EMPOWERING NON-NATIVE

ENGLISH SPEAKING TEACHERS

THROUGH CRITICAL PEDAGOGY

Nur Hayati
([email protected])
Universitas Negeri Malang, Indonesia

Abstract: Critical pedagogy is a teaching approach that aims to develop students’

critical thinking, political and social awareness, and self esteem through dialogue
learning and reflection. Related to the teaching of EFL, this pedagogy holds the po-
tential to empower non native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) when incorpo-
rated into English teacher education programs. It can help aspiring NNESTs to grow
awareness of the political and sociocultural implications of EFL teaching, to foster
their critical thinking on any concepts or ideas regarding their profession, and more
importantly, to recognize their strengths as NNESTs. Despite the potential, the role
of critical pedagogy in improving EFL teacher education program in Indonesia has
not been sufficiently discussed. This article attempts to contribute to the discussion
by looking at a number of ways critical pedagogy can be incorporated in the pro-
grams, the rationale for doing so, and the challenges that might come on the way.

Key words: critical pedagogy, teacher education, non native English teach-
ers

During the 1980s, researchers and practitioners began to recognize that

second language (L2) learning entails much more than developing language
proficiency (Hinkel, 2005, p.891). They started to examine the complex rela-
tionships between social identity, culture, and power, and how these relate to
the L2 learning (ibid, 2005). English language teaching is no longer seen mere-
ly as the language for international communication and commercial purposes as
how it has been viewed in many non English speaking countries for quite a

78
 Hayati, Empowering Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 79

long time, probably until now; rather, it is also considered to bear power that
has the potential to disempower non native English speakers’ languages, cul-
tures, and identities, and serves as a means to perpetuate colonialism. This ar-
gument is not without reason obviously. In India, for example, many young
educated learners of today, who went to schools in which English is used as the
medium of instruction cannot read and write in their first languages (Dheram,
2007, p.1). In Africa, access to English has not been equal, which contributes to
the inequalities and injustice in many of the countries in the continent (Phan Le
Ha, 2005). In Korea, a number of kids have undergone a tongue slashing sur-
gery to remove their Korean accent (Shin, 2004). In Islamic world, “English as
a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction does not often complement the cultures
of its students or the local curricula” (Fredricks, 2007, p.23). Those are some of
the cases where people see English and the cultures of English-speaking coun-
tries as superior, often downgrading and sacrificing their own languages and
cultural values in the process of learning them.
Another form of injustice exists inside the field of English Language
Teaching (ELT) due to the ideology which Holliday (2005) termed “native-
speakerism”. He defines it as “…a pervasive ideology within ELT, characte-
rized by the belief that ‘native-speaker’ teachers represent a ‘Western culture’
from which spring the ideals both of the English language and ELT methodol-
ogy” (2005, p.385). In many countries, non-native English speaking teachers
(NNESTs) have faced discrimination in hiring practices and in demands for
credibility in the work place (Maum, 2002). Their teaching qualification is of-
ten worth less than their accent and they need to prove their credibility to pro-
fessionals in the field and their students, more than their native speaker coun-
terparts (Thomas, 1999). This leads to potential problems of self-esteem among
NNESTs (Medgyes, 1994, cited in Brutt-Griffler, 1999). Related to teaching
methods, there has been a tendency of, as Seidlhofer (1999) puts it, a simple
transfer of teaching approaches originating from English-speaking countries to
countries where EFL is conducted.
These cases do not indicate that as ELT practitioners, we need to abandon
the teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL); rather, it sig-
nifies a call for change in the practice of TESOL. Instead of merely focusing on
the development of students’ language proficiency, it is high time that we
…doubt and be critical of the dominant discourse that represents the interna-
tionalization of English as good and as a passport to the first world; consider
80 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010

