential. The strategies proposed in the report relate mainly to the social situation, teacher training and teachers’ working conditions. The report proposed that lifelong education should be based on four pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be. This conceptualization implied an integrated and comprehensive view of learning and quality education (Delors, 1996).

Among the strategies proposed at the international level, a Global Network of Learning Cities (UNESCO, 2022) has been established, based on policies that provide inspiration, know-how, and best practices to promote lifelong learning for all. In this way, UNESCO specifies a series of characteristics that this network must meet, through which the city improves individual empowerment and social inclusion, economic development and cultural prosperity, as well as sustainable development.

In the search for improving the quality of education and excellence in learning, low interest in reading is an issue that has been the subject of concern for decades, both for the educational institutions of the countries and for UNESCO (Pérez et al., 2018). There is sufficient evidence of the importance of supporting the habit of reading from an early age, making reading a pleasurable act that has a positive and significant impact on the child (Soto, 2007), since it affects not only their cognitive development, but also their procedural development, for the management of words, phrases and grammar, and their socio-affective development.

Despite its advantages, learning to read seems to arouse little interest among students, which is a great weakness, given that written materials make other learning visible, allowing those who read to approach information, whether through books, study guides, advertisements, or the Internet; therefore, it is necessary to know how to read to know what one wants to know by oneself, without having to ask others. Thus, some might think that, by stimulating interest in reading, they should “improve literacy to the maximum, because it is essential for the scientific, technological, and cultural progress of a country” (Domínguez et al., 2015, p. 95).

In this sense, the role of educational institutions is fundamental to contribute to the meaningful learning of reading; for this, it is essential not only to teach how to read but to do it with meaning and significance, thus promoting the pleasure of reading, familiarizing children with books, stories, poems, which allow them to open their minds to real and fantastic scenarios, thus nurturing the intellect, thinking, and emotion.

Therefore, the teaching of reading should seek new experiences aimed at stimulating students’ reading skills so that they understand that it is a means for their linguistic growth, which contributes to the improvement of their vocabulary and the broadening of their horizons of knowledge (Domínguez et al., 2015). The school must assume its role of responsibility in teaching reading and promoting the habit of reading to achieve significant student learning in this important area. In the same way, parents are called to support the school in this transcendental task by helping their children in the practice of reading and by setting an example of reading in the family (Ayala and Arcos, 2021); these strategies that involve the family are a support to the school.

In the Colombian education system, there is evidence of low levels of reading comprehension among the country’s children and adolescents at different levels of schooling, which is reflected in the low results of the various evaluations at the national and international levels, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tests (OECD, 2019), Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a three-year study focused on 15-year-old students to assess levels of “knowledge and skills that are essential for their full participation in modern societies” (p. 7). The assessment focuses on reading, math, and science skills, as well as student well-being.

In the most recent OCED-PISA test assessment, conducted in 2018, results by country “show an overall score of 412 in reading, 391 in mathematics, and 413 in science, all three below the OECD average, which is set at 487, 489, and 489, respectively” (Portafolio, 2019, para. 2).

Although these figures represent weaknesses in Colombian participants, a problem that has been systematically reflected for several years, certain improvements in progress in this competency can also be seen since the country entered this assessment of an international nature, given that “even if Colombia’s performance in reading was lower than that recorded in 2015, if a longer period is considered, it has improved in all subjects since the country first participated in PISA in 2006” (Portafolio, 2019, para. 3).

It should be noted that since 2006 Colombia has participated in the PISA program, a standardized test that evaluates the quality of education in OECD partner countries every three years. The Colombian Institute for the Evaluation of Education (ICFES) is responsible for administering the test in Colombia. From the results of this test in 2018, specifically in the area of Language, several conclusions were obtained (see Table 1).

Table 1

Summary of the results of the PISA 2018 tests

Source: ICFES (2020).

Although the above results are part of the general vision of the actions taken by the Colombian education system to achieve real and meaningful learning in the classroom, as well as to strengthen the teaching profession and thus achieve quality education, the measures and evaluations applied still show unfavorable results, since progress has been minimal. Thus, it can be interpreted that the strategies applied by the Colombian education system to achieve quality have had an impact on improvements, they are still not enough because:

The actions developed to overcome this problem have been insufficient, mainly due to the lack of a public policy that integrates them, not only to improve their effectiveness but also to achieve a greater national coverage since there are regions of the country that are largely unattended. (Ministerio de Cultura, 2009, p. 1)

From the above, we can conclude the existence of strategies that are not adapted to the reality of the country in general and of the regions in particular, since there are departments with a predominantly rural and/or indigenous population that deserve adapted practices; their lack leads to problems in educational quality and, therefore, in learning. Given that this problem has been identified in specific areas, such as the learning of reading among students, the following question was formulated: How does a literary interest center as a playful tool strengthen the significant learning of contemporary Colombian literature among eighth-grade students at the Institución Educativa Agropecuaria Rosa Jaimes Barrera in the area of Spanish language?

