Graham Crookes and Al Lehner, University of Hawai'i

1. Introduction

There have been a number of discussions in the second and foreign language education literature of critical pedagogy (Pennycook, 1990a,b; Crawford-Lange, 1981) though accounts of what is involved in implementing it in a S/FL teacher education context are still relatively scarce (but see Auerbach & Wallerstein, 1987). In this brief informal account of our use of these ideas in S/FL teacher education, we would like to raise the profile of critical pedagogy in our field a little higher, and provide some suggestions that we hope would be of use to others working in this area.[1]

Critical pedagogy is an approach to teaching and curriculum informed by critical social theory, that "... seeks to understand and critique the historical and sociopolitical context of schooling and to develop pedagogical practices that aim not only to change the nature of schooling, but also the wider society." (Pennycook, 1990a).[2] A key distinction is made between two types of education: banking education occurs when the teacher attempts to transfer the contents of his/her mind into those of the students (cf. Bartolome, 1994); transformative education (that is, true critical pedagogy) is what develops when education proceeds by means of dialogue between teacher and student concerning real-world issues meaningful to the students, with the intent of encouraging and actively supporting students' political and personal development. Inherent in this is the idea that students and teacher act upon their sociopolitical surroundings as a result of what takes place in their classes.

2. Critical pedagogy in ES/FL education

The institutional history of teacher training in our field has often placed ES/FL teacher educators and their students in university departments of linguistics or language, or alternatively, in independent units separate from other academic disciplines. Given the history of the field, with its strong attachment to language rather than education, the moral and philosophical bases for teacher development have consequently not been strong. This, together with the dominant ethos in the social sciences and western countries in the latter part of this century has made possible a technocratic and individualistic orientation to teaching and learning, as well as a tendency not to make the development of a teacher's moral philosophy a central part of teacher education in our field. That is, it is commonplace for ES/FL teachers to see themselves as contributing to general welfare simply by aiding people to communicate with other people, and as discharging their responsibilities if they attempt to teach as well as possible, in the sense of as efficiently and "professionally" as possible. In general, ES/FL teachers have not been encouraged to address sociopolitical issues that educators like Freire (1970) have placed within the very heart of educational purposes.

By contrast, critical pedagogy begins with "the basic assumption that the human vocation is to take action which changes the world for the improvement of life conditions" (Crawford, 1978, p. 2). Critical pedagogy in ES/FL, then, takes as joint goals the simultaneous development of English communicative abilities together with the ability to apply them to developing a critical awareness of the world and the ability to act on it to improve matters (praxis; cf. Walsh, 1991).

One of the earliest extensive presentations of these ideas for S/FL instruction (Crawford, 1978) provides a basis for indicating what might be expected of critical pedagogy in our area, listing 20 principles[3], ten of which were particularly important to the course we are reporting on:

a) the purpose of education is to develop critical thinking by presenting [students'] situation to them as a problem so that they can perceive, reflect and act on it.

b) the content of curriculum derives from the life situation of the learners as expressed in the themes of their reality

c) dialogue forms the content of the educational situation

d) the organization of curriculum recognizes the class as a social entity and resource

e) the learners produce their own learning materials

f) the task of planning is first to organize generative themes and second to organize subject matter as it relates to those themes

g) the teacher participates as a learner among learners

h) the teacher contributes his/her ideas, experiences, opinions, and perceptions to the dialogical process

i) the teacher's function is one of posing problems

j) the students possess the right to and power of decision making

3. Our experience in an ESL graduate program

During the Spring semester 1995, we offered an orientation to critical pedagogy by way of a graduate course in the ESL department at the University of Hawai'i, in which we drew on the above principles, as expressed in the work of Freire and more recent exponents of this tradition. Al had made use of the work and inspiration of Auerbach in critical SL literacy instruction for a number of years. Graham had increasingly been trying to integrate a critical view of society with his teaching and research, and had had the additional recent benefit of exposure to a traditional university course examining critical pedagogy ideas which demonstrated the problems that immediately arose from the contradictions inherent in this format.

Given the educational backgrounds of many S/FL teacher educators, S/FL teacher education often shows banking education characteristics. It is often at odds with the collaborative, interactive, communicative, small group task-oriented characteristics of the kind of teaching commonly thought desirable in S/FL classrooms. With this in mind, we wanted to do critical pedagogy in the process of the teacher education class itself. We followed, conceptually, the "double-loop" approach to SL teacher education of Woodward (1991); the term denotes the simple idea that teacher educators should use the techniques and principles they hope their student teachers will use, as also advocated early by Crawford (1978, pp. 171-2):

For those who become committed to this risky task ... the simple acceptance of underlying philosophy does not guarantee the ability to act out the implications of that philosophy. Teachers teach the way they have been taught. For those who were taught by a banking method and who now find themselves committed to problem-posing, their experiential history with a banking method interferes with their ability to implement problem-posing. ...[T]he most effective means of training problem-posing teachers is to teach them by a problem-posing methodology and curriculum.

