(Be)coming Intercultural through Critical Reflexivity: The Exploration of Three Black ESOL Teachers’ Life Experiences

Language teaching and learning can be a force for good if it serves to break down cultural barriers. However, many interdisciplinary studies have identified pedagogical, epistemological, and methodological shortcomings in conceptualizing and assessing interculturality in language education (Collins, 2018; Karabinar & Guler, 2013; Kubota & Austin, 2007). To gain a critical and contextualized understanding of interculturality and its realization in language education, this qualitative case study delved into the lived experiences of three in-service ESOL teachers from birth to the present. Drawing upon theories of interculturality (Dervin et al., 2020) and intersectionality (Collins & Bilge, 2016), the study addressed the following research questions: I) How do in-service ESOL teachers understand and experience interculturality in their life and profession? 2) What are in-service ESOL teachers’ beliefs about their interculturality in teaching? 3) What aspects of in-service ESOL teachers’ life experiences contribute to their interculturality? Various data resources, including three individual interviews, one focus group interview, artifacts, field notes, and researcher’s journal, were collected and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996; Tuffour, 2017). The findings unveiled the significant impact of intercultural experiences and relationships across different times, spaces, and contexts on the teachers’ intersectional understanding and actions in support of historically marginalized ESOL students and parents. The study further identified seven interconnecting factors contributing to the teachers’ evolving critical interculturality. This research underscores the urgent need for teachers to engage in critical reflexivity concerning their privilege and marginalization and pedagogical knowledge and practice. It also magnifies the urgency for cultivating interculturality among not only language teachers and their students specifically, but also generally within schools, communities, and societies at large for a better world

“The feeling of fear was not from my student, but from myself”: A pre-service teacher’s shift from traditional to problem-posing second language pedagogy in a Mexican youth prison

This era of globalization, capitalism, and economic progress has given rise to mass incarceration, as a considerable number of youths in developing and developed countries live behind bars in detention facilities without appropriate educational support. Educators in these facilities deposit knowledge, through traditional pedagogical approaches, under systemic oppression and surveillance deemed necessary for safety and security. This study investigated implementations of Freire’s (2000) problem-posing pedagogy using a participatory action research (PAR) approach through the lens of critical theory. Two of the co-authors helped develop a Freirean language teaching program in an urban youth prison in Mexico, centering student teachers’ critical self-awareness by providing them with opportunities to reflect on their identity, life experiences, and reality while teaching in prison. Through critical, autoethnographic self-reflections of a bilingual teacher candidate on her teaching practices, this study provides insights into how the teacher was impacted by the problem-posing pedagogy and how it was reflected in her transformation to a critical, loving teacher and student progress. This research embraces a humanistic approach to teaching incarcerated youth in Mexico through care and courage by supporting them as students, as well as by empowering their voices and thoughts. Building a learning community, where students and teachers create respectful human connections through dialogue and discussions on language, culture, and lived experiences, is portrayed in this research as essential

Review of Taguchi, N., & Kim, Y. (Eds.). (2018). Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Book review: Taguchi, N., & Kim, Y. (Eds.). (2018). Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics. John Benjamins Publishing Company.  https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.10Critique de livre : Taguchi, N., & Kim, Y. (Eds.). (2018). Task-based approaches to teaching and assessing pragmatics. John Benjamins Publishing Company.  https://doi.org/10.1075/tblt.1

Conflicting understandings of multicultural society, global world, and English: Multimodal content analysis of 5 Korean elementary EFL textbooks

In response to becoming a more multicultural society, the South Korean Ministry of Education has implemented a multicultural education policy since 2006 by promoting English as key for young learners’ communicative competence in a global world. Despite numerous previous studies on government-led curriculum and textbooks for English as a foreign language (EFL) across many countries, little attention has been given to the cultural and linguistic aspects of primary-level EFL textbooks. Within the framework of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), this study investigated multicultural understandings, social values, and beliefs embedded in the reading passages of five Korean Grade 6 EFL textbooks. By employing multimodal content analysis, it also scrutinized what messages and meanings are constructed with semiotic devices and the extent of the textbooks to foster EFL students’ ICC. Findings revealed that the textbooks (re)produce national pride and otherness and promote the idea of English for a White global world. The lack of interactive communication events in diverse settings was also found problematic in developing students’ new identities as global citizens. The study argues for critical approaches to multicultural education and intercultural development in EFL education by reconceptualizing English as a mediator for developing intercultural contact with diverse others