Freire and Bakhtin in EFL Writing. Rethinking Tertiary EFL Writing in light of dialogic-critical pedagogy (original) (raw)

2010, Proceedings of Writing the Future: Tertiary Writing Network Colloquium

The epistemological foundation of English Language Teaching has been formed mainly by asocial and language-bound views of linguistics and psycholinguistics which consider language as a static set of forms to be mastered rather than a dynamic means of critical dialog and transformation . This view has colored the way second language writing is approached in tertiary education too. Instead of looking at writing as an opportunity for dialog, critical reflection, and transformation, some consider it an autonomous and individual process primarily meant to improve linguistic skills of learners and help them meet market demands. In this paper, it is argued that critical pedagogy and dialog as conceptualized by Freire and Bakhtin can help redress the balance between linguistic and pedagogical objectives of ELT in tertiary writing education. To empirically examine this argument, two Advanced Writing courses at Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, were conducted based on a dialogic-critical framework in 14 weeks. The course procedures, namely peer feedback, teacher feedback, and other collaborative activities such as class/group discussions were directed toward different aspects of the participants' essays such as content, logical reasoning and linguistic accuracy. Thematic analysis of around 150 essays shed light on contributions of implementing the dialogic-critical approach to the participants' understanding and practice of writing through five themes, namely voice/exercising agency, a dynamic view of writing, concern for authentic writing, conscious attention to argumentation, and feedback on content.