To ensure smooth communication and collaboration, here are some troubleshooting tips to address common issues:
Check Internet Connection: Verify that you have a stable and reliable internet connection. Use a wired connection when possible, as it tends to be more stable than Wi-Fi. If using Wi-Fi, make sure you have a strong signal.
Update the Browser or App: Ensure that you are using the latest version of the web browser. Developers frequently release updates to address bugs and improve performance.
Clear Browser Cache: Sometimes, cached data can cause conflicts or issues. Clear the browser cache and cookies before joining the meeting.
Test Audio and Video: Before the meeting, check your microphone and camera to ensure they are working correctly. If you are a speaker, you can click on "Start Practice Session" button test to ensure audio and video devices are functioning.
Close Other Applications: Running multiple applications in the background can consume system resources and lead to performance issues. Close unnecessary apps to free up resources for the Dryfta meeting platform.
Restart Your Device: If you encounter persistent issues, try restarting your computer or mobile device. This can help resolve various software-related problems.
Use Supported Browsers: Ensure you are using a browser supported by the meeting platform. Recommended browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Brave.
Allow Necessary Permissions: Make sure the Dryfta meeting platform has the required permissions to access your microphone, camera, and other necessary features.
Disable VPN or Firewall: Sometimes, VPNs or firewalls can interfere with the connection to the meeting platform. Temporarily disable them and see if the issue persists.
Switch Devices: If possible, try joining the meeting from a different device to see if the problem is specific to one device.
Reduce Bandwidth Usage: In cases of slow or unstable internet connections, ask participants to disable video or share video selectively to reduce bandwidth consumption.
Update Drivers and Software: Ensure your operating system, audio drivers, and video drivers are up to date. Outdated drivers can cause compatibility issues with the Dryfta meeting platform.
Contact Support: If none of the above steps resolve the issue, reach out to the platform's support team. They can provide personalized assistance and troubleshoot specific problems.
By following these troubleshooting tips, you can tackle many common problems encountered on Dryfta meeting platform and have a more productive and seamless meeting experience.
20230718T083020230718T1615Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven WorldHybrid Session (onsite/online)AILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
Language Pedagogy in Dangerous Times: Articulating a Critical Language Agenda
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 09:30:00 UTC
The current sociopolitical situation around the world is forcing scholars and language educators to rethink our pedagogies, methodologies, and approaches. How are academics, researchers, and language educators, engaging with the social and political reality? Or are they? How do we educate and raise educators' and students' critical consciousness, so that they will find themselves on the right side of history? If educators want to invest in engaged scholarship that truly aims at improving the lives of students, their families, their communities, and our society, they must be ready to talk about the workings of power and power asymmetries, the unequal distribution of wealth and power, racism, discrimination, and the role of schooling in all this. This presentation aims at proposing a Critical Language Education agenda and a pedagogy that names, interrupts, challenges, critiques, and has a proposal for a different kind of language classrooms, curricula, schools, and communities that, in turn, affect societies and human life as a whole.