Based on this question, the general objective was formulated: To propose the literary center of interest as a playful method to strengthen the meaningful learning of contemporary Colombian literature in eighth-grade students.

Once the horizon was clarified, the search for previous studies began. Thus, in the international research scenario, the work of Jumbo and Delgado (2019) was studied, which was a great contribution to the present study since it allowed the validation of the pedagogical assumptions proposed.

In the national geography, the research presented by Salamanca and Vanegas (2021) was analyzed, which contributed to the present research in relation to play, since it allows the construction of meaningful learning, a fact that became the essential purpose of this research proposal.

In the local scenario, the research of Oñate (2016) attracted attention. This work contributed to the object of the present study, as it sought the transition from momentary learning to learning for life; that is, meaningfully, from the intervention of teaching practices in the traditional methodology, with the application of new learning strategies that motivate and arouse the interest of students.

We resorted to the review of the theoretical approaches that support the research, considering the approach to the concept of meaningful learning described by Rodriguez (2011), who argues that it can be conceived as the process that occurs in the human mind when it subsumes new information in a non-arbitrary and substantial way. Similarly, the comments on the principles and advantages underlying significant learning by Ausubel (1961) were taken up, who proposed a set of principles that teachers should follow to ensure that their students achieve significant learning; the essential thing is to start from their previous knowledge, which the teacher should contemplate to organize the new information in relation to a direct link with what they already know.

Methodology

The research was approached from the postpositivist paradigm, adopted from the propositions of Hernández et al. (2014), which state that reality can be known imperfectly; the researcher can be part of the phenomenon of interest; the object of study influences him or her and vice versa. Likewise, the theory or hypothesis on which the study is based influences its development, and the researcher must be aware that his or her values or tendencies may influence his or her work.

The research was developed from a qualitative approach, based on the postulates of Taylor and Bogdan (1994), for whom qualitative methodology is a way of approaching the empirical world; they point out that, in the broadest sense, it is research that produces descriptive data: people’s words, spoken or written, and observable behavior. For the qualitative researcher, all settings and people are worthy of study; no aspect of social life is too trivial not to be studied.

In accordance with the paradigm and approach, the research was framed within the framework of Participatory Action Research (PAR), conceived as a qualitative method of study and action that seeks to obtain reliable and useful results for improving collective situations, based on the participation of the individuals to be studied, in a learning environment that promotes critical and reflective reasoning about reality, which serves as input to improve and enhance the teaching and learning process (Evans, 2010; Sandi and Cruz-Alvarado, 2016).

Under these premises, in PRA the teacher acts as researcher and researched at the same time (Evans, 2010), since his participation in transformative actions necessarily involves him and leads him to a process of reflection on his practice, on what and how to do it; thus, he transforms himself in the search for positive results, in accordance with the purposes of pedagogical inquiry.

Therefore, and according to Restrepo (2011), PRA has three phases: Deconstruction, Reconstruction, and Evaluation of the practice, which are repeated cyclically; these phases make it possible to identify strengths and weaknesses through a diagnosis of the situation. From there, improvement alternatives were designed and proposed, and the effectiveness of the proposed alternatives was evaluated. The unit of analysis consisted of 38 eighth grade students.

To collect the information, we first used the survey technique, which is a “research method capable of providing answers to problems, both in descriptive terms and of the relationship between variables, following the collection of systematic information according to a previously established design that ensures the rigor of the information obtained” (Buendía et al., 1998, p. 120).

For the analysis process, the technique of data triangulation was used, which allows the researcher to “use different points of view that guarantee greater precision in the observation and increase the validity of the results by obtaining data from different sources, thus offering the complementarity required for this type of study” (Vallejo and Finol, 2009, p. 120). To collect the information obtained from the first to the third phases, the instruments used were the questionnaire for the diagnosis of the situation, the observation log to record the development of the activities, and a rubric for the evaluation of the learning during the activities carried out.

