Given the colonial legacies and influences of the Empire in English language teaching that still continue to operate in silent and insinuating ways through discourses (re-)produced in e.g. textbooks, teaching methods and practices (Motha, 2014; Pennycook, 2007), scholars have called for an understanding of language as symbolic power that places the focus on how language is (mis-)used to construct racialized identities and to affect perceptions and worldviews of self and others, in an effort to bring a more politically aware discussion of language, power, and race to the classroom (e.g. Heidt, forthcoming; Kramsch, 2021). However, empirical insights into how to prepare language teacher-learners to fulfill this political task of teaching language as discourse and symbolic power and how they grow into such roles in their teaching practice, remains scarce.
By taking poststructuralist approaches to language as symbolic power and critical language teaching as a problematizing practice (Pennycook, 2001) as a point of departure, this paper details the process of learning to become a critical EFL teacher by following a teacher-learner across an academic year in a Master's EFL teacher education program at a German university. The study draws on data collected in two seminars, which were developed to explicitly intertwine theory and teaching practice, in an attempt to enable teacher-learners to craft and enact pedagogical practices dealing with issues of race and racism in a 10th grade EFL classroom. While autoethnographic narratives (Yazan, 2018) and semi-structured interviews reveal the focal teacher-learner's embodied experiences and understandings of language and language teaching, classroom observations and her students' work products illustrate how these imaginations are enacted in the teacher-learner's pedagogic practice in a 10th grade EFL classroom. The findings illustrate ethical and political challenges the focal teacher-learner experienced in engaging her EFL students with a symbolic understanding of language and its role in (re-)producing racial inequalities. The paper concludes with implications for a critical language teacher education in today's uneven world and the tensions the language teacher educator experienced when attempting to politicize the EFL teacher-learner's practice and how this was rendered challenging vis-à-vis the politics of teaching English.
Heidt, I. (forthcoming, 2022). Fostering symbolic competence in the age of Twitter Politics: A teaching unit on linguistic and political emergencies for learners of English. Anglistik – International Journal of English Studies, 33(3).
Kramsch, C. (2021). Language as symbolic power. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Motha, S. (2014). Race, empire, and English language teaching: Creating responsible and ethical anti-racist practice. New York: Teachers College Columbia University.
Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. New York: Routledge; L. Erlbaum.
Pennycook, A. (2007). ELT and colonialism. In J. Cummins & C. Davison (Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching (pp. 13–24). Boston, MA: Springer.
Yazan, B. (2018). Toward identity-oriented teacher education: Critical autoethnographic narrative. TESOL Journal, 10(1), 1-15.
