Incorporating Critical Pedagogy into Second Language Teacher Education: An Identity Lens

Abstract

Language teacher identity has become an established field of inquiry over the past decades. Despite strong calls to integrate critical pedagogy into language teacher education programs to foster student teachers’ critical awareness and catalyze their identity development, there is a paucity of empirical studies on how such integration can take place and influence student teachers’ identity construction. Adopting a case study approach, this article demonstrates two student teachers’ identity changes in an undergraduate Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages course with a critical pedagogy design. Multiple sources of data were collected including semi-structured individual interviews, online forum discussion records and final reflection essays. Throughout the course, the two student teachers actively engaged in multiple course activities and reflected on their personal beliefs about English and its learning and use. Diwata (pseudonym) regained confidence as a language teacher who was determined to disprove misconceptions in this field, and Ting (pseudonym) reclaimed ownership of English by unearthing her shining points in teaching (e.g. shared experience and empathy with students). The findings underscore the role of critical pedagogy in catalyzing student teachers’ identity transformation into linguistically inclusive, socially conscious and culturally responsive language teachers. Practical implications are also provided in the article.