"...awareness is an initial step in the process of change" (Pennycook, 336). When reading this, I couldn't agree more. By reading all of the past theories and methods, I was able to notice that the more TESOL theorists and teachers learn about theory, the more developed the theories become. We continually learn about the many theories we are able to put into our practices and each little bit makes every teacher more and more aware about the implications in both TESOL as a whole and the classroom in which we'll teach. Reading this article gave me a solid foundation about Critical Theory, which is a huge step forward from when we started with audiolingualism.
When learning more and more about the Critical Theory, I had to stop and think. How am I, as a teacher of ELLs, going to be able to fit everything into my classroom? As much as I wish it were different, our education system relies heavily on test scores. However, I don't want to teach simply to a test. We all know that teaching that way probably won't lead to the fluency of a new language, nor will the students like learning it. As a new teacher, I want to keep everyone happy. I want to keep the school board happy, the parents happy, the students happy, as well as the community. Trying to cater to everyone, I think, would make teaching with a critical approach very difficult. I do think, however, that it IS very important to educate the students about sexual and cultural identities, about the possible effects of our pedagogies, about the topic of classroom discourse, about the implications of being a native or nonnative speaker. I guess my main question is: how do I fit these into my classroom without looking like I am pushing my beliefs on my students? In an ideal world, this ideal way of teaching would really reach out to students. But in reality, what part of this theory can I partially implement into my classroom?
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