Beliefs, Attitudes, and Reflections of EFL Pre-service Teachers when Exploring Critical Literacy Theories to Prepare and Implement Critical Lessons.

Abstract

<p>Foreign language teaching and learning is an issue of high relevance nowadays in Colombia. Unfortunately, language teaching has often been reduced to the mastery of language structures, disregarding the vast number of possibilities that language teaching provides to involve students in the discussion and analysis of issues that affect their everyday life. Shifting language teaching toward this goal, however, has to start in language teacher preparation programs. To gain a better understanding of the implication of this shift, this study explored the beliefs, attitudes, and reflections of three student-teachers, from a foreign language teaching program at a public university, towards the exploration of critical literacy theories, and the design and implementation of critical lessons. Data collected included audio-recordings of group discussions and individual interviews with the three participants, their reflections in different stages, lesson plans, and class observations of their lesson implementation. Results from this study suggest that exposing future EFL teachers to critical literacy approaches to language teaching can have different effects on their perspectives towards education and their teaching practice. Thus, their beliefs and attitudes towards Critical Literacy Theories can be continuously transformed as they face various situations in the exploration and implementation of these theories.</p><p>Key words: <em>pre-service EFL teachers, Critical Literacies, Language teacher preparation programs, Teaching practicum.</em></p>