The dramatic rise of authoritarian right-wing populism, the massive movement of immigrants and refugees across the globe, political unrest, the ongoing oppression, violence, and systemic racism against people of color; and the immiseration politics of capitalism are making up an explosive world scene. Xenophobia and racism have revived nativist sentiments; symbolic and material violence are on the rise against the most vulnerable strata of the population; and fear and insecurity about what lies ahead for humanity are looming. This dystopian picture is forcing scholars and language educators to rethink our pedagogies, methodologies, and approaches. How are academics, and language educators, engaging with the social and political reality? How do we educate and raise educators' and students' critical consciousness, so that they will find themselves on the right side of history? Educators who want to invest in engaged scholarship that truly aims at improving the lives of students, their families, their communities, and our society, must be ready to talk about the workings of power and power asymmetries, the unequal distribution of wealth and power, racism, discrimination and the role of schooling (Pennycook, 2001; Canagarajah, 2006; Kumaravadivelu, 2006; Kubota & Austin, 2007). My argument is that in the current juncture, welcoming politics into the language classroom is mandatory, as part of our understanding of what it means to be a critical educator. "Politics" here should be understood as a constant and ongoing critique of reality and of the self, as necessary for individuals to critically move into subject positions (Gounari 2020) as well as the ways educational systems are embedded in the political landscape where their goals, vision, mission, and curricula are shaped along specific ideologies, with teachers and students at the core as social agents. Researchers and educators are compelled to address 'politics" and to discuss how languages (cultures, identities, lived experiences, and discourses) of subjugated and oppressed people can earn their space and get legitimacy in the language classroom. There is further a need to discuss the asymmetry in symbolic and economic power at play, while constructing a critical, de-colonial agenda for language education building on the critical turn in language studies (Kubota & Austin, 2007; Crookes, 2012). This presentation proposes a Critical Language Education agenda and a pedagogy that names, interrupts, challenges, critiques, and has a proposal for a different kind of language classrooms, curricula, schools, and communities.
Canagarajah, A. S. (2006). TESOL at forty: What are the issues? TESOL Quarterly40(1), 9–34. Crookes, G. (2012). Critical pedagogy in language teaching. In L. Ortega (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Wiley/Blackwell. Gounari, P. (2020). Teaching and Learning Language in Dangerous Times. Introduction to the Special Issue on Rethinking Critical Pedagogy in L2 Teaching and Learning. L2 Journal, 12 (2), 3-20. Kubota, R., & Austin, T. (2007). Critical approaches to world language education in the United States: An introduction. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 4(2-3), 73-83. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). Understanding language teaching: From method to postmethod. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Presenters Panayota Gounari Professor In Applied Linguistics, University Of Massachusetts Boston
Just forget about it? – Or: The impossibility of an ethico-political turn within a framework of standard-oriented teacher education that focusses on explicit knowledge
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 09:30:00 UTC
The symposium abstract draws on an ethico-political turn and demands "an effort to contest classed, gendered, monolingual, neocolonial or raciolinguistic discourses." This echoes calls for critical foreign language instruction and asks, how teacher education can possibly respond to this. The current conversation on critical foreign language instruction focusses on how to enrich classrooms with critical topics (e.g. Gerlach 2020) and thus operates on the level of subject matter. This is mirrored by teacher knowledge research and teacher education research focussing on which kind of knowledge teachers need to implement which content into their classrooms. This research draws on explicit teacher knowledge (e.g. König et al. 2016, Krauss et al. 2017) and reflection. It assumes that teachers' actions are determined by explicable norms or goal-oriented cognitions, thus echoing common-sense-based theories, such as rational choice models. This approach underrates the institutional and organisational frame of both schooling and teacher education. In a study on co-operative learning in the EFL classroom, we tried to establish how this institutional and organisational frame influences teachers' actions. Co-operative learning is a highly relevant case in point, because it ranges from affirmative micro methods to participatory macro-methods that seriously interfere with assessment driven classroom cultures and power dynamics (Sharan 2010). In the talk, I will present the overall design of the project (3-year-longitudinal, classroom study, teacher knowledge study, student language tests) and focus on the classroom and teacher studies. The first core finding is that implicit knowledge, i.e. habitus, seems to overrule explicit knowledge, i.e. knowledge of teaching methods, norms, and intentions. The second core finding is that teachers' actions are not only complicated by conflicting norms, but also by conflicting habitus dimensions, in this case a habitus of "teacher as assessor in control" vs. a habitus of "autonomy, participation and co-operation". In our study, it has become clear that the question, which habitus dimension overrules the other is crucially influenced by the field, i.e. the social context or practice, it has been acquired in. These findings have implications for teacher knowledge research and teacher education. They suggest that any change towards more ethico-political foreign language classrooms cannot be achieved by introducing new content within the existing institutional and organisational structures. Rather than that, any such attempts will fail, unless (1) teacher knowledge research pays attention to implicit knowledge; unless (2) teacher education finds ways of impacting on implicit knowledge, e.g. by experiential, or disruptive approaches; and unless (3) the contradiction between an ethico-political orientation towards democratic EFL-instruction / teacher education and the current organisational and interactional frame of standard-orientation, modularisation and over-assessment is addressed and healed. Gerlach, D. (2020) Kritische Fremdsprachendidaktik. Tübingen: Narr. König, J. et al. (2016) Teachers' Professional Knowledge for Teaching English as a Foreign Language. J. Teacher Education 67: 4, 320-337 Krauss, S. et al. (eds)(2017) FALKO: Fachspezifische Lehrerkompetenzen. Münster: Waxmann. Sharan, Y. (2010) Cooperative Learningfor Academic and Social Gains: Valued pedgagogy, problematic practice. Europ. J. of E. 45/2, 300-313.
