EFL Reading Through a Critical Literacy Perspective

Abstract

There has been an increasing number of research studies and classroom implementations of critical literacy at all levels of education in many English-language nations. However, critical literacy remains outside of mainstream concerns in English-as-a-foreign language classrooms in Asia, including Taiwan. This study explores the ways in which students respond to texts when encouraged to read critically. Through this effort, the study also aims to gain insight into how a critical literacy perspective can be implemented in an EFL reading and writing course, and to draw implications for the possibility and practicality of a critical literacy framework for the teaching of English in Taiwan and in other EFL contexts. Findings of the study suggest that students were able to discern the voices that have been silenced and question the perspectives that have been omitted in the texts that they read. In addition, they were able to draw connections between the text and their own lives and were also inspired by the texts to cast a critical lens on themselves and on the local situation. A few students, however, showed non-participation or even resistance to the inclusion of a critical lens. The results yielded important implications for practice, including ways to foster further engagement with a critical literacy stance, the choice of reading topics, the source of materials, the reading and writing connection, and the development of an action stance towards reading and re-writing the world.