3.1 Logistical and conceptual matters

First, we made a point of having a couple of organizational meetings at the end of the semester preceding the course, so that the students taking it might have some idea of its content and non-traditional format, and could begin to negotiate their personal pedagogical interests as integral to the course's development both in content and process. Also, we felt there was a need for some initial presentation concerning critical pedagogy, so we selected two books (Kreisberg, 1982, and Auerbach, 1992), and chose an initial reading (McLaren, 1989, chs 5-7).[4]

We were particularly concerned that the class should operate as a learning community. Among other things, that meant that the responsibility of selecting, introducing and presenting material was shared equally across members of the class, including Graham and Al. We negotiated the syllabus, not only during the first couple of formal meetings but throughout the semester. For much of the time, although there was a general sense of what was to be done, detailed planning of class content applied only as far as two or three classes ahead. Overall, our idea was that following the development of an understanding of critical pedagogy through the reading and two texts that we had selected--all presented as optional--the class would move on to consider aspects of critical pedagogy as they applied to their own teaching concerns and interests.

In initial planning, we were very concerned that patterns of domination or oppression should not be reestablished at the interpersonal level in a class that was supposed to be working to overcome them at a societal level. Relatedly, we also were deliberate that the matter of grading and what, if anything, was to come out of the class by way of "product" had to be determined by the class as a whole, subject to administrative constraints.

Recognizing that there can be no one critical pedagogy, we felt that the class would represent this specific group's understanding of critical pedagogy as applied to their own education. That is to say, we did not have the responsibility of trying to make the class take the form of our critical pedagogy. Such an approach would have been antithetical to the general understanding behind the class. Since the students were not particularly familiar with critical pedagogy, and since neither one of us had taught a graduate class on this topic, we were prepared for the possibility that certain aspects of the class, or certain sessions, would not "work". But in addition, we were convinced that it was in the nature of the philosophy of critical pedagogy that such a possibility would have to be accepted in a course using a double-loop technique. After all, since critical pedagogy implies a relationship of community between students and teacher, such that they learn together and make decisions together, we could not continually steer the class from positions of authority.

3.2 Noteworthy characteristics of the class

There was a degree of class decision making that was extensive. We can generally say "the class decided" certain things without fear that we are deluding ourselves, and it was actually we who decided it, because in significant cases the class decided to do things that were contrary to how we had tentatively planned matters, or were directly contrary to proposals we made. For example, the class decided to spend far more time on exploratory, definitional discussions of `what is critical pedagogy?' at the beginning of the semester than we had expected. This may have been because there was insufficient organizational work done initially and, as one student put it "I think people sort of felt like they were diving into the deep end without really learning the strokes." While there was interest in knowing what critical pedagogy "is", there was sufficient resistance to the language of the texts by some of the participants that we sometimes wondered (Al more than Graham) to what extent critical pedagogy as a theory of education and social change resonated among the class. We also thought that the two texts we had tentatively proposed to be read would be adequate, but in fact the class treated them, in our opinion, rather superficially. A discussion of grading, too, took an entire afternoon, when Graham thought the matter would be simply and quickly settled.

Following the initial phases of negotiation of format and content, and work on the initial definitional understanding of critical pedagogy, the major part of the course was taken up with students leading discussion on topics, usually based upon readings that they had come up with themselves, and occasionally using material sought from Graham or Al. Workshop style exercises were created and run by the students drawing on such topics as feminism, Foucault, and a critique of critical pedagogy (based on Ellsworth, 1989). They related to concerns or problems that students would face in implementing critical pedagogy or to issues that had come up in previous discussions and were usually related to a final paper which students had decided to write. Overall, this was seen positively: a representative student evaluation comment was, "The instructor gave us to freedom to decide what we want to do to fulfill the course requirement. All [this is] new to me. Most important of all, I felt like doing all I could to learn what I like to learn."

Freire on one occasion expressed greater optimism as to the possibility of doing critical pedagogy in adult education as opposed to in the regular state sector. Nevertheless, North American writers in this tradition have steadily advocated the possibility of critical pedagogy in public elementary and high schools, and there are enough reports to indicate that the individual teacher's freedom of action in the state education sector of certain countries can make this a possibility.[5] However, in our class, about half the members were from countries in East Asia, and a common, persistent refrain was one of pessimism concerning their freedom of action as teachers when they returned to their home countries. Graham found this a bit disheartening. However, he did not feel it was appropriate for him to argue against this position too strongly, as this would mean claiming extensive amounts of class time--something he could ordinarily and summarily do in his traditional role of banking education instructor, but not as one trying to model a different interaction pattern. Al introduced brief examples of how a few former students of his from Japan and China had devised means to implement at least a modest critical pedagogy in their high schools by way of a whole language approach (e.g., Uchida, 1996).

