Practicing Critical Literacy in Extracurricular Settings: Discourses of Power and Teaching

Abstract

The study examines the Languages Across the Curriculum (LxC) program as an illustration of critical literacy practice in an extracurricular university setting. The program employs students as language resource specialists to prepare language-based materials for use in Languages Across the Curriculum-supported courses that would not usually include such materials and to facilitate study group meetings outside the regular class sessions. Drawing on ethnographic and critical discourse analysis, I identify areas in which stakeholders’ perspectives overlap as well as competing discourses of teaching and learning circulating among the participants of the program which may potentially hinder student empowerment and “conscientization” (Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1970), 2000). Data sources include document analysis, classroom observations, and interviews with student participants and administrative staff. The findings suggest the following implications for critical literacy practice: necessity of overt discussion of power issues in education, integration of international perspectives into academic courses by drawing on international students as cultural resources, and use of peer teaching as an effective way of making students’ learning processes more active.