the relationship of [our] work to the spread of the language, critically eva-
luating the implications of [our] practice in the production and reproduction
of social inequalities; and question whether [we] are contributing to the per-
petuation of domination (Cox & Peterson, 1999, p.439).
In other words, we need empowerment. This is one of the basic ideas of critical
pedagogy, to empower the powerless. Critical pedagogy has its roots in the
work of Paulo Freire (1970) who developed what so-called “Pedagogy of the
Oppressed” in the education of illiterate adults in the third world so that they
could “…become free subjects…to participate in the transformation of their so-
ciety…” (Shaull, in Freire, 1993, p.11). The development of this pedagogy was
obstructed when Freire was sent to exile. When he returned, the pedagogy
came to its rebirth and was reproduced and reinterpreted by other scholars in
different contexts (Cox & Peterson, 1999). Duncan-Andrade and Morrell
(2007) presents a nice summary of what critical pedagogy is in the following:
…an approach to education that is rooted in the experiences of marginalized
peoples; that is centered in a critique of structural, economic, and racial op-
pression; that is focused on dialogue instead on a one way transmission of
knowledge; and that is structured to empower individuals and collectives as
agents for social change (p.183).
From the above definition, I would like to identify a number of elements
that are the key to critical pedagogy, that is, critique, dialogue, empowerment
and transformation. These elements I believe are relevant to be applied in other
teaching contexts, especially in the contexts where changes are crucial. In this
case, as some scholars and researchers have advocated, I see the need to adopt
and adapt the concepts of critical pedagogy in the practice of TESOL. It should
start from teacher education programs because teachers are the agents of this
change, and they need to experience the pedagogy themselves as students.
They need to be empowered before they can empower other people. In this ar-
ticle, I would like to examine the concepts of critical pedagogy in relation to
TESOL and how these concepts have been applied in teacher education pro-
grams, consider the applicability of this pedagogy in my context and identify
the potential challenges in the application. The discussion on the subjects in-
volves critical analysis and synthesis of relevant case studies and concepts ob-
tained mainly from peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. Research findings
 Hayati, Empowering Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 81

and grounded theories from other sources, such as, handbooks and textbooks
that have special significance to the topic are also included.

APPLYING CRITICAL PEDAGOGY IN ESOL TEACHER EDU-

CATION PROGRAMS
Related to TESOL, I agree with Canagarajah’s idea that critical pedagogy
is not merely theories; rather, it is a strategy of teaching and learning (2005,
p.932). He further explains that in practicing critical pedagogy, we need to put
all aspects of our teaching under scrutiny to interrogate them in relation to
power (ibid, p.932). English teachers need to make sure that what they do in
the classroom does not contribute to the problems of inequalities in ELT, such
as, unequal access to language learning, the belief that English and cultures as-
sociated to it are superior, and the ideology of native-speakerism. Rather, it
should contribute to the construction of “more egalitarian, equitable, and ethi-
cal educational and social environments” (ibid, p.932).
English teachers should be made aware of the issues of power and inequa-
lity in the field of ELT because no change will be made unless people realize
that it is necessary (Pennycook, 1999, p.336). Pennycook (1999, p.337) further
points out, however, that this should not be a top-down attempt where instruc-
tors show their students how they are oppressed with minimum dialogue and
reflection. This might be contra productive and would only make the students
feel pessimistic and inferior. Consequently, as some researchers have done (see
Crookes & Lehner, 1998; Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Shin, 2004), it is
important to incorporate the elements of problem posing, critical and reflective
thinking, dialogue learning, and participatory approaches into the practice of
critical pedagogy. Those researchers have shown that critical pedagogy can be
used to promote prospective teachers’ awareness of the ELT issues in broader
contexts.
Crookes and Lehner (1998) took a more direct approach to engage their
students in critical pedagogy. They set up an ESL Critical Pedagogy Teacher
Education Course, in which the students were involved in the negotiation of the
course content and the teaching and learning process, in which they explored
their understandings and applications of critical pedagogy in the classroom, and
in which their issues related to possible applications of critical pedagogy in
their contexts are heard and posed to the whole class as problems to consider
82 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010

and as a means of reflection (pp.326-327). Throughout the course, there were

indicators that the students started to develop awareness of the political and so-
ciocultural issues surrounding the ELT and also learnt some ways in which this
awareness might be raised in their own classes. Also, the course gives the stu-
dents an opportunity to take part in the development of the program curricu-
lum, which is a crucial element in applying critical approaches to TESOL
(Pennycook, 1999, p.336).
Brutt-Griffler & Samimy (1999) conducted a ten-week seminar for
NNESTs which addressed specifically the issues related to native versus non-
native ELT professionals. It consisted of three main activities, that is, class-
room dialogic, letter dialogic, and professional autobiography (p.420). The first
activity involved classroom discussions where they talked about various issues
regarding NESTs versus NNESTs. Here, they explored and shared their expe-
riences, and reflected on them. They learnt from each other’s experiences and
ideas, and, as Byram & Feng (2005, p.917) state, should go through a process
of empowerment as they recognize that everyone’s voice is heard and appre-
ciated. The second activity in the seminar required the students to write a letter
to a NNS scholar-professional, to question his assumptions on the issue of
NESTs versus NNESTs. The goal of this activity was “to encourage the stu-
dents to take part in the deconstruction of socially-imposed identities” (p.420),
In this case, “questions of difference, identity, and culture are not merely issues
to discuss but pertain to how people have come to be as they are, how dis-
courses have structured people’s lives” (Pennycook, 1999, p.340), and when
these socially-imposed identities unnecessarily put them in the disadvantaged
position, they obviously need to deconstruct it. Here, the learning activity of
written dialogue reflects another important concept in critical pedagogy, that is,
transformative education. Instead of merely transferring knowledge and values
to students as in banking education, teachers facilitated the students to critically
discuss real-world issues so that they can make improvements in the world they
live in and develop themselves professionally (Crookes and Lahner, 1998,
p.320). The last activity that was covered in the seminar was students’ writing
an autobiography. During the activity, the students, again, reflected on their
experiences, saw how their identity as ELT professional has evolved through-
out time, and how this evolution was affected by political and sociocultural
contexts surrounding their profession. All those activities, I believe, can be
adopted and/or adapted for teacher education programs in other contexts as it
 Hayati, Empowering Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 83

