INTRODUCTION

As global migration makes classrooms increasingly diverse, there is growing concern about the lack of school success for students of color, those who live in poverty, immigrants and refugees, and minority-language speakers. Such learners are often marginalized and thus denied equal access to social and material resources that support acquisition of the language and literacy skills that promote full participation in classrooms and communities. Although many policy and social service documents continue to focus on what these learners are lacking – locating the “problem” as deficiencies in the learners – current research in the fields of education and language learning is recognizing that there is a mismatch between educational systems and pedagogies and the learners that they serve. In response, theories that reconceptualize learning and learning environments are emerging that represent new ways of thinking about the goals of education, the roles of teachers and learners, and the processes of learning.

Perhaps the most visible and widely represented paradigms that challenge traditional views of language, teaching and learning are sociocultural (see Franson and Holliday, Chapter 4) and critical approaches. In this chapter we provide a discussion of what critical has come to mean in educational and applied linguistics research, theory, and practice, and what it might mean for second language teaching and language teacher education. We survey the literature on critical language teacher education to offer exemplars of current pedagogies and practices across diverse contexts. We then identify a number of principles associated with critical language teacher education, and conclude with a discussion, in classic critical tradition, that both supports and problematizes this notion.

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

DEFINING CRITICAL

There is much debate about what is meant by a critical approach to education and applied linguistics. Educators confront a smorgasbord of terms, including critical theory, critical pedagogy, critical literacy, critical applied linguistics, critical language awareness, critical discourse analysis, and critical reflection. To complicate the debate, other terms are often used interchangeably, for example, liberatory education, social justice education, education for equity, transformative practice, empowerment, and praxis. So what do these mean, and, more specifically, what is “critical” about them?