Results

Phase 1, deconstruction of the pedagogical practice, included the diagnostic activities within the research procedure under the PRA method, which allowed the teacher-researchers to know the reality from the perspective of the actors, placing the student in the subject under study and, at the same time, activating the previous knowledge (Novak 1982, as cited in Prieto and Sanchez, 2017). Under these considerations, and as a product of the researchers’ concern, described in the problematic situation that revealed weaknesses in the students of grade 8-A of the IE under study, regarding the learning of the Spanish language, especially in what is related to contemporary Colombian literature, a diagnosis was made within the initial phase of the PRA.

To know the situation of the students regarding the learning of contemporary Colombian literature, a diagnostic questionnaire was designed and applied, filled out through the Internet application Google Forms, consisting of twelve items with open and closed questions, oriented to respond to the purpose of identifying the factors that influence the significant learning of contemporary Colombian literature among students of grade 8-A in the area of Spanish language.

Regarding item 1: When you read a text, do you easily narrate the content of the topic, 50% of the students answered yes, 35% said no and 15% said sometimes. It was evident that the highest frequency was represented by those students who affirmed that when they read a text, they can easily narrate the content of the read topic.

In item 2: When you read a text, why do you easily narrate the content of the topic? there were some coincidences in the answers, since the ease of narrating a read text was for many of the students due to the pleasure of such reading; however, sometimes they have to take notes to explain the content.

About item 3: Do you use any strategy or method to learn the content of the texts you read? 60% (twelve students) said yes; 20% (four students) said no, and another 20% (four students) said sometimes. It is evident that the tendency was that most of the students do use or apply some reading strategy or method to learn the content of the texts they read.

To item 4: What strategy or method do you use to learn the content of the texts you read? the students gave several answers; among them, it stands out that the strategies and methods most used by them are: taking notes and reading many times to learn the content of what they read. Also, a preference for quiet environments for reading and highlighting the content were observed.

In item 5: Do you find it easy to explain the content of the text you have read? from the answers, it was interpreted that the students think that the ease of explaining the content of the text is given by the attention they pay to the reading, that they have to read several times to memorize, with the interest of being able to explain in their own words what they interpret; however, it is difficult for them to concentrate and to find the right words to explain.

When analyzing item 6: Do the teaching strategies used by the teacher facilitate their learning of Spanish? 65% of the students (13) answered no; 25% (five students), sometimes, and 10% (two students) said yes. From these results it can be concluded that most of them think that the strategies used by the teacher do not facilitate their learning.

Regarding point 7: What do you think about the strategies used by the teacher to facilitate the learning of Spanish? there was agreement in the answers about the strategies used: the classes are traditionally oriented, the texts are presented in old copies, the students do not find the topics interesting, they do not understand the readings, and therefore the classes become boring for them.

In point 8, the students were asked if they liked the environment in which the Spanish classes were held. In general, it was found that they prefer a fresh and pleasant environment for reading, with interesting topics; most of them think that the classes tend to be boring, without interest, which causes them to be distracted and annoyed during the activities in this area.

About point 9: Do you like the reading activities developed in the Spanish class? Why? the most repeated expressions were that despite the use of old texts in copies, which some of them considered boring, some students were able to read and obtain interesting information that allowed them to learn. Nevertheless, they would prefer to read in books and work on reading outside the classroom.

Concerning point 10: Why did some of the texts you read in Spanish class arouse your interest? they expressed that some texts tell stories that attract their attention; others feel bored; some said they were annoyed and disgusted by the texts they read.

The question for item 11 was: What reading activity would you like to see developed in the Spanish classroom? Among the activities mentioned by the students were: dramatizations, analysis of pictures and songs, interpretation of drawings, interactions, socialization, text analysis, summaries, discussions, and conversations.

In relation to the question of item 12: Why would you like to do the activity indicated in the previous item? the students pointed out that the activities they suggested would be a great support to do reading activities with interest, to be able to understand them, while allowing them to learn by having fun together, acting, drawing, and sharing with classmates, through group work, fostering healthy competitiveness; therefore, the classroom environment would not be boring and, would call their interest and motivation to learn by listening to others and thus being able to understand what they read.

Thus, the diagnosis of the situation about the identification of the factors that influence the significant learning of contemporary Colombian literature among students of 8th grade in the area of Spanish language allowed the researchers, during the phase of deconstruction of the pedagogical practice, to determine that the strategies and resources used by the teachers of this area did not give results, since they did not arouse the interest of the students in reading because they were not motivating; therefore, the learning that took place was of low level, rote, repetitive, without meaning for the students.

In the Phase 2, Reconstruction of Pedagogical Practice, Design, and Implementation of the Playful Strategy Literary Interest Center, we took into account the diagnostic results and the review of authors and preliminary research; it was oriented to the second objective: to design the pedagogical axes of a Literary Interest Center as a playful method for strengthening the meaningful learning of contemporary Colombian literature in students; for this purpose, the strategy described in Table 2 was designed.