Crawford (1978, p. 172, quoting Sanders, 1968) remarks, "Freire favors the frankness to eliminate from a training program for problem-posing teachers those prospective teachers who are not committed to the basic philosophy...". We did not encounter quite this situation, but there were very considerable differences concerning the extent to which participants agreed with, or even understood, the underlying critique of society that is implicit in critical pedagogy. In evaluation comments, one student wrote "I think the problem with the composition of this class is that quite a few students weren't quite convinced that traditional education is biased, discriminatory and perpetuates the status quo." Some students took the position, initially, that they would be unable to engage in any kind of classroom practice in their future employment even approximating critical pedagogy, and so they would prefer to be trying simply to develop critical thinking among their students. As instructors, we were more interested in seeking to have the whole group of students work out their own responses to these positions, rather than advocating our own views as strongly as we could have (cf. Gore & Zeichner, 1990). Views in this area did shift, in any case: one final comment from a student was "I feel everyone in the class has evolved through the semester to less conservative positions about teaching and education."

As a matter of technique, the hardest part about the course, for Graham, was not (always) taking the floor. He felt it was necessary not to take a traditional teacher role in the flow of discussion, because it would cut the ground from under any student who was attempting, in a whole class setting, to explain some aspect of the material to another; or prevent one student standing up for some view when it was questioned by another; and that there was the danger that his remarks would initially at least be taken as the "correct" understanding of the topic.[6] (This remained problematic: one student evaluation comment was "reluctant to exercise his authority where I think he should", though another wrote, "The instructor was nurturant and firm in trying to do things in a critical manner.")

There were markedly different participation patterns across our class members. Half a dozen were women from East Asia with relatively little teaching experience and no familiarity with any critical discourses. There were a couple of individuals who were quite familiar with such discourses, and some very talkative individuals--both men and women--as well. Most students had not been part of groups sensitive to gender-related imbalances in participation, commonplace in socially-conscious groups in some cultures. Graham introduced a reading on this topic after the first few class meetings, but found it was not easy to refrain from trying to guide class discussion so that less verbal members would have a chance to participate. Graham and Al differed as to whether it was important that all individuals in the class should have and use and equal amount of class time--Graham thought this was important, but Al felt that silence was OK in whole-class discussions, and imbalances in participation indicated a need for more small group work. Graham felt that the issue, more than silence, was some students taking the floor from others because of their swiftness or assertiveness.[7] We had passed over responsibility for running participation after the first few class meetings, but most students had not experienced chairing a meeting before, and, as a result, were not always adequately firm with each other concerning setting an agenda, setting times for items, pulling in quiet speakers and limiting the verbose, and so on. (Neither are university faculty, of course!) "As for the fellow students, when they are facilitators, the rest of the class benefit from their points of view", commented one student, and another: "student participation was most encouraged and students grew more comfortable and confident in class"; but at the same time "some were busy defending his/her stance while we could actually `broaden' our interests", commented a third.

There were many silences longer than are common in university classrooms, which was more a source of tension for Graham than Al. It was a source of tension because it often arose when students were expecting the instructors to provide an opinion or evaluation on an issue, whereas we were resisting being pushed back into banking education and away from the community of learners model.

4. Thoughts for future practice

Upon reflection, some of what we are going to remind ourselves as we go forward to future efforts in this area are:

[1] Within the context of teacher-student negotiation of both content and process, letting go of traditional expectations of neatly organized teacher-centered lessons is an achievable and worthwhile goal. The nature of dialogue requires participants be comfortable going in new and unexpected directions, though this may be an unfamiliar way of proceeding in an academic setting.

[2] A common understanding of what is encompassed within `critical pedagogy' is desirable as a starting point. Once this is achieved, then class participants can explore the common understandings and their applications through doing and experiencing critical pedagogy within the context of the course. Critiques of the topic should be held until a basic understanding has been obtained; this depends on the student composition of the class.

[3] Class participation issues related to speaking (e.g., taking the floor) need to be explored by all course members.

[4] Teachers must listen to what students are saying and pose their students' various issues as problems to be considered by the class. Neither teachers nor students should not be complacent, nor should we fear raising issues. Teachers should reflect back student-generated issues (such as, "that won't work in my country") to students as problems students should work on, rather than attempting to solve them for the students.

[5] We should emphasize the dynamics of how critical pedagogy classes are designed and implemented, so that all our participants know in what respects they have experienced and created a critical pedagogy. In other words, the immediate need is to establish a genuine critical pedagogy within the parameters of a graduate teacher education course sufficiently so that participants can begin to look at the wider applications to their own cultures and teaching contexts. We should not expect too much from a first experiencing of this approach, particularly if participants' own lived experiences do not provide them with a critical understanding of their own cultures or prior socialization. However, it is conceivable that the social action dimension of this experience of critical pedagogy will manifest itself as this group of graduate students begins (or returns) to teaching.

In conclusion, we want to say that critical pedagogy should be seen as a social and educational process, rather than as a pedagogical method. It is more concerned about how language can effect personal and social change than it is with "how to teach language" more effectively or in ways that simply encourage critical thinking on the part of teacher and students. Critical pedagogy results from personal and social choices that reflect a desire to understand both the word (i.e., language) and the world, and act upon these choices. Within S/FL classrooms, language can become a primary medium by which this may occur; if this is an objective, teachers must experience the process themselves if they are to foster it in others.

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