... During the dialogical engagement between teacher and students and students themselves, the life experiences of students are emphasized, through which the students begin to recognize each other as sources of knowledge...
...students are engaged in the decision-making process in class...
My response
I'm sure that critical approach is very important not only in a language class, but in other classes. It's always lovely to hear some unexpected or unique thoughts or ideas from students and have some discussions and debates with them. I love to be asked even though I can't answer to every single question from my student. I don't like to give one straight answer to my student. I like to think together. I'd like them to share their ideas or thoughts each other.
My concern, however, is this; do we have to make our class critical even for beginners? If so, is it possible to teach grammar, vocabulary, and simple structures with a critical approach? Do we have to consider a critical approach even when teaching grammar and vocabulary?
If I teach some vocabualry and some grammar structures and after that if I conduct activites which are critical, can I say I'm using a critical approach in my class?
As a critical approach, I can think of dicussions or debates usually. It is almost impossible to make my students to have some discussions or debates in English. My students even have problems with answering to very simple questions like 'What did you do last weekend?' or 'What are your hobbies?'.
In this case, what kind of activites can I use for my students to engage them in dialogue and critical reflection?
I think you bring up some fantastic questions here. We might have to think carefully about this idea of "enough time". I would seem that critical pedagogy has very different goals than many other approaches to teaching (whatever the subject). In language teaching, a critical practice might look at language learning (just for the sake of language learning) as a waste of time. Focusing on abstract grammatical rules or how to use these rules in abstract contexts would not be the goal. Rather, meaningful social engagement and the ability to demand to be heard would be more important than what we normally think of as 'learning language'. It is the underlying curricular goal that determines exactly WHAT is a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteThis makes things difficult- because if our students, administrators, parents, etc have different underlying goals than we do as educators, we have to be willing and able to negotiate. So at least for me... I think the most important thing is to try and determine as clearly as possible what we (and our students) are trying to achieve-
Thanks for the great post!
Thank you for your comment! :D
ReplyDelete