Presenters Andreas Bonnet Professor Of Foreign Language Education, University Of Hamburg, Germany
Navigating politics and activism in teacher education
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 09:30:00 UTC
Calls for a more explicitly politicised teacher education sit alongside a wider push for socially transformative engagement within language research (Bucholtz, 2018; Ladegaard and Phipps, 2020) that have emerged in response to the increasing dispossession, marginalisation and inequality that we are witnessing across the globe. Teachers are often identified as having a key role to play in these processes, and much current research declares a commitment to the incorporation of social justice into the classroom (Avineri et al., 2019) At the same time, critical scholars have warned us of the inadvertent harm that can be enacted through well-meaning attempts to 'give voice' or 'empower' students, which often reinscribe unequal power dynamics and reproduce the structures they purport to disavow (Kraft and Flubacher, 2020). What this draws attention to is the need for critical reflection on the politics and ethics of engagement between researchers and educators. In this paper, I draw on a collaborative project with teachers in an English-teaching NGO in Delhi, India, in order to raise several challenges that emerge when engaging in practices that are undergirded by a will to transform. I take as my point of departure data from a series of workshops that I conducted with teachers at the NGO in which we discussed and analysed the findings from my ethnographic study undertaken in 2018-2019 at the same NGO in order to reflect upon potential implications for NGO policy and their practice. Grounded in the framework of generative critique – that is, "an analytical project that aims to be generative of potentially transformative thought, affect, and action" (Urla, 2021) – I demonstrate the tensions that we had to navigate when attempting to explicitly politicise their roles and their practice, and how this was rendered particularly challenging by the competing ideological and political economic interests and agendas at play between myself, the teachers, management and students. Laying bare the anxieties and discomfort that emerged through this project, I trace the ethical and political contours of these encounters, asking what this can tell us about the (tense) relationship between education, research and activism, and the consequences of this for how we, as researchers, design and understand our engagement with teachers and educational institutions for the purposes of social transformation.
Avineri, N. et al. (eds) (2019) Language and social justice in practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Bucholtz, M. (2018) 'White affects and sociolinguistic activism', Language in Society, 47(3), pp. 350–354. doi:10.1017/S0047404518000271. Kraft, K. and Flubacher, M.-C. (2020) 'The promise of language: Betwixt empowerment and the reproduction of inequality', International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2020(264), pp. 1–23. doi:10.1515/ijsl-2020-2091. Ladegaard, H.J. and Phipps, A. (2020) 'Intercultural research and social activism', Language and Intercultural Communication, 20(2), pp. 67–80. doi:10.1080/14708477.2020.1729786. Urla, J. (2021) 'Una crítica generativa de la gubernamentalidad lingüística', Anuario de Glotopolítica, 4, pp. 15–51.
