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1 IntroductionIn the threshold of a new millennium and with regard to the significant moments that mankind experienced during the last century of the previous millennium, we can find the trace of peripheral outcomes of modernized world in everyday life. The emergence of globalization and the dominance of political and economic agents over the world lead to the appearance of new concepts and terminologies like sexism, feminism, imperialism and neoliberalism. Among these terms the notion of criticality has been put on pedestal by pedagogues and intellectuals including Freire (1970b), Giroux (1983, 1988a), McLaren (1995). A big question mark on the top of these scholars' heads has been how to bring about revolutionary changes in order to achieve consensus and harmony in the world through education. The obsession of intellectuals with this notion and their desire to bring about social justice lead to the emergence of critical pedagogy (CP).Critical pedagogy, like other critical theories, begins with the premise that human beings live in a world full of contradictions and unequal and unjust distribution of power and privilege (McLaren, 2003). It aims to bring about social transformation by questioning the inequalities that exist in the society. Borrowing Barnett's (1997) idea that the higher education should be about the enhancement of critical being, the significance of criticality in university classrooms becomes more evident. As Freire (1970b) stated "knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through restless impatient continuing, hopeful inquiry [we] pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other" (p.72).Meanwhile, with the emergence of English as "the global language" (Nunan, 2003), the lens of criticality has turned to language pedagogy revealing that language has become a means to gain power and is considered to be intrinsically political (Peirce, 1989). Peirce (1989) argues that language encodes and propagates ideology and constitutes a site in which the interests of different social groups strive to gain dominance. Such issues are the main concerns of a well-known field of study named as critical applied linguistics (CALx) which is regarded as "a potentially committed approach to applied linguistics claiming to combat injustice and inequalities" (Cook, 2003:126). This discipline fashions perceiving language as a political instrument which indoctrinates the ideology of the dominant classes to produce structural inequalities in society. It scrutinizes the role of language in relations of power, control, and equality (Pennycook, 1999, 2001).1.2 Statement of the ProblemEnglish language learning makes a provision for life chances, opportunities for economic success, and status for learners, thus, it has become a prevalent obsession in almost all countries. This mania has become so widespread that English is taught in almost all educational levels and individuals belonging to different ethnic groups with a wide range of age strive to gain adequate language proficiency. Alternatively, studies on the present situation of the Iranian university education atmosphere reveal numerous deficiencies in need of remedial. In this vein, Qanbari (2011) points to the dearth of critical thinking in our EFL education setting and foreshadows the detrimental effect of uncritical view toward society in general and education system in particular. Taking into account that criticality is the pedestal of new attitude toward education; i.e., CP, this study scrutinized the application of CP, which though false to be considered as panacea, foregrounds the growth of criticality.1.3 Objectives of the StudyThis study seeks to portray the current situation of TEFL undergraduate and postgraduate classrooms with regard to the application of critical pedagogy and to examine the extent to which principles of CP are operationalised in the educational levels of the universities. The researchers attempted to illustrate the dominant pattern of language pedagogy in universities and find the possible traces of CP residing in the heart of such instructions to have a clear picture of the state of the CP principles in Iranian education system. … |
