IATEFL Conference 2024 Plenary: Disrupting the commonplace: embedding critical literacy within language education

If language teaching is to foster criticality for active and reflective social involvement amongst learners, language teachers themselves should also be critically literate practitioners. But what does ‘critical literacy’actually mean? And is it something we can learn and/or teach? Using Lewison et al.’s (2002) four dimensions framework of critical literacy, this talk will explore practical ideas to disrupt the status quo in language education, by embedding action for social justice within the many layers of our educational practice(s): from the individual to the institutional. The presentation will unpack the definition of critical literacy proposed by Lewison et al. (ibid.): (1) disrupting the commonplace, (2) interrogating multiple viewpoints, (3) focusing on socio-political issues, and (4) taking action to promote social justice. It will explore how critical literacy is not simply a ‘list of skills that people manipulate and use’ but ‘becoming literate is about what people do with literacy—the values people place on various acts and their associated ideologies’(ibid.: 199). I will argue that the best place to start is by interrogating some of our most strongly-held teaching beliefs, the materials we use and the methodologies we adopt in our schools and training centres. My hope is that delegates will leave with a better understanding of how the lens of critical literacy can enable and inspire teachers and students to move beyond the personal – to interrogate larger sociopolitical systems, and to take action as global citizens.

About Rose:
Rose Aylett is a freelance training consultant and CELTA tutor, based in Liverpool, UK. She has been working in ELT for almost 20 years, predominantly in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and has a long-standing professional interest in critical pedagogy, global citizenship and social justice education. Her MA thesis (completed in 2020) explored critical literacy within teacher education, and informed NILE ELT’s ‘Global Citizenship in Language Education’course, for which she is the course leader. Rose is a former IATEFL Global Issues SIG Coordinator and editor of the GISIG e-zine FUTURITY. She speaks regularly at national and international conferences on how to teach controversial issues, and the integration of critical perspectives into ELT.