Criticality in English Language Literacy Teaching in an Iranian English Language Institute (original) (raw)

“But When do I do Critical Literacy?” Perspectives for Designing Critical Literacy Activities in EFL Classrooms

Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada

This paper aims to present a set of principles for the design of critically grounded activities for English classes in regular school settings. Such principles are based on the pillars of critical literacy according to renowned linguists and scholars of the area, as well as pre-established criteria proposed by Richards (2001) and adapted by Rashidi (2011) for critical-pedagogical practice. A brief contextualization will be presented, as well as theoretical foundations for the organization of such criteria. Following this moment, two practical examples, based on the Brazilian context, will be presented in order to demonstrate the applicability of these theories in language classes at regular schools. The directions hereby proposed are aimed at guiding ELT teachers’ reflections as they try to implement critically based activities in their classrooms.

Engaging English as a Foreign Language Students in Critical Literacy Practices: The Case of a Teacher at a Private University

Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development, 2019

This paper describes the process English as a foreign language university students and their teacher underwent when engaging in critical literacy practices. Interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, students’ artifacts, and the teacher’s journal were used to collect data in this study. Findings suggest that when students engage in critical literacy practices, they are prone to reflect on the power they have as agents of social change, while developing language skills. However, teachers should be ready to encounter some resistance from students and to struggle with the incorporation of critical perspectives in their lessons, which is understandable considering the emphasis grammar mastering has traditionally had on language teaching and learning.

The Practice of Critical Literacy Teaching in EFL Classroom: A Case Study in a Reading Class in Indonesian Higher Education

CONAPLIN 2017, 2017

This article attempts to frame critical literacy practice in EFL Classroom in Indonesia since it is known that critical literacy should be implemented by higher education in the 21st century to answer the need of transformative pedagogy. Using descriptive qualitative analysis, the study was focused on two prominent points. Firstly, it examined how a higher education teacher in EFL classroom put critical literacy into practice and challenged her students to be critical learners. Further, applying Critical Language Awareness (CLA) strategies, this paper took a deeper discussion on how CLA could enhance student’s critical consciousness in reading a text. Secondly, this study described the challenge of teaching English Language using critical literacy perspective for higher education in EFL classroom.

Teaching English through Critical Pedagogy: Problems and Attitudes

Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2011

Critical pedagogy is an issue which deserves a lot of attention from language teachers. This paper presents a qualitative study which investigates the attitudes and perceptions of language teachers towards teaching English through applying features of critical pedagogy. The study has been conducted in a small scale with about 10 language teachers from 3 popular institutes in Ardebil, Iran. The research was done through observation and semi-structured interview. We came up with positive attitudes but for some reasons most teachers tend not to apply the features of critical pedagogy.

11.Implications of Critical Literacy for Language Classroom

The present study is aimed at examining how critical literacy helps the students in using language efficiently and exploring new ways of reading any text. The study focuses on gauging the place of critical literacy at graduate level and also checks the awareness of students and teachers to this productive way of using language. This study also tries to find out about the gap that exists between the objectives of critical literacy in Pakistan and our present curriculum. For this purpose both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were used. Finally it brings the results that in Pakistan curriculum dominantly focuses the structural level of language and does not give students sociopolitical insight. The learning of students is more bookish and does not enable the learners to employ their language skill in understanding the ways of the world.

Implications of Critical Literacy for Language Classroom

The present study is aimed at examining how critical literacy helps the students in using language efficiently and exploring new ways of reading any text. The study focuses on gauging the place of critical literacy at graduate level and also checks the awareness of students and teachers to this productive way of using language. This study also tries to find out about the gap that exists between the objectives of critical literacy in Pakistan and our present curriculum. For this purpose both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis were used. Finally it brings the results that in Pakistan curriculum dominantly focuses the structural level of language and does not give students sociopolitical insight. The learning of students is more bookish and does not enable the learners to employ their language skill in understanding the ways of the world.

Why does critical literacy hit a snag in the Iranian EFL setting?

This study sought to elucidate the challenges of critical literacy practice in the Iranian context. The objectives were twofold: (a) to find out which challenges teachers and students face in the practice of critical literacy and (b) to explore the state of critical literacy in language education. To this end, a sample of 12 English teachers and 120 students majoring in TEFL took part in the study. Data collection procedure was based on students’ reflective notes, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. The analysis of the interviews revealed that factors including a) lack of the teachers’ familiarity with the concept and tenets of critical literacy, b) students’ poor English proficiency, c) lack of attention to critical literacy in curriculum and d) political issues were the major challenges. Classroom observations and students’ reflective notes showed that teachers did not encourage students to become involved in ideologies imbedded in the texts.

Teacher’s Narration of Teaching Critical Literacy: It’s a KEY for Raising Students’ Awareness in Iran

Multidisciplinary journal of educational research, 2020

To be literate, students need to able to think critically and read between the lines to find the implicit meanings and ideologies. To help Iranian English language learners learn writing as a social action and not independent of social (in)justices and (in)equalities, we included critical literacy in a writing course at the University of Kashan. We intend to illuminate teacher's narration about raising students' awareness towards (mal)practices, (in)justices, and (in)equalities of the society in their writings. To do so, all 52 undergraduate 3rd-year-EFL learners of English Literature and Translation participated in our writing class. The teacher was also an associate professor (50 years old) with critical literacy as his main area of research. Students were required to write essays as mid-term and final exams. The teacher's reflection on the course in general and on the EFL learners' reflective essays highlighted that teaching writing through critical literacy helped students realize that writing is a process dependent on different social and political issues. Students' growth in critical consciousness through their writing reminds teaching practitioners, policy-makers, and teacher educators to provide innovation in their classrooms to empower language learners with teaching methodologies contrary to what they are accustomed to during their learning. It is rare to find such a practice in a higher education context in Iran where all K-12 school teachers and university instructors are highly advised to stick to the predefined syllabi while the world of teaching and learning practice is changing.

A review of critical literacy beliefs and practices of English language learners and teachers

Critical literacy has been studied extensively for the four decades since the 1980s in varied contexts of schooling, vocational, higher and adult education in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. However, the application of critical literacy in countries whose native language is not English seems to have become evident only at the beginning of the 21st century, with empirical studies being conducted on the critical literacy beliefs and practices of English language learners (ELL) and teachers. This review first defines critical literacy in terms of both critical text and critical pedagogy. This review then identifies common theoretical frameworks and pedagogical foci in recent research involving secondary and tertiary ELLs. It highlights the possibilities and challenges experienced by both ELL students and teachers as they practise critical literacy in English language classrooms. Finally, this review gives recommendations for future studies on critical literacy that can strengthen the English language learning curriculum and enhance our understanding of the competing interests present in the teaching and learning of English.