Presenters Katy Highet Lecturer In English Language & TESOL, University Of The West Of Scotland
The intersection between critical pedagogies and ethics: The need to become the ethical teaching subject
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 09:30:00 UTC
Researchers and educators have strived to examine how everyday practices, interactions, and texts help (re)produce or problematize structural inequalities. Referred to as critical pedagogy, this philosophy of education, however, has been criticized for its assumed universality; there has been disappointment by many of those who attempt to bring it into practice. To respond to the fundamental conundrum, this paper sheds new light on the identity construction of teachers by drawing into Foucault's theory of "the care of the self" (1988). This attempt to re-frame critical pedagogies from an ethical perspective necessitates language educators to consider the question of "what, given the contemporary order of being, can I be?" (Butler, 2004, p. 58). Extracting illustrations from my ethnographic research on an ESL teacher's use of historical fiction in California, this paper shows how he grapples with his own complicity with hegemonic discourses and addresses various types of injustices through class discussion. In demonstrating the tight link between the teacher's pedagogical decisions and the ethical nurturing of the self, I aim to stimulate dialogue about our own struggles to become ethical subjects, the role of intersubjectivity, and pedagogical practices that can foster ethical subjectivities and lead to large structural changes.
In the broad field of applied linguistics, researchers and educators have strived to examine how everyday practices, interactions, and texts help (re)produce or problematize structural inequalities (see Pennycook, 2001). Often referred to as critical pedagogy, this philosophy of education, however, has been criticized for its assumed universality (Ellsworth, 1989; Lather, 1998); further, there has been disappointment by many of those who attempt to bring it into practice (e.g., Allen, 2011; Shin & Rubio, in press). To respond to the fundamental conundrum facing applied linguists and teachers, the current paper sheds new light on the identity construction of teachers by drawing into Foucault's theory of "the care of the self" (1988). This attempt to re-frame critical pedagogies from an ethical perspective necessitates researchers and language educators to consider the question of "what, given the contemporary order of being, can I be?" (Butler, 2004, p. 58). Extracting illustrations from my longitudinal ethnographic research on a veteran ESL teacher's use of historical fiction in a public high school in California, this paper shows how this "transformative intellectual" (Giroux, 1988) grapples with his own complicity with different hegemonic discourses and addresses various types of injustices through class discussion. In the process of demonstrating the tight link between the focal teacher's pedagogical decisions (e.g., what to teach, how to teach) and the ethical nurturing of the self, I aim to stimulate dialogue about our own struggles to become ethical subjects, the role of intersubjectivity, and pedagogical practices that can foster ethical subjectivities and lead to large structural changes. Finally, this paper also explores some of the challenges as well as layers of complexity involved in adopting the theory of ethics in implementing a critically oriented curriculum and understanding teachers' identities.
Allen, H. W. (2011). Embracing literacy-based teaching: A longitudinal study of the conceptual development of novice foreign language teachers. In K. E. Johnson & P. R. Golombek (Eds.), Sociocultural research on second language teacher education: Exploring the complexities of professional development (pp. 86-101). New York, NY: Routledge. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. London: Routledge. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn't this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297-323. Foucault, M. (1988). The care of the self. New York, NY: Pantheon. Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Granby, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Lather, P. (1998). Critical pedagogy and its complicities: a praxis of stuck places. Educational Theory, 48(4), 511-519. Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. London: Routledge. Shin, J., & Rubio, J. W. (in press). Becoming a critical ESL teacher: The intersection of historicity, identity, and pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly.
Language Teacher Education and Sociolinguistics of Ethical Encounters
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World08:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 06:30:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 09:30:00 UTC
Societal polarization can take a heavy toll on equitable relations of power, eroding people's capacity to see "the other" as anything but a threat, resulting in distrust, discrimination or violent social conflict. Sociolinguistics has illuminated these dynamics, constructing critically-conscious theories of languaging which challenge hegemonic understandings (cf. Heller, 2014). Recent advances in sociolinguistics of ethical encounters (Kubanyiova & Creese, in press) have asked what it means and what it takes for people to encounter one another ethically beyond the boundaries of what is shared, in settings within as well as without particular affinity groups, where ideological systems and sociological imaginations clash. I adopt relational ethics (Levinas, 1998) that has informed this sociolinguistic line of inquiry to consider implications for ethically and politically engaged language teacher education (Heidt, forthcoming). The project is situated in eastern Slovakia with a strong presence of marginalised Roma communities. Data come from a Slovak language programme run by a third sector organisation, involving Slovak-majority volunteers teaching the language to Roma-minority women. I discuss examples of ethical encounters in this setting and reflect on lessons for language teacher education research and practice in an "uneven world" (Pennycook, 2022).
