Critical Pedagogy in an EFL Teaching Context: An ignis fatuus or an Alternative Approach?
What is critical pedagogy? It may sound like stupid, but I really want to know. While I was reading the article (Critical Pedagogy in an EFL Teaching...), I realized that I had no idea about critical pedagogy or I may have misunderstood the concept. I couldn't focus on the reading since the author briefly decribed the participants and the topics for the lesson.
..22 EFL learners, both male and female, who seem to be diminished and held in minority by the dominant culture of the non-natives were involved. Their ages were between 18 to 29, they were from different educational backgrounds and different cultures. All of them had passed 12 levels of study in language institutions and were participating in a "Chat Course", a free discussion class, to improve their general proficiency and fluency.
Why did this author choose students from only one level which is the highest level in English? At the begining of the article, the author criticized the Audio Lingual Method with two more methods since these are not the method which apply the real outer world to learning. I totally agreed. But as a language teacher, I'm wondering, who uses the Audio Lingual Method for students who are the highest level? Do you? It's very easy to conduct some critical lessons with high level students. Before I took this TESOL course, I'd never tried to bring some sensitive issues into class for my beginner students because I thought it might be impossible, but I did bring many social and sensitive issues into class for the high level students such as gender roles, death penalty, environmental problems, traffic jams in Korea, and more. And many other teachers who teach high level students usually bring some problematic issues for their students. After I took several classes in a graduate school, I'm thinking that I should conduct some critical lessons for my beginner students as well. That's what I'm learning in class. But the author chose high level (actually very high level) students as her participants. Why? For me, it seems like she may have an assumption that usually high level students are capable of doing some ciritical activities. I also want to talk about topics the author chose for the critical lesson.
Topics selected were the following: gender discrimination, cultural invasion and internet filtering, anomie, religion, job opportunity, the society's view of Azad University, prohibition of traditional dress, army service, prohibition of Bandari songs and dance.
I would like to know if there are any teachers who can make very productive discussion class with these topics for beginners. My students are adults, and I know they can discuss these things in their mother tongue, but I'm not sure about in English. Will they enjoy my class if I bring these topics? Or will they complain to my boss about my lesson because it's too difficult? Why all topics are all about problems? Can't we make critical lesson without talking about problems, issues, and something political? I enjoyed the activity when professor showed some ads (maybe in class last semester) and let us think of the advertiser, targets, and the messages. I also enjoyed the activity when he showed a picture (in SLA class) and let us guess the meaning of the picture (which was drown by an ape). I also very much enjoyed when my high school teacher let us guess the meaning of metaphors in poetry. As a teacher, I enjoyed when my students gave a lot of interesting opinions about their coursebook, and when they made their own (cute, interesting) activites. I also enjoyed when my students made their dream neighborhood and explained the reason why they think it's good. Aren't these activites critical? These are the ones that I cannot connect with real world? I read many readings in class, and many of them talk about racism, feminism, political issues, power, problems... Why do we think of political or social problems first when we think of critical pedgogy?
Critical learning means finding problems only? What is the real purpose for the critical pedagogy?
(I've read a book "Flowers for Algernon". This is about the man who was metally challenged and then became a genius after a special experiment and finally became mentally challenged again. When he was not smart, he was happy and he thought every person around him was trustful. He thought the world was beautiful. And then he became a genius. He realized that the world is not good. The people were all using him because he was stupid. He had many things to solve and to think about. He became so obsessed. Because the experiment had a critical problem, he became stupid again. He started to smile. He was happy. He liked everyone around him.)
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