Proletarianization of English Language Teaching: Iranian EFL teachers and their alternative role as transformative intellectuals

Abstract

In the field of English Language Teaching (ELT), attention has been shifted toward the alternative role of teachers as transformative intellectuals whereby transformation in teaching occurs from control and technical operations to criticism and intellectual reflection. This role enables teachers to focus on marginalized students’ lived experiences and worlds to transform them into active and critical citizens who are emancipated to develop their voices and question the status quo. Through critically examining the learning milieu that maintains injustice and inequality, students struggle to connect it to sociopolitical conditions in wider society, and eventually transform it to meet the desired ideologies and thinking. This paper attempts to scrutinize teachers’ role as transformative intellectuals and their challenges through the transformation process. Thus, the researcher used purposive sampling to select 26 teachers in four private language institutes of Tehran, Shiraz, and Yazd, Iran to adopt the role of transformative intellectuals based on theoretical principles and concepts of critical pedagogy. Semi-structured interview and an online focus group were used to collect data. Data analysis disclosed transformations and benefits as well as the challenges resulting from teachers becoming transformative intellectuals. The fruitful findings of this study are insightful, since this study is an example to show how language teachers can create transformation in the EFL context, change their fossilized role, and empower oppressed students within the institutionalized and oppressive system of schooling.