Why reflexivity matters for critical language education

This article explores the impacts of economic and cultural globalization on language and language education. It acknowledges the spread of English and the negative impacts of this upon other languages and language communities. The case is made that new conditions of economic dominance by multinational corporations raise the stakes for schooling and language education. These conditions have established a “new Latin” of technocratic English that services and obscures the corporate order. It argues for the continuing importance of the state and state schooling and the expansion of the definitions and practices of critical language and literacy education.

This article explores the impacts of economic and cultural globalization on language and language education. It acknowledges the spread of English and the negative impacts of this upon other languages and language communities. The case is made that new conditions of economic dominance by multinational corporations raise the stakes for schooling and language education. These conditions have established a "new Latin" of technocratic English that services and obscures the corporate order. It argues for the continuing importance of the state and state schooling and the expansion of the definitions and practices of critical language and literacy education.

Recent developments in artificial intelligence have resulted in significantly increased interest and concerns regarding its application in language education. However, research is limited regarding the implications of using artificial intelligence–assisted language learning to foster the democratisation of language education in the new global context. For this purpose, this chapter examines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of artificial intelligence–assisted language learning, analysing 60 articles published between 2013 and 2023. As for the strengths, findings show that these tools are accessible and practical for users, promote social equality, and facilitate personalised learning. Regarding the weaknesses, they are unequally accessible and restricted to standard language uses, have accessibility problems concerning age and disabilities, and require adequate digital skills. Several opportunities are also identified, such as the support of ubiquitous, adaptive, flexible learning and the provision of settings where access to native speakers is not possible. Conversely, these tools also require high financial investment and present limited accessibility. Ultimately, the chapter encourages the use of artificial intelligence to support all types of students and improve a pluralistic, democratic, and critical language education in the new global context.

Research in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), that is the medium of communication between people who come from different linguacultural backgrounds, has created a rich body of work in various areas. This article focuses on a more recent development of this research for teachers and teacher educators in the perspective of critical language education (CLE). We explore how ELF research, both the linguistic/discourse-oriented one and the pedagogic-oriented one, can benefit from its links to CLE, with its understanding of teaching for social change. We then refer to aspects of critical transformative theory that become relevant in designing and implementing ELF-aware teacher education programmes, focusing especially on three recursive (non-linear) components, i.e. the phase of exposure, the phase of critical awareness and the phase of development of actions that teachers can implement in their teaching. We finish by exploring the critical role of assessment in language education and conclude by inviting teachers and educators to become involved in ELF research for CLE.

This dissertation investigates the longitudinal development of Chinese language proficiency among students in a Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) Flagship Program at an American public university from 2014 to 2024. Using Bayesian multilevel regression models, this study assesses the trajectories of listening, speaking, and reading proficiency across various instructional contexts while accounting for critical factors such as motivation, heritage background, prior exposure, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grounded in Complex Dynamic Systems Theory and Sociocultural Theory, this research contributes to the limited body of work on proficiency growth in less commonly taught languages by highlighting the complex nature of CFL acquisition. The analysis addresses three primary research questions: the average trajectories of proficiency development, differences in growth across language skills, and the influence of individual, environmental, and instructional factors on proficiency outcomes. Findings reveal that listening and speaking followed nonlinear growth patterns, while reading proficiency showed a more stable, linear progression. COVID-19 had a nuanced impact, slightly enhancing listening and reading growth, though its effect on speaking was mixed. Additionally, reading proficiency exhibited the fastest growth, ultimately converging with listening, whereas speaking proficiency maintained consistently higher starting and end points. Motivation emerged as a pivotal factor influencing growth across all skills, and heritage learners and students with prior exposure demonstrated early proficiency advantages, though these differences diminished over time. Study abroad or not itself didn’t affect the growth rate of CFL learners but together with instructional context, it played an important role. Instructional context also impacted outcomes: blended learning (BL) enhanced speaking proficiency, online learning (OL) supported reading, and face-to-face (F2F) instruction benefited listening, particularly during study abroad. This study highlights the importance of understanding CFL acquisition as an interaction between individual traits, instructional context, and environmental factors. The findings have practical implications for CFL curriculum design, suggesting tailored approaches to address the diverse needs of learners. However, limitations such as the specific demographic and institutional context indicate a need for further research to validate these results across broader settings. This dissertation contributes to the methodology of L2 research, the growing understanding of effective instructional methods, and contextual factors that facilitate proficiency growth in critical language education.