Societal polarization can take a heavy toll on equitable relations of power, eroding people's capacity to see "the other" as anything but a threat, resulting in distrust, discrimination or violent social conflict. Interactional sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology have illuminated these dynamics, constructing critically-conscious theories of languaging which challenge hegemonic understandings (cf. Bagga-Gupta, 2018; Canagarajah, 2020; Heller, 2014; Swann & Deumert, 2018). Recent advances in sociolinguistics of ethical encounters (Kubanyiova & Creese, in press) have asked what it means and what it takes for people to encounter one another ethically beyond the boundaries of what is shared, in settings within as well as without particular affinity groups, where ideological systems and sociological imaginations clash. I adopt relational ethics (Levinas, 1998) that has informed this sociolinguistic line of inquiry to consider implications for ethically and politically engaged language teacher education (Crozet & Díaz, 2020; Heidt, forthcoming). The project is situated in eastern Slovakia with a strong presence of marginalised Roma communities. Data come from a Slovak language programme run by a third sector organisation, involving Slovak-majority volunteers teaching the language to Roma-minority women. Drawing on vignettes from classroom interactions, conversational interviews and individual participants' reflective diaries, I discuss examples of ethical encounters in this setting and reflect on lessons for language teacher education research and practice in an "uneven world" (Pennycook, 2022).
Presenters Maggie Kubanyiova Professor Of Language Education, University Of Leeds
Voices from the Moorland: A critical linguistic ethnography of language educators
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
The Moorland is a metaphorical expression to describe the underdeveloped middle and eastern Anatolian parts of Turkey. This area lacks the touristic appeal and potential of the Turkish Riviera, and the physical, social, and financial opportunities there have been limited (Saygılı & Özdemir, 2021). On a different level, the Moorland also overlaps with the "third region" – another frequently used expression in the public school system – that describes a territory where novice language (e.g., TESOL) teachers often begin their careers after being employed by the Ministry of Education. This third region includes culturally and linguistically diverse settlements with students from ethnically diverse and minoritized backgrounds who use non-dominant languages such as Kurdish, Arabic, or Syriac at home. As a part of their contract, public school teachers are required to work in these aforementioned third-region territories before they can be assigned to schools in more prestigious school districts and regions. Our study focuses on novice TESOL practitioners and captures the collegial solitude and systemic barriers they experience, which in turn demotivated them and led to their professional burnout (Han & Mahzoun, 2017). In addition, our focal novice EFL teachers found themselves tackling even more complicated tensions when they taught in classroom settings with minority languages due to resurgent nationalism in Turkey (Toker & Olğun-Baytaş, 2021). Drawing on a broader linguistic ethnographic project that we conducted, we analyze the video-based sharings of our teacher-partners who also participated in a response group. Reflecting on the lack of access to resources often found in an uneven world (Pennycook, 2022), the teachers shared personal stories of how they navigated tensions originating from various challenges such as socioeconomic inequalities, racial and sectarian tensions, and the refugee crisis confronting Turkey after the Syrian war fallout. Our findings illustrate that teachers face the dire reality of having to grapple with a relatively sanitized and technical initial language teacher education (Tezgiden-Cakcak, 2019) that underprepared them for the stark and harsh realities of their current classrooms. We offer a critique of existing language teacher education programs in Turkey (and beyond) and call for an expanded second language (L2) teacher education knowledge base and introduce a socio-political agenda for L2 teacher education that will require language educators to identify power relations, negotiate the ethical problems they face in the third region, and thus become agentic educators who can lead in transformative pedagogical change.