has shown some ways to empower NNESTs in dealing with the dichotomous
notion of NESTs versus NNESTs and the disempowering socially-imposed
identity and discourses of NNESTs through a shared process of reflective and
critical thinking among the students.
Another case of the application of critical pedagogy that I would like to
draw on here is the one Shin (2004) did with Korean teachers of English in a
course called “Intercultural Communication for EFL Teachers: Teaching Cul-
tures in the EFL Classroom”. In this course, one of the most important goals
was to empower students, who are all Korean teachers or aspiring EFL teach-
ers, as speakers of English and as teachers of English (p.73). To achieve the
goal, the students were to participate actively in problem posing activities. In
one of the activities, the students were required to critically read articles on
English as an International Language (EIL) and addressed the issues contained
within the articles. One important issue discussed was related to what culture
need to be taught in the EIL classroom. This was very much relevant with the
ELT situation in Korea, where American cultures were the focus of the English
lessons. Another issue emerging was related to the American English that has
been widely used as the standard English in the ELT in Korea. The students
were expected to learn from this activity that “English no longer belong to In-
ner Circle countries and that they are even as non-native speakers, legitimate
speakers of English, thereby questioning the dominance of any kind of stan-
dard, linguistic or cultural, when learning or teaching English” (Shin, 2004,
p.73). Besides reading articles and responding to them, students also did pre-
sentations on contrasting microcultures, in which they present their views on
similarities and differences between NESTs and NNESTs, what intercultural
communication problems that might occur between them, and how these pro-
blems could possibly be resolved (p.75). Shin concluded that the Freirian peda-
gogy applied in the course has helped the students to gain critical awareness of
EIL and the power dynamics that exists in it, and to answer their questions on
how to teach EIL in their contexts (2004, p.78).
The practice of critical pedagogy done by Crookes and Lehner (1998),
Brutt-Griffler & Samimy (1999), and Shin (2004) have been very inspiring for
me as I am also a teacher educator in an undergraduate teacher education pro-
gram, a novice one, who is still struggling with my identity as a NNEST but
has a vision to apply critical pedagogy in my own context to empower the as-
piring NNESTs I teach. I can relate to the programs they conducted, because
84 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010

ELT in Indonesia I think have similar problems in that as English teachers, we

often are not aware enough of the political and sociocultural implications of our
teaching, and we practice the banking education, transferring our ideas to the
students about English with minimum process of dialogues and negotiation of
meanings.
This is why I think critical pedagogy should be applied in teacher educa-
tion programs in my context so that the prospective teachers taking the program
are able to: (1) increase their awareness of their strengths as bilingual or multi-
lingual speakers of English and how these strengths can be profitably used in
the classroom (e.g. the use of mother tongue in facilitating learning); (2) in-
crease their awareness of native-speaker fallacy so as not, for example, judging
their students’ performance based on their accent or feeling inferior because of
their coming from non English speaking countries; (3) develop knowledge and
skills to assist their future students in learning English to be able to communi-
cate with the world without losing their identity (Pham Hoa Hiep, 2000, cited
in Phan Le Ha, 2008); (4) develop the ability “to evaluate ELT materials criti-
cally to ensure that these do not, either explicitly or implicitly, promote a par-
ticular variety of English or culture at the expense of others” (Kirkpatrick,
2006, p.33) ; (5) develop knowledge and skills to appropriate methodology
with local contexts and students’ needs; (6) develop knowledge of different va-
rieties of English and in turn, help their students to increase awareness of the
varieties (Kirkpatrick, 2006); and (8) develop English competence in an estab-
lished variety of English which they are most comfortable with and is intelligi-
ble to other people.
In my opinion, these aims can be achieved by conducting courses that dis-
cuss the current development of English language teaching, not merely the de-
velopment of teaching methods and materials, but also the political and soci-
ocultural contexts within which ELT is located. In other words, we need to
“connect TESOL to questions of power, inequality, discrimination, resistance,
and struggle” (Pennycook, 1999, p.332).
 Hayati, Empowering Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 85