Sustainable development is argued and negotiated through narratives that travel across languages, media platforms, and educational systems. Economic “reform”, environmental “responsibility”, and public “health” are not neutral topics; they are storylines that define problems, distribute agency and blame, and authorize particular futures. Translation is one of the main infrastructures through which these storylines become portable and persuasive. Drawing on translation studies, critical discourse analysis, ecolinguistics, and critical language education, this article synthesizes interdisciplinary scholarship (2000-2024) to conceptualize literary and media translation as a form of narrative governance. The synthesis identifies recurrent translation mechanisms - lexical choice, metaphor shifts, omission and compression, paratextual framing, and audience-oriented recontextualization - that can either reproduce dominant paradigms (e.g., technocratic neoliberalism, consumerist environmentalism, biomedical paternalism) or enable counter-narratives oriented toward justice, dignity, and ecological care. Building on these insights, the article proposes a practical framework for critical EFL in which learners analyze and produce translations of literary and media texts to develop sustainability literacy, health communication competence, and civic agency. The framework integrates content-based instruction/CLIL, task-based learning, multimodal literacy, and critical reading, and it provides guidance for text selection, translation task design (e.g., subtitling, captioning, and translator’s notes), assessment, and teacher professional development. Finally, the paper maps the framework to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and discusses implications for national development agendas, including Vision 2030. Translation is repositioned not as a peripheral language exercise, but as a teachable site where learners practice how public meanings about economy, environment, and health are made - and how they might be remade.

In what follows, we shall propose specific activities on the basis of the proposed re-evaluation of the role of narrative in critical language education, and specifically on the basis of the four domains of situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing and transformed practice discussed above (Section 6.7.2). The aim of our tentative proposals is to encourage students together with their teachers to collect narratives from their daily routine, to analyze them during the language course, and to critically approach the narrative construction of identities. Although the narrative examples analyzed in the present study come from conversations, the narratives analyzed in class could come from written or electronic sources, too.1

In the article the author views the peculiarities of formation of sociocultural literacy that seems to be knowledge of national and cultural characteristics of the country of the studied language, the culture of speech behavior. Its structure contains value, cognitive, activity and subjective-personal aspects. Studies have proven that the presence of social literacy contributes to the actual self-realization of a person. However, until today in the scientific community there is no exact definition of the concept of "literacy". Today, the quality of literacy has changed in connection with the development of society and the needs of the individual; it should contribute to its inclusion in the cultural life of the country for its progress and its self-development. Sociocultural literacy is a matter of the general education of a person who is not only able to solve normative problems in a quality manner, but also those that are dictated by global social processes, integration into the world community. In the article the author defines literacy as preparedness for development, and competence as a level of culture. Thus, she proves the necessity of relying on cultural and competency-based approaches to the formation of students' sociocultural competence, which will be facilitated by the synthesis of the activity and personality components of readiness for a certain behavior during communication with representatives of other cultures.

This introduction to the special issue provides a snapshot of why gender in our lives and in language education matters. We also summarize each of the articles featured in this special issue. Inspired by the growing body of research into gender and language education across the globe, directions for future studies in this area are also highlighted. We contend that any educational practices and artifacts are ideologically and institutionally gender-laden. We hope that this special issue can be the point of departure for exploring more gender issues at different levels of language education (e.g., schools, universities, and virtually-mediated education spaces) in the pursuit of gender responsiveness.

The main purpose of this paper is to determine how identity has been approached in Colombian scholarship within the field of English Language Teaching and Learning (ELT&L), during the last two decades, as published in the most important journals of Colombia that deal with matters of language education, bilingual education, language teaching and learning. It also seeks to determine how the theory on identity has evolved. The journals CALJ, GiST, HOW, ÍKALA, and PROFILE (listed in alphabetical order) were selected because they fulfilled four requirements pre-established for this critical literature review, namely a) to issue articles in the field of foreign language education, b) to publish in English, c) to report works about the Colombian context with Colombian participants (or theoretical papers in the field), and d) to be available online at the time of the search. With these prerequisites in mind, a careful search was carried out in each journal website, looking for articles that dealt with the identity.

