Rethinking Under-represented Ethnicities in ELT Materials through a Critical Discourse Analysis-oriented Model

Abstract

English Language Teaching (ELT) materials are not only pedagogical sources, but they also actively build a vision of reality, often reproducing, legitimizing and perpetuating certain hegemonic discourses. Even if injustice and inequalities are denounced in some materials, global issues are just mentioned rather than problematized and discriminated ethnicities are commonly represented as passive entities with no voice or agency on their own issues. In this article, a model and its operationalization are proposed in order to depict how language teachers can write materials to fight back passive constructions embedded in ELT textbooks and build, through activities based on critical discourse analysis techniques, strong and combative representations of discriminated minorities. The model seeks to critically engage learners in discussing social inequalities and encourage further analysis on how, through language, underrepresented minorities resist and debunk power. First, some examples are given of how weak representations of minorities are portrayed in ELT materials. Secondly, the model, based on Gee's (2011) three-level definition and Macgilchrist's (2016) generative perspective of discourse analysis, is explained. Finally, two examples of the model are presented in order to show how passive constructions could be dismantled by giving a voice to silenced ethnicities that are either challenging power or fighting for recognition through text or talk.