Starting Points In Critical Language Pedagogy

Critical language pedagogy, also sometimes referred to as critical ELT, where English is the primary language involved, has a literature in which theoretical and specialized work has outstripped more practically-oriented material. Nevertheless, even practically-oriented publications in this area tend to address the experienced, well-resourced teacher, as opposed to those beginning in this area, or those without much professional support. With a view to helping prepare second language teachers to begin to engage with critical language pedagogy, the authors of this book start from areas of conventional L2 curriculum that teachers naturally use. Each chapter presents material pertinent to areas of language, language teaching and course delivery, starting from a fairly conventional perspective. It then attempts to explain how this conception can be extended drawing upon the ideas of critical (language) pedagogy and teachers' experiences. The authors' experience of working with teachers, who work under different circumstances, in teacher education courses and workshops form key elements of the book. Teachers’ voices are also given adequate space so as to provide a comprehensive picture and situated understanding of critical language pedagogy. Dialogical engagement with the initial perspectives of beginning critical language pedagogy teachers who do not necessarily have a fully-worked out "critical philosophy of teaching" or those who wish to practice critical ELT is another feature of the book. Finally, to strengthen the practical orientation of the book, teaching strategies and extracts of materials and lesson plans are also provided.

Putting Critical Language Pedagogy into Practice explores the practice of language teaching through the lens of critical pedagogy, reflexivity, and the importance of reflexivity for teacher development. It also shows how these reflexive practices can contribute to more inclusivity and decolonization of the curriculum. A range of experts argue persuasively for epistemological reflexivity in practice and demonstrate how to implement this critical thinking into daily instructional practice. Each chapter is structured around three themes in order to help readers connect challenging theoretical ideas into day to day teaching practice: Reflection – the author’s story and issue of concern; Epistemic Reflexivity – personal epistemologies reflecting on the social conditions influencing the theory underpinning that author’s practices; Resolved action – how the epistemic reflexivity leads to purposeful decision-making enacted in classroom contexts. Original, thoughtful and challenging, this text is fascinating and instructional reading for language education advanced students, researchers and practitioners. The idea for this book emerged during the Fulbright scholarship at Texas Woman’s University out of the mutual research interests of the editors.

Critical Language Pedagogy: Interrogating Language, Dialects, and Power in Teacher Education demonstrates how critical approaches to language and dialects are an essential part of social justice work in literacy education. The text details the largest and most comprehensive study ever conducted on teachers' language beliefs and learning about dialects, power, and identity. It describes the experiences of over 300 pre- and in-service teachers from across the United States who participated in a course on how to enact Critical Language Pedagogy in their English classrooms. Through detailed analyses and descriptions, the authors demonstrate how the course changed teachers' beliefs about language, literacy, and their students. The book also presents information about the effectiveness of the mini-course, variations in the responses of teachers from different regions of the United States, and the varying language beliefs of teachers of color and White teachers. The authors present the entire mini-course so that readers can incorporate it into their own classes, making the book practical as well as informative for teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers. Critical Language Pedagogy: Interrogating Language, Dialects, and Power in Teacher Education provides a much-needed theoretical explanation of Critical Language Pedagogy and, just as importantly, a detailed description of teacher learning and a Critical Language Pedagogy curriculum that readers can use in K-12, college, and teacher education classrooms.

The Readings in Language Studies series presents international perspectives on important and emergent themes in language studies: critical pedagogy, language and power, language and identity, second language acquisition, conceptualizations of language, teachers and teaching. Each volume in the series is developed and edited in partnership with the International Society for Language Studies (www.isls.co), an interdisciplinary association of scholars who explore critical perspectives on language. A resource for students and scholars, each themed volume in the series represents the latest thought, literature, research, and methodology in language studies and features authors from across the globe. The series, which includes this current volume, is an essential scholarly resource for universities and personal libraries. ENDORSEMENTS: "This volume illuminates critical issues in language studies by questioning unequal relations of power regarding race, gender, sexuality, ability, language, multimodality, communication, and more. The authors’ critical engagement offers renewed understandings of identity, pedagogy, and policies." — Ryuko Kubota, University of British Columbia "ISLS continues to deliver on its mission of promulgating critical scholarship in language-related studies. This volume continues this now two-decades long mission and includes contributions from both well known and promising scholars. This volume belongs on the shelves of those who recognize the role languages play in sustaining and interrupting relationships of power. "— Terry A. Osborn, University of South Florida