Table 2

Activities and purposes

Once the strategy was designed and organized, the teacher-researchers proposed to implement the literary center of interest through literary play strategies to strengthen the meaningful learning of contemporary Colombian literature in students of grade 8-A in the area of Spanish language. They managed the strategies through seven workshops, organized to work collaboratively.

Workshop 1 was carried out through individual and socialized readings, stimulating the construction of collective memories; it was developed in a synchronous and asynchronous way in different scenarios, so that the students could analyze the work through collective and individual experiences, as part of the pedagogical axis of Observation. This activity allowed those who did not have the habit of reading to become interested in history and to start reading, a fact that was gradually achieved, given the relevance of the topic in the Colombian social context, which aroused their curiosity.

At the attitudinal level, students showed respect for the opinions of their peers; they identified the characters and situations and were able to make inferences about them, processes considered within the pedagogical Observation axis.

Workshop 2 worked with the play El olvido que seremos, an activity that allowed the students to work on their skills of analysis, comprehension, and argumentation, being the latter outstanding for some of them, while others were somewhat self-conscious in presenting their reasoning. With regard to the competencies observed, in addition to the capacities of analysis, argumentation, comprehension, and establishing a position on what was read, the activity promoted significant learning through more structured ways of thinking, as evidenced by the intertextuality in relating what was seen in the film, with what was read in the book, and with what some of them had experienced in similar situations, which is part of the pedagogical axis Association.

Workshop 3 was oriented by a playful activity to set the scene. After reading the book and watching the movie about the play, the teacher-researchers asked the students to mark a phrase or part of the play that they identified with to develop the activity of decorating the room. With the phrases written on the cards, the group worked together and enthusiastically pasted the phrases from the play, strengthening teamwork as the students spontaneously agreed to do it in an organized manner.

The relevance of experiential learning was demonstrated, which gives meaning to the educational process based on the interest and motivation of the students. The skills of text analysis and interpretation were the most outstanding, together with the fluency of expression and argumentation typical of the Assimilation pedagogical axis. Collaborative learning and teamwork were strengthened through the selection, analysis, and argumentation of that sentence of the work that provoked teaching and reflection in each of them, aspects that reflect significant learning.

In Workshop 4, the students gathered with great enthusiasm in their respective working groups, which had been formed beforehand; they were informed about the organization of the activity; one group after the other would act out the fragment of the play that had been selected and organized beforehand through mime, using verbal and non-verbal language. Within the pedagogical axis of Expression, fluency was observed in the use of body language in relation to the content of the fragment of the play they were representing, which also demonstrated a good level in their ability to write and interpret scripts, as well as for analysis, synthesis, and text comprehension, which was strengthened within the pedagogical axis of Assimilation, through successive activities; in particular, this allowed them to contextualize what they had read, as evidence of significant learning achievements.

In Workshop 5, the activity consisted of having the students highlight the parts of the work that had caught their attention and use their creativity, supported by the pedagogical axis of Expression, to design friezes that showed a good level of coherence, cohesion, and ingenuity in textual production, since it required them to analyze and understand the text at the time of graphic representation, also allowing them to strengthen the competence of intertextuality, proper to the pedagogical axis of Assimilation. Through the expression, the students were able to resort to processes of observation and assimilation, with which they worked supported by the three pedagogical axes of the literary center of interest.

Workshop 6 consisted of the performance of dramatizations, which caused some anxiety among the shyest students, who expressed concern and even stated that they did not have the talent for this type of activity; however, a high level of significant learning was demonstrated, both in the expression and in the assimilation of concepts and propositions, expressing the questioning of the facts presented. The evidence of the students’ work stood out for its creativity and recursion for its development, as a result of teamwork. There was also evidence of the strengthening of skills for textual analysis and production, writing scripts with coherence and cohesion, which implied good management of verbal and non-verbal language.

For the last activity planned within the strategy Center of Literary Interest, it was necessary for the students to produce asynchronously a written text as a conclusion to the work developed from the work of contemporary Colombian literature mentioned. Thus, the observation protocol of Workshop 7 shows the activity carried out by the group as a whole, which had the total agreement, expectation, and motivation of the students, since they were able to express their perceptions about what they were working on through the resource of their preference; therefore, it was an open activity where they chose according to their criteria and freedom.

To achieve Phase 3, Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Pedagogical Practice, whose objective was to evaluate the implementation of a literary interest center through literary ludic strategies to strengthen meaningful learning of contemporary Colombian literature in students of grade 8-A in the area of Spanish language, it was found that during the overall development of the strategy, their interest was gradually awakened through the planned ludic activities.

