Comments on Graham Crookes and Al Lehner's "Aspects of Process in an ESL Critical Pedagogy Teacher Education Course": A Plea for Published Reports on the Application of a Critical Pedagogy to "Language Study Proper"

Abstract

* Graham Crookes and Al Lehner's reflective and insightful account of their application of a critical pedagogical orientation to an actual teacher education classroom (Vol. 32, No. 2, Summer 1998) is indeed promising. Fostering the development of a critical pedagogy in future teachers is an inspiring and thought-provoking challenge, but it is perhaps also misleading because of the lack of guidance on practical issues associated with critical pedagogy. Current work on alternative pedagogies addresses such topics as social identity and voice (Peirce, 1995), power (Auerbach, 1993; Pennycook, 1989), the morality of teaching (Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993; Johnston, Juhsz, Marken, & Ruiz, 1998), (participatory) action research (Auerbach, 1994; Crookes, 1993, 1998), and the development of a critical pedagogical approach to research and teaching (see Crawford, 1978; Crawford-Lange, 1981; Pennycook, 1994). Because of the emphasis on these areas and related issues, teachers, most often in vain, search the literature for discussions of concrete pedagogical implications. Crookes and Lehner's candid and timely recognition that there are accounts of the processes involved in implementing [critical pedagogy] in a S/FL [second or foreign language] teacher education context (p. 319) is well taken. Their reflective and detailed report of experiences in a teacher education classroom contributes to the collective knowledge. However, just as in the teacher education context, there are few actual accounts of the implementation of a critical pedagogical orientation within the S/FL classroom. Despite the proliferation of discussion regarding critical pedagogy and S/FL classrooms, few authors have suggested what it might look like fleshed out in an actual classroom. Several authors have attempted to develop processes and principles that represent broad characterizations of the use of critical pedagogy (see Crawford-Lange, 1981). Unfortunately, few reports discuss the application of these principles to language teaching at the introductory level. Students in perhaps their most impressionable, initial state are socialized into the role of language learners through their early