Bi-directional Decoloniality in Applied Linguistics: A Lao-German cooperation project

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Abstract Summary

Theory:
In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter and toppled statues of emblematic colonists, teacher education and research in Applied Linguistics in Germany has been paying more attention to the political goals of social justice by addressing inclusion and diversity in revised syllabi and EFL teaching materials, as the latest new conference strands, publications, online lectures and symposia show. However, the underlying Western binary episteme and its all-permeating neo-colonial consequences ("epistemologies of ignorance", Sriprakash et al. 2020) have long been questioned by scholars in the Global South, and its tap-root-system of exclusivity and privilege based on Western philosophy has been replaced by postcolonial theories and postmethod alternatives. In a transmodern world, the questioning and decolonisation of Western "TE [me] SOL [other]" teachers' self-perceptions, global roles and responsibilities for future-building may now trigger the Global North's journey to decoloniality.

Opportunities for bi-directional decoloniality lie in cooperations between partners from the Global North and Global South, with one side "learning to learn from below" (Spivak 2004) and the other "louding [their] voices" and defining local methods, materials and goals. Collaborative teaching and research engagement projects foster unlearning, de-linking, listening, and the readiness to reach out.

Submission ID :
AILA1332
Submission Type
Argument :

"We shall not cease from exploration/ And at the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time." (from T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, 1943)

Practice

The teaching and learning project between a German University of Education and seven institutions of education in Lao P.D.R. was jumpstarted in 2015 in a high-risk experiment between two maximally distant countries. To date, 77 German-Lao teacher-tandems have worked and taught together for 2-6 months in this transnational PLC (Professional Learning Community), resulting in augmented teacher identities with Global Commitment. Living and tandem-working in a Communist-Buddhist country with LDC- and HIPC-status, which had only opened its borders to the world in the 1990s, was the most potent foil possible for perceptions and experiences to throw back some starkly magnified self-images and to "unlearn" epistemes and worldviews. 

Research

In this liminal space, many participants engaged in guided self-reflexive research in the post-phase to clarify the perceived discrepancies. The academic output includes B.A. and M.A. theses, doctoral dissertations (in-progress), conference papers and conferences, a project blog (363 articles, 85 pages, 2 million hits, 400,000 users), and two new seminars ("Global English(es), Global TEFL and Global Citizenship Education" in the B.A. and "Decolonise Your Mind: Postcolonial Theories and Literatures" in the M.A. degree). The second Erasmus+ Mobility project is in operation, and affiliated partners in the Asia-Pacific (Hongkong, Melbourne, Wuhan) are mapping out new ways of cooperation.

Following the first exploratory years in the field (Spiral Participatory Action Research), the extensive collection of data is reviewed in a mixed-method and decolonial research design. Postmethod pedagogy, retrospective interviews, collaborative autoethnography and critical content analysis serve as instruments for alternative ways of knowledge(s)-production. They scaffold processes of inquiry and epistemological de-linking and point to blind spots and lexical gaps in the academic discourse of the Global North, for starters.

"The only way to decolonise is to do it. […] It needs people who are able to embark on such a journey and return with tales to tell of what happens when decolonising is attempted in foreign languages learning." (Alison Phipps, "A Short Manifesto for Decolonising Language Education", 2019, p. 5)


Bibliography

Alvarado, A. & Lozada, G. (2016): Decolonizing Language Teachers' Teaching Practices through a Postmethod Pedagogy. Enletawa Journal 9 (1), 69-85.

Andreotti, Vanessa (2016): The educational challenges of imagining the world differently. Canadian Journal of Development Studies/ Revue Canadienne d'études Du Développement, 37: 1, 101-112.

Hsu, Funie (2017): Resisting the coloniality of English. A research review of strategies. CATESOL Journal 29: 1, 111–132.

Kirshner, Jean & Kamberelis, George (eds.) (2021): Decolonizing Transcultural Teacher Education through Participatory Action Research. New York: Routledge.

Kumaravadivelu, Balasubramanian (2003): A Postmethod Perspective on English Language Teaching. World Englishes 22: 4, 539-550.

Mignolo, Walter D. (2018): What Does It Mean to Decolonize? In: Mignolo, Walter D. & Walsh, Catherine E. (eds.): On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham: Duke University Press, 105-134.


Professor of English, Head of English Department
,
University of Education Karlsruhe

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