At the end of the last workshop, the teacher-researchers made not only a final evaluation of the performance of each student, but also the general observations of the group through the evaluation rubric designed for this purpose; in particular, the evaluation criteria were considered based on what was determined for meaningful learning: of representation, of concepts, and of propositions, in terms of high, medium, and low levels of evaluation, for the learning of literal, inferential, and argumentative reading in the reading work done with the Colombian literary work El olvido que seremos by the author Héctor Abad Faciolince.

For the general evaluation of the unit of analysis, four criteria were used: context, school climate, pedagogical practice, and teacher-student interaction. In the analysis of the students’ results in both rubrics, it is observed that in both groups, the levels of assessment of significant learning are between high and medium; none of them is at a low level for the criteria of learning of representation, corresponding to competencies for text analysis, text-meaning relationship, acquisition of vocabulary, and setting; likewise, the situation is similar for learning of concepts, represented by skills for interaction, resignification of knowledge, teamwork, and experiential learning. The same occurs in the case of propositional learning, where students showed high and medium levels of intertextuality, objective and subjective argumentation, fluent expression, creativity, and leadership.

Discussion

The documentary review, from the centers of interest proposed by Decroly (1871-1932), offered an ideal methodology for researchers, in their teaching role, to become facilitators of the students’ educational process. In this sense, from the perspective of Lukács (cited in Chuaqui, 2002) on the value of literature, it was considered relevant to adopt a strategy that would allow students to analyze, understand, and appreciate the fact that society, as a process of historical construction, is reflected in the narrative; this social process is what allows human beings to be aware of their environment.

In this scenario, to undertake the design of the strategy, it was assumed that to produce effective learning, it is necessary to design, promote, and create favorable educational environments, attractive to students, focused on their tastes and interests, involving a fluid communication between the different actors of the teaching and learning process, as expressed by Isaza (2014). It is also essential to consider that meaningful learning requires pedagogical strategies that lead to attractive, motivating academic practices, capable of arousing the interest of students.

The design of the strategy of the Centro de Interés Literario Héctor Abad Faciolince was aimed at achieving a significant learning of contemporary Colombian literature in the students, taking into account the following basic principles: (a) considering their previous knowledge; (b) motivating them by designing and carrying out activities that arouse their interest; (c) presenting the content in an organized, comfortable way, and following a logical sequence; (d) creating a classroom climate that is conducive to harmonious interaction between them and the knowledge to be built; e) explain through examples, where the classroom space allows the practice and application of the knowledge to be learned; f) participate in class to debate, confront, and argue opinions, search for other materials and bring them to class to expand the information through all possible resources (Ausubel, 1961).

Equally, for the pedagogical work, playfulness was used as an effective tool that allows integrating play into the dynamics of the classroom and achieving effectiveness in learning (Azúa-Menéndez and Pincay-Parrales, 2019).This is evidenced by the variety of activities planned and developed around interaction, knowledge sharing from collaborative group work, which motivated and excited students about their own learning, confirming that playfulness as a pedagogical resource contributes significantly.

The results of each of the workshops planned as part of the strategy demonstrated the work of innovative activities based on the participatory dynamics of play, based on the need to communicate, to feel, to express oneself, through a series of emotions oriented towards entertainment, fun, and recreation, leading to enjoyment, laughter, and expressiveness as a source that generates emotions.

Conclusions

In response to the first specific objective, aimed at determining the structure of a literary center of interest, the review of authors allowed us to know the characteristics of a center of interest, as well as its constitution, functions, and main objectives.

Regarding the objective: to design the pedagogical axes of a literary interest center, considering the axes of Observation, Assimilation, and Expression, combining the benefits of playfulness for the well-being of the human being, the activities planned and developed within the framework of the Centro de Interés Literario Héctor Abad Faciolince made possible for the students a series of experiences centered on creativity and the interaction of all for the achievement of the objectives of each activity.

For the objective: to evaluate the implementation of a center of interest, the continuous assessment through the recording in observation logs was crucial, which then supported the application of the evaluation rubric designed by the researchers under the criteria of meaningful learning; this made it possible to confirm the effectiveness of the strategy through the performance of the students.

Conflict of interest

The authors of this article declare that they have no conflict of interest in the work presented.

Ethical responsibilities

For the development of the research, the request was submitted to the Rector’s Office of the institution; the Rector accepted and gave his approval for the application of the instruments and the strategy. Parental consent was also obtained for the use of student photographs.

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