DEALING WITH CHALLENGES

Applying critical pedagogy in ESOL Teacher Education Programs may
sound very political and might receive opposition and challenges from students
and colleagues, especially in Indonesia, where people are getting tired of poli-
tics, and many of them might think that politics should not go into the English
classroom. They probably much rather have these assumptions “that language
teaching is neutral, sterile, and organic; that it has nothing to do with politics
and power; that teachers should avoid ‘hot’ topics or touchy issues” (Brown,
2004, p.23). I think the solution to this problem lies on the careful planning of
the course. When the materials of the course are carefully selected, considering
its relevance to the students’ professional lives, possibly involving the students
in the selection, I believe that the courses would be able to stimulate the stu-
dents’ interest on the issues concerned. This should be combined with the de-
velopment of supportive learning atmosphere which incorporate the basic prin-
ciples of Freire’s critical pedagogy, so that the learning activities are demo-
cratic, interactive and cooperative, involves dialogues and discussions, ad-
dresses the complexity of the multicultural society, encourages critical thinking
both in personal and social reflection, situated in “students’ language, events,
and culture”, combines with classroom and community research by teacher and
students (Shor, 1992, cited in Brutt-Griffler, 1999, p.420), and includes “a
means of transformation” (Pennycook, 1999, p.335).
And so the materials have been carefully selected, and the instructor has
had enough ideas of how the courses are to be conducted; however, the reality
may not be that simple. Another challenge for teacher educators who apply
critical pedagogy is that many of the students might not be used to the idea of
problematizing things, questioning assumptions, and things like that, especially
when these relate to “assumptions [and] ideas that have become naturalized,
[and] notions that are no longer questioned” (Pennycook, 1999, p.343) and
moreover, when these concern sensitive subjects like race, religion, ethnicity,
or gender. Indonesia was ruled by an authoritarian regime for tens of years,
when people did not have freedom to criticize the government, when the richer
and the more powerful can do whatever they want, and when people were ex-
posed to false image of the regime through mass media and even, school text-
books. This alienation of critique and the suppression of sensitivity toward so-
86 TEFLIN Journal, Volume 21, Number 1, February 2010

cial issues seemed to have penetrated in the educational system as well. It is

understandable, therefore, that students might find difficulties with the idea of
critical work, especially when considering that in their previous learning of
English, they probably never encountered the idea. Teachers might need to an-
ticipate lots of silent moments in the classroom by figuring out some ways they
can encourage the students to express their ideas. Students might be asked to
write down their views or do some group works prior to the classroom discus-
sion. These can also be used to deal with the problem of confidence and lang-
uage proficiency that can often be found in an EFL classroom. More important-
ly, teachers need to give opportunities for the students to analyze both sides of
the issues discussed, especially when these issues are considered sensitive
(Brown, 2004). Brown also emphasizes the need to “create an atmosphere of
respect for each other’s opinions, beliefs, and ethnic or cultural diversity in the
classroom” (2004, p.23). He further asserts an interesting idea that classroom
should be “a model of the world as a context for tolerance and for the apprecia-
tion of diversity” (ibid, p.23). In this case, it is not impossible that classroom
can promote social change.
Other concerns over critical pedagogy that may challenge its application
include the worries that the students might become overly critical, problematize
everything, and become biased toward NESTs or certain cultures. They may al-
so develop new stereotypes or make overgeneralizations that put other groups
in a disadvantaged position. This is an important issue that needs to be ad-
dressed in the classroom, so that students are aware of the concerns and not to
fall into the holes. They should also be encouraged to discuss ways in which
differences can be negotiated, that diversity can exist within unity, and that
there are always two sides of a coin.

CONCLUDING REMARKS
In conclusion, I believe critical pedagogy should be given a place in the
curriculum of English teacher education in my country, manifested through
courses designed to enable the students to locate aspects of TESOL within a
broader, critical view of social and political relations (Pennycook, 1999,
p.332). Aspiring NNESTs should be educated in ways that increase their self
esteem and critical thinking and lead them to have awareness of political and
sociocultural issues and desire to make social changes – ways that empower
 Hayati, Empowering Non-Native English Speaking Teachers 87

them. Such courses thus need to engage the students in learning activities that
involve problem posing, dialogue learning and reflective thinking. Finally, the
courses should be carefully planned by considering the provision of required
resources, the selection of appropriate materials and learning activities and the
solutions to problems and challenges that might come up during the applica-
tion.

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