References Han,T., & Mahzoun,Z. (2017). What demotivates foreign EFL teachers? A case study in Turkish context. Qualitative Report, 22(4), 1001–1014. Pennycook,A. (2022). Critical applied linguistics in the 2020s. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 19(1), 1–21. Saygılı,H., & Özdemir,K. (2021). Regional economic growth in Turkey: the effects of physical, social and financial infrastructure investment. Empirical Economics, 60(4), 2039–2061. Tezgiden-Cakcak,Y. (2019). Moving beyond technicism in English-language teacher education. Lexington Books. Toker,Ş., & Olğun-Baytaş,M. (2021). Grappling with the transformative potential of translanguaging pedagogy in an elementary school with Syrian refugees in post-coup Turkey. International Multilingual Research Journal, 00(00), 1–15.
Presenters Özgehan Uştuk Research Assistant, Balikesir University
Learning to become a critical EFL teacher: Ethical and political challenges in teaching language as symbolic power on issues of race and racism
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
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.
Using counter-narratives to re-shape how teachers think about and work with immigrant students in an ‘uneven world’
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
How do educators address and meet the needs of students whose languages, cultures, and lived experiences differ from the educators working with them in an 'uneven world'? This presentation details two primary school teachers' participation in a book group project in a professional development program in the United States. The books, conceptualized as counternarratives, include young adult fiction storying the journey and lives of undocumented students in the United States. The presentation details the online postings and action plans of these teachers using Vygotsky's (1971; 2004) theorizing on imagination, emotion, and catharsis in relation to art, complemented by Nussbaum's (2017) work on the narrative imagination. Results show how reading the counter-narratives triggered an emotional response, enabling teachers to develop an informed empathy and to re-story interactions with previous multilingual students and understandings of familiar rural spaces. With expanded understandings of undocumented students' lived experiences, teachers could more responsively address the needs of these students and their families in this specific spatial and sociopolitical context. The presentation concludes with some self-reflections learned through having these difficult discussions on systemic inequities, and educators' own White and linguistic privilege.
Dehumanizing images and stories of immigrants in public discourse shape the American consciousness (Beckwith, 2018) as immigrants, including unaccompanied minors, continue to cross the southern border of the United States in record numbers (Sullivan, 2021). This situation is hardly unique to the United States: more than 11,000 unaccompanied and separated minors arrived in six European countries between January and March of 2021 (United Nations Children's Fund, 2021, p. 2). Moreover, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of school age Ukrainian refugees in Poland and other European countries is estimated at 1.9 million as of May 31, 2022. How do educators address and meet the needs of these students whose languages, cultures, and lived experiences differ from the educators working with them in an uneven world? This presentation details two primary school teachers' participation in a book group project in a professional development program in the United States. The books, young adult fiction storying the journey and lives of undocumented students in the United States, detail immigrants' lived experiences and inform teachers. Conceptualized as counter-stories (Delgado, 1989), these books were used to address the following research question: How do counter-stories of immigration transform mainstream teachers' understandings of emergent bilinguals (EBs ) and their families in their rural educational context? The presentation details the teachers' online postings and action plans using Vygotsky's (1971; 2004) theorizing on imagination, emotion, and catharsis in relation to art, complemented by Nussbaum's (2017) work on the narrative imagination. Results show how reading the counter-narratives triggered an emotional response, enabling teachers to develop an informed empathy and to re-story interactions with previous EBs and understandings of familiar rural spaces. With expanded understandings of undocumented students' lived experiences, teachers could more responsively address the needs of EBs and their families in this specific spatial and sociopolitical context. The presentation concludes with some self-reflections learned through having these difficult discussions on systemic inequities, and educators' own White and linguistic privilege.
