Being critical and critical being in the language classroom

Abstract

The aim of this conceptual paper is to delve into the notion of criticality and demonstrate how criticality can be nurtured in the language classroom. The premise is that a more holistic concept of criticality, which fuses critical thinking (skills) and critical being (disposition), can nurture language learners to become more critical and responsible ‘prosumers’ of contemporary media. The paper unfurls in three main stages. I begin with an introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a prominent field in applied linguistics, and an explication of its aims and principles by using a pair of texts to draw out the essence and application of these principles. This provides the backdrop against which I argue how the mission of CDA, which focuses on a critically oriented and socially committed praxis, can be distilled into a criticality centered on ‘critical being’. In the third section, I offer some guidelines on how this ‘critical being’ or spirit of criticality can be nurtured in the language classroom by guiding learners to (1) read to question and (2) write to challenge. In so doing, it is hoped that the abstract notion of criticality can be materialized and cultivated to encourage learners to appreciate how language use is intimately and inexorably associated with how they view the world and how they can use language to (re)shape, challenge and (re)constitute existing worldviews.