This edited research volume explores the development of what can be described as the ‘critical turn’ in intercultural communication pedagogy, with a particular focus on modern/foreign language education. The main aim is to trace the realisations of this critical turn against a background of unequal power relations, and to illuminate the role that radical culture educators can play in the making of a more democratic and egalitarian social order. The volume takes as a starting point the idea that criticality draws on a number of intellectual traditions, which do not always focus on social and political critique, and argues that because ideological hegemony impacts on the meanings that people create and share, intercultural communication pedagogy ought to locate itself within wider socio-political contexts. With reference points drawn from critical and transnational social theory, critical pedagogy and intercultural theory, contributors to this volume provide readers with powerful ways that show how this can be achieved, and together assess the impact that their understanding of criticality can make on modern/foreign language education. The volume is divided into three major parts, namely: ‘theorising critically’, ‘researching critically’ and ‘teaching critically’.

This book challenges the reader to consider issues of language and linguistic discrimination as they impact world language education. Using the nexus of race, language, and education as a lens through which one can better understand the role of the world language education classroom as both a setting of oppression and as a potential setting for transformation, Democracy and World Language Education: Toward a Transformation offers insights into a number of important topics. Among the issues that are addressed in this timely book are linguicism, the ideology of linguistic legitimacy, raciolinguistics, and critical epistemology. Specific cases and case studies that are explored in detail include the contact language Spanglish, African American English, and American Sign Language. The book also includes critical examinations of the less commonly taught languages, the teaching of classical languages (primarily Latin and Greek), and the paradoxical learning and speaking of “critical languages” that are supported primarily for purposes of national security (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Russian, etc.).

With a Foreword by Hugh Starkey and Audrey Osler, and Afterwords by Graham Crookes, Hilary Janks and Allan Luke, this book promotes critical language education and illustrates how a critical agenda can be enacted in English language education in real classrooms. It presents four cases located in primary and secondary schools in the province of Buenos Aires in Argentina in contexts that can be characterised as vulnerable or difficult. It describes the possibilities, challenges and limitations of this critical agenda using students’ drawings, posters, leaflets, artwork, classroom activities and conversational data as foundation, and including the voices of local teachers in their classrooms. Importantly, these teachers used teacher-made, locally produced, critical post-method materials, described by the author of those materials in one of the chapters. In this way, the book offers a unique balance of researcher, teacher and materials writer voices. These materials are included in the book and can help language teachers around the world to introduce critical perspectives in their specific contexts. The book is appealing to researchers, classroom teachers, teacher educators, and materials writers and developers interested in critical language education.

In the context of Black Lives Matter, decolonizing initiatives, #MeToo, climate emergency protests and other movements for social and environmental justice, this volume posits a simple question: how can modern languages be taught so that they challenge rather than reinforce social inequalities? Informed by interdisciplinary theories, Critical Pedagogies for Modern Language Education focuses on practical discussions of case studies in areas directly relevant to the classroom contexts of modern languages educators. The volume transforms modern language educators and the modern language profession by putting the politics of language teaching at the centre of its analysis. With case studies covering 11 languages (Modern Standard Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Levantine, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Tamazight) across 13 countries and regions (Austria, Brazil, China, France, Italy, the Levant, Morocco, the Netherlands, Palestine, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA), the contributors cover a wide range of theories, including critical discourse analysis, activist pedagogies, culturally sustaining pedagogy, linguistic justice and translanguaging. With student-teacher collaboration at its heart, critical modern languages pedagogy unmasks the ideologies and hegemonies that lie behind mainstream language use and affirms the value of minority linguistic and cultural practices. The volume thus provides transformative approaches to modern languages teaching and learning that respond to the key social concerns of the 21st century.