Teachers’ role in enhancing critical language awareness through EFL

reading in the settings of a Japanese agricultural university

Takeshi SATOTokyo University of Agriculture and

Technologytsato@cc.tuat.ac.jp

Presentation for Asian EFL Journal Conference Pusan, 11th of April, 2009

Contents

1)Background

2)Aim

3)Critical Language Awareness(CLA)

4)Teacher’s roles for EFL critical reading

5)Critical Reading in Japanese EFL setting

6)Conclusion

English class in Japan

1.negative attitude of learners in EFL reading class in Japan.

2.reading as a way to get linguistic knowledge

3.uncritically accept the contents of the texts.

2. Aim

1.to consider EFL teachers’ roles

2.to make reading social practice through CLA (Fairclough, 1992)

3.as a result, to make learners lively

3. Definition of CLA

1.Pedagogic arm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

2.CDA refers to efforts to go beyond surface meaning of a text by questioning who, what, why and how of its creation and interpretation (Lohrey, 1998)

Detail of CLA

1.CLA means the application of Critical Discourse Analysis in teaching contexts.

2.CLA deals with power, identity and ideology.

3.“Critical” is used not negatively but to “draw attention the ideological bases of discourses (Wallace, 1999: 98)”.

Definitions of CLA (Wallace, 2003)

1.Views of Society:

2.CLA deals with social and political issues

3.CLA is committed to the pursuit of social justice.

1. Views of pedagogy:

2.CLA is dialogic in process or means towards outcome

3.Views of text:

4.no texts are ideologically neutral;

5.texts arise out of social relationships, in particular relationships based on power.

1.Views of reading;

2.reading is a social process:

3.interpretation are negotiated within communities;

4.interpretations may or may not correspond to the model or expected reading.

4. EFL teachers’ role

✓Reading materials

✓Tasks

✓Communication with learners

EFL teachers’ role (1)

➡Deliberate selection of reading materials.

1. We should pose problems and engage students in dialogue and critical reflection. (Auerbach, 1995)

EFL teachers’ role (2)➡Making tasks and questions based on critical interpretation of the texts:

• On what basis is it selected?• Who wrote it and for what purpose?• Whose voice does it represent?• How is its content related to the reality of

students’ lives?• What kinds of responses are expected?

(Auerbach 1995, Wallace 1993)

EFL teachers’ role (3)

➡Providing the students with more chance to “dialogic inquiry (Wells, 1999)”

➡Encouraging the students to “talk back (Wallace, 2002)” and “write back (Pennycook, 1994)”.

5. Critical Reading

1.Class name: Advanced Reading 15 classes in a semester.

2.Students: 36 sophomore Japanese students in the department of veterinary

3.Level: intermediate to advanced4.Age span: 19 to 49 years old.

Lesson plan

1. Warm-up2. Reading texts 3. Discussion4. Talking back5. Writing back

Reading materials

1.A certain topic from 3 English newspapers

2.About “eating dog meat”

3.Cited from South Korea, Japan and the U.K.

Reading Tasks (1)1.Who wrote each article?

➡Korean butchers will stop this puppy being man’s best friend.

➡Dog Meat Thrice A Day?

➡A Traditional Dish: Dog Meat

Reading Tasks (2)

1.Reading these articles

2.Finding out which is suitable for each title

3.from what expression or content of each article you can recognize it

Talking back1.Discuss with your neighbor(s) and

then make a short speech

Do you have the right of criticizing others for eating

the food we never eat?

Writing back (1)

Writing Back (2)

Examples (1)

1.We use many animals for various purposes such as food, pet and experimental animal, some of which are sacrificed by our lives without even our noticing it. Because these include dogs or primates, we cannot criticize eating dog meat. (written by Japanese)

Examples (2)

1.Honestly, it is not very exciting to imagine dogs being slaughtered but the Koreans are just doing the same things we do when we eat beef and pork. I believe no matter what animals are, our life never outweighs another. (written by English)

Examples (3)

1.We have the right to criticize, not to force. (J)

2.It is impossible to completely understand the cultures of other countries. (J)

3.We cannot deny culture. It is the case with eating whales in Japan. (J)

4.Although there are many opinions on eating meat, it is very good to begin this argument by criticizing it. (J)

The availability of writing back Kramsch and Lam(1999;71)

1.…the written word offers [non-native speakers] the possibility of expressing the reflecting upon their unique experience as immigrant and foreigners.

6. Conclusion

✓Students didn’t accept the voice from an English-speaking country.

✓It would be possible to carry out Critical Reading in the Japanese settings.

✓Modifications are needed according to out local settings (Canagarajah, 1999).

ReferencesAuerbach, E. R. (1995) The Politics of the ESL Classroom: Issues of Power in Pedagogical Choices. In J.W. Tollefson (ed). Power and Inequality in Language Education. Cambridge University Press.

Brown, H. D. (2004) Some practical thoughts about student-sensitive critical pedagogy. The Language Teacher, 28(7), 23-27.

Canagarajah, S. (1999) Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching. Oxford University Press

Fairclough, N. (1992) Critical Language Awareness. Pearson Education.

Kramsch, C.,and Lam, W, S, E. (1999). Textual Identities: The Importance of Being Non-native. In George Braine (ed), Non-Native Educators in English Language Teaching. Lawrence Erlbaum.

Pennycook, A. (1994) The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language. Pearson Education.

Lohrey, A. (1998) Critical Literacy: A Professional Development Resource. Language Australia.

Wallace, C. (1993) Reading. Oxford University Press.

Wallace, C. (2002) Local Literacies and Global Loteracy. in Block, D., and Cameron, D. (eds) Globalization and Language Teaching. p.101-114.

Wallace, C. (2003) Critical Reading in Language Education. Pelgrave Macmillan.

Wells, F. (1999) Dialogic Inquiry: Towards Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education. Cambridge University Press.