Education 2015, 5(6): 166-171 DOI: 10.5923/j.edu.20150506.03 Empowerment in EFL Classrooms of Two Public Universities in Mexico Mauricio O. López Gómez 1,* , Raul A. López Gómez 2 , Israel Ibarra Solis 2 , Irene Hernández Rangel 2 , José F. Oliva Fuentes 2 , Adrián Vargas Anguiano 2 1 Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, México 2 Instituto Politécnico Nacional (UPIIG) Silao, Mexico Abstract The increasing number of students in classrooms and the educational offer and demand in different modes require different strategies, pedagogy, methods and teaching techniques for those who are engaged in the work of teaching. Excerpted from the field of international business, marketing and media, empowerment is a strategy that begins to take hold in the teaching-learning processes. In this article we conducted research that deals with the empowerment in the students from two different universities in Mexico in EFL classrooms. The method used in this research included class observation, surveys conducted with both teachers and students, grading scores and interviews with the purpose to know how promoting empowerment in EFL classrooms could improve language acquisition as a strategy that begins to take hold in the teaching-learning processes. Keywords Empowerment, Learning strategies, Autonomous learning, Collaborative learning 1. Introduction The origins of the concept of empowerment come from the market of wells and services. Empowerment permits to develop skills in specific people in order to increase the production. (Kokemuller, 2007) states “empowerment is more about trusting employees to make decisions in customer service situations or other front-end situations when a manager is not available” (Jaffe & Scott, 1991, p. 1.) think similarly; they explain that empowered employees are the ones who are capable of creating solutions, decision making. They are reliable people who are willing to take action in any situation. Furthermore, they explain that empowerment is commonly used to allow employees to be able to have a quick response in decision-making when situations demanded it, bosses enabled figures of authority with the purpose of solving the upcoming plights whereas they were absent or not available. (Jaffe & Scott, 1991). (Czuba, 1999) explains two requirements for empowerment to take place: First, power needs to be potentially interchangeable. If this is not likely to happen then empowerment will not be possible, if the power is intrinsic on a person then it will be impossible. In case empowerment can be transferred from one person to another or others, then empowerment will be possible. Secondly, * Corresponding author: isibarra@uveg.edu.mx (Mauricio O. López Gómez) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/edu Copyright © 2015 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved empowerment needs that power can expand. (Jaffe & Scott, 1991) clarify that the act of empower is not losing control on people but to gain more control in the organization. According to (Bellous & Pearson, 1995) empowerment signifies to build, to develop and to increase cooperation, responsibility sharing and collaborative work. Parker (2010) defines an empowered team as an independent group of people that can make their own decisions. 2. Background 2.1. Educational Empowerment Empowerment in an educational field may differ from the previous concepts of empowerment given. Lightfoot (as cited in Edwards. 2001) mentions that educational empowerment is when the teacher provides students with responsibilities, autonomy, and a voice in decision making processes. On the other hand, (Smith, 1993) explains that the concept of empowerment may be used in both types of environments whether in a classroom or some company. He also explains that it consists of the effective solution of any task with the efficient use of skills and knowledge by either an individual or a group. The self-leadership concept, as empowerment, was also firstly developed in the management field. Self-leadership is how an individual manages him or herself in any situation, or the strategies they use in order to do so (Manz & Sims, 2001.) Using empowerment in a classroom may not only increase student’s learning. (Bellous & Pearson, 1995) describe the