References Beckwith, R. T. (2018, January 18). President Trump called El Salvador, Haiti 'shithole countries': Report. Time. http://time.com/5100058/donald-trumpshithole-countries/ Data.europa.eu. (2022). Refugee flows from Ukraine. https://data.europa.eu/en/datastories/refugee-flows-ukraine Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2411-2441. Miller, R., Liu, K., & Ball, A.F. (2020). Critical counter-narrative as transformative methodology for educational equity. Review of Research in Education, 44, 269–300. Nussbaum, M. (2017). Cultivating humanity: The narrative imagination. In J. Rivkin & M. Ryan (Eds.), Literary theory: An anthology (pp. 382-401). John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Sullivan, E. (2021, July 16). The number of migrants arriving at the border was the largest in years. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/us/politics/us-mexico-border-record.html United Nations Children's Fund (2021). Refugee and migrant response in Europe. Humanitarian situation report No. 39, UNICEF, New York. https://www.unicef.org/media/97056/file/Refugee-and-Migrant-Response-in-Europe-SitRep-31-March-2021.pdf Vygotsky, L. S. (1971). The psychology of art. M.I.T. Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42, 7–97. 490 words
Bringing more balance into an uneven world: Critical language teachers reflect on their experiences developing critical consciousness in teacher education programs
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
While the field (and the world) has changed since Pennycook's (1990, 2001) call for critical applied linguistics, what remains is the "uneven world" (Pennycook, 2022) in which we live, learn, and teach. With the goal of bringing more balance into this uneven world, critical language teachers must explicitly address the social and political issues existing in their local as well as global contexts. A precursor to this is the development of critical consciousness-i.e., the ability to "perceive social, political, and economic contradictions" and take action "against the oppressive elements of reality" (Freire, 1970/2014, p. 35). This paper explores the circumstances, factors, and experiences critical language teachers attribute to their development of critical consciousness, an issue that is little known in the area of language teacher education for critical pedagogy. Drawing on narratives-in-interview data with 29 in-service, critical language teachers from 15 countries of origin and residence, this study investigates the meaning-making process of their experiences in "perceiv[ing] social, political, and economic contradictions" (Freire, 1970/2014, p. 35) during teacher education programs. This paper will offer insights into the opportunities for language teacher education programs to actively support the development of pre-service language teachers' critical consciousness.
While the field (and the world) has changed since Pennycook's (1990, 2001) call for critical applied linguistics, what remains is the "uneven world" (Pennycook, 2022) in which we live, learn, and teach. Issues of domination, discrimination, and inequalities around social differences continue to afflict non-dominant groups, and persistent deficit views of multilingualism continue to operate in educational settings around the globe. Critical applied linguists seek to bring more balance into this uneven world by explicitly addressing unequal social relations and the social and political issues existing in their local as well as global contexts. Critical language pedagogy is one way to actualize this goal. Based on Freire's critical pedagogy, the goal of critical language pedagogy is to develop students' critical consciousness-that is, the ability to "perceive social, political, and economic contradictions" and take action "against the oppressive elements of reality" (Freire, 1970/2014, p. 35). For language teachers to support their students in becoming aware of contradictions and taking action to change such contradictions, language teachers must also have developed critical consciousness. This paper explores the circumstances, factors, and experiences critical language teachers attribute to their development of critical consciousness, an issue that is little known in the area of language teacher education for critical pedagogy. Drawing on narratives-in-interview data with 29 in-service, critical language teachers from 15 countries of origin and residence, this study investigates the meaning-making process of their experiences in "perceiv[ing] social, political, and economic contradictions" (Freire, 1970/2014, p. 35) both prior to and during their years in language teacher preparation programs. Considering the life span of these narratives, data were divided into narratives of becoming a critical language teacher and narratives of being a critical language teacher. Narratives of becoming a critical language teacher were further categorized into narratives of childhood and adulthood. The latter consisted of narratives related specifically to their experiences in teacher preparation programs settings of noticing contradictions, untangling emotions (e.g., discomfort), and the effects thereof (e.g., reflection). Critical language teachers' narratives of meaning-making during their years in language teacher education suggest that language teacher preparation programs can actively support the development of pre-service language teachers' critical consciousness. This paper offers insights into the opportunities for language teacher education programs to do so.
References Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing. Pennycook, A. (1990). Towards a Critical Applied Linguistics for the 1990s. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 8-28. https://doi.org/10.5070/L411004991 Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410600790 Pennycook, A. (2022). Critical applied linguistics in the 2020s. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 19(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2022.2030232
Presenters Priscila Leal Lecturer, University Of Hawaiʻi At Mānoa
Exploring and addressing the inequalities and uncertainties of English language teaching in rural Colombia
Oral Presentation[SYMP33] Ethics and Politics of Language Teacher Education in an Uneven World01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/18 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/18 14:15:00 UTC
Colombia is one of the most socioeconomically unequal countries in the world and the second most unequal in Latin-America (WorldBank Group, 2021). According to the National Department of Statistics (2021), there are big social gaps especially in terms of economic income and access to opportunities. Currently, 39.3% of Colombians are monetarily poor, 12% are extremely poor and 16% are multidimensionally poor. Furthermore, despite having signed a peace agreement in 2016 with FARC (Revolutionary armed forces of Colombia) – that have kept the country in war for over 50 years, president Duque (2018-2022) seemed to have made every effort to hinder the fulfillment of the agreements (Arias-Henao, 2019), which has prevented Colombians from advancing satisfactorily in the peace building process. In Colombia, it is no secret that issues of extreme poverty, lack of both economic and academic opportunities, and the armed conflict has affected the rural dwellers more dramatically, which, in turn, has derived in cultural marginalisation against rurality, largely regarded as undesirable. Despite the multiple social problems, public education policies are thought to be equally beneficial and possible to be implemented in all regions, regardless of their situated particularities. One of the best examples of this are the different ELT initiatives in the country, which aligned with dominant discourses that position English as the language of opportunity and development (Coleman, 2010; Mohanty, 2017), have imposed quite ambitious goals in language proficiency to the national curriculum. That is, English language teaching and learning is mostly seen as a technical task, disconnected to social reality (Guerrero, 2008).
Drawing on critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), this paper discusses how the lack of sensitivity to the social problems of rural areas in the architecture of ELT initiatives has contributed to the reproduction of discrimination that have shaped educational actors' practice unwittingly. The talk will highlight how the socioeconomic and cultural social injustices (Fraser, 1996) are forms of racialisation and how they play a role in configuring teachers' identities and practices. Besides raising awareness of these issues, the presentation shares attempts to disrupt dominant racist discriminatory practices by means developing socially sensitive teaching material.
References Arias-Henao, D. (2019). Objeciones a la paz colombiana: derecho y realidad en 2019. Refexión Política 21(42), pp. 80-92.
Coleman, H. (2010). English in development. British Council. www.teachingenglish.org.uk/ transform/books/english-language-development.
DANE (2021). Pobreza Monetaria y Multidimensional en Colombia 2021. Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical Race Theory an Introduction. New York and London: New York University Press.
Fraser, N. (1996). Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition, and Participation. Paper presented at the The Tanner Lectures on Humn Values, Stanford University.
Guerrero, C. (2008). Bilingual Colombia: What does it mean to be bilingual within the framework of the National Plan of Bilingualism. PROFILE, 10(1), 27-45.
Mohanty, A. (2017). Multilingualism, education, English and development: Whose development? In H. Coleman (Ed.), Multilingualisms and development (pp. 261–280). British Council. WorldBank Group (2021). Hacia la construcción de una sociedad equitativa en Colombia. Banco Internacional de Reconstrucción y Fomento/Banco Mundial.
Presenters Ferney Cruz-Arcila Assistant Professor, Universidad Pedagógica NacionalXimena Bonilla-Medina Associate Professor, Universidad Distrital Francisco José De Caldas
Panayota Gounari
Andreas Bonnet
Katy Highet
Maggie Kubanyiova
Özgehan Uştuk
Priscila Leal
Ferney Cruz-Arcila
Ximena Bonilla-Medina