Based on an ethnographic research study involving Brazilian teachers from different educational contexts in the city of Salvador, Brazil, this paper aims to approach and discuss the dialogic relationship between critical pedagogy and language education, within the context of English as a global lingua franca. The main goal of the original work was to investigate how EFL teachers see themselves as language professionals in the contemporary world, how aware they are of the implications related to the condition of English as an international language or a global lingua franca, and to what extent they conceive teaching the language under a critical intercultural pedagogy. Data were generated through a questionnaire, class observation sessions, and video recordings of semi-structured group interviews in which issues like the globality of English, culture teaching, interculturality, and critical (language) pedagogy were approached and debated. Results have shown that participants are aware of the implications of the global status of English and that teaching the language in these current times cannot happen in a neutral and/or uncritical way. It was also revealed that teachers find difficult to systematize the teaching of culture in their EFL classes, as much as it is challenging for them to see themselves as critical intercultural professionals who can engage in critical pedagogy in their specific educational settings.

This study examines the perceptions of pre-service teachers (PSTs) and in-service teachers (ISTs) towards artificial intelligence (AI) in foreign language education, focusing on its inherent linguistic biases and its integration into teaching practices. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining survey data from 271 participants at the primary and secondary school levels across Germany, Spain, and Türkiye with qualitative thematic analysis. t-Tests, U-tests, Shapiro–Wilk tests, and Levene tests were employed in the quantitative analysis. The findings suggest that both PSTs and ISTs demonstrate moderate awareness of the potential of AI to perpetuate standard language ideologies, with ISTs exhibiting greater sensitivity to the limitations of strict language norms. Low familiarity with AI in both groups underscores the need for targeted training programmes and continuous professional development. While both groups expressed positive attitudes towards AI integration, differing pedagogical priorities emerged: PSTs focused on the use of AI for resource development, whereas ISTs emphasised enhanced student engagement. This study strongly advocates for AI literacy training tailored to language educators, promoting a plurilithic approach to AI design and implementation. It also calls for teacher education programmes to incorporate discussions on language ideologies within AI integration to foster inclusive and equitable teaching practices.

O presente artigo argumenta sobre a possibilidade da existência de uma linguagem crítica na educação. Em contrapartida à educação para o senso comum, do tipo bancária e padronizadora praticada pela indústria cultural e educacional capitalista, que usa “uma linguagem simplificada para ser usada pelas massas” (Tognolli), com “invariantes fixos, clichês prontos, tradução estereotipada de tudo” (Adorno), pensamos que é possível dialogar como “intersubjetividades não-violentas”, o que envolve reconhecer a diferença, a diferença total (Gur-Ze'ev), visando despertar a consciência do “quanto os homens são enganados de modo permanente” (Adorno). Isso requer o uso de uma linguagem crítica de modo poético (Bakhtin) e dialógico-amoroso (Freire), pois, se a linguagem crítica for violenta, estará sendo utilizada a mesma lógica da dominação, não promovendo, portanto, a emancipação.

Book Review: Critical Theory and Critical Pedagogy Today: Toward a New Critical Language in Education by Ilan Gur Ze'ev (ed.) Haifa: University of Haifa Press, 2005 Reviewed by Megan Watkins

Language separation policies in two-way bilingual education (TWBE) reflect ideologies of double monolingualism (Heller, 1995) and ignore the sociolinguistic realities of bi/multilingual students (García & Lin, 2017). This case study investigates the design and implementation of collaborative multilingual identity text projects (Prasad, 2018) in a Spanish-English two-way immersion (TWI) school. Identity text pedagogies (Cummins & Early, 2011) that engage bilingual students in creating dual-language multimodal texts have been taken up across a wide variety of contexts. Few studies in the United States, however, have examined how TWI teachers can use multiliteracies pedagogy (New London Group, 1996) with a critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) focus to move beyond the frame of Spanish-English through the creation of collaborative multilingual and multimodal class books. A thematic analysis of classroom data from our case study demonstrates that implementing critical multilingual multiliteracies projects fostered students’ CMLA while building positive bi/multilingual identities, leveraged students’ linguistic repertoires beyond the language of instruction, and encouraged linguistic risk-taking. This empirical study highlights the possibilities for adopting a collaborative, critical, and creative multilingual multiliteracies approach in TWI settings.