Seminar in SL Education: Critical Language Pedagogy
Many language teachers have values that support social justice. If language teaching is seen as primarily neutral, they will have little opportunity to manifest those values. But critical pedagogy provides an alternative viewpoint. Critical pedagogy has become more visible in language teaching over the last couple of decades. Applied to additional language learning and teaching, it becomes "critical language pedagogy".
The term “critical pedagogy” encompasses a range of curricular and classroom practice trends. Originally concerned mainly with oppression seen in terms of class, it is now far broader and flexibly considers matters of gender, race, and sexual orientation as well. It is also consistent with older alternative trends in curriculum such as peace education and environmental education. It is assumed to be motivating, but the details have not been considered in depth. Likewise, it has always recognized emotion as part of what is needed in critical pedagogy, but the whole matter of emotions has only just begun to be considered in detail in this area.
On this occasion the seminar will (as before) cover introduce Critical Language Pedagogy topics with some attention to emotion and motivation; but topics covered must also reflect the interests of students. An initial introductory block of material will be followed by a series of topics within the area arrived at through negotiation by class members together with the instructor.