Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language: From Theory to Practice (English Language Education, 29) 3031041534, 9783031041532

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
About the Author
List of Tables
Chapter 1: The Critical Approach to Language Teaching: Theoretical Framing and Practical Implications
Grounding Theory in Practice
The Social View of Language Teaching: Basic Characteristics
Shifts in Philosophies and Practices
Authenticity
Problem-Posing
Dialogue
Principled Task Implementation
Illustrations
Set I. Sports
Set II. “On Living”
Set III. Space Exploration
CALT: A Comprehensive Curricular and Instructional Model
Principles of the CALT Model
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Critical Text Use: Challenges to the Current Instruction in Reading and Listening
From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison
The Interactive Approach: An Exclusive Focus on Cognition
Formulaic Instruction
Pre-reading: Some Inappropriate Purposes
A Harmful Focus on Comprehension Questions and Exercises
Reinforcing Unquestioned Assumptions
Further Complications: Bloom’s Taxonomy and Formulaic Practices
Learning Is Social
Shifting to CALT
The Need for Support
The CALT Model: A Balanced Focus on Text Use
Illustrations
Set I. “The Technology Generation Gap”
Set II. “The Pied Piper”
Set III. “Passport”
Conclusion
Chapter 3: CALT in EFL Text Production: Challenges to the Dominant Approaches
Connecting Practice and Theory: A Critique and an Alternative
Inauthentic Writing
Focus on Text Structure
Story Grammars and Literary Metalanguage
The Process and the Genre Approaches: Maintaining the Status Quo
Process Writing
The Genre Approach
CALT: A Balanced Emphasis on Critical Text Production
Illustrations
Set I. How Do We Think of People with Mental Impairment?
Set II. Housing
Set III. Technology
Why the Meaning-Construction Phase?
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Critical Literacy in a Foreign Language: Deeper Insights into Theory
Critical Approaches: An Important Distinction
The “Critical Theory” and the “Resistance Theory”
Critical Literacy Approaches: What to Adopt in EFL Contexts?
The Freirean Perspective
Reading the Word and the World
Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals and Epistemological Curiosity
The Feminist and Poststructuralist Views
Text-Analytic Approaches
EFL Contexts: The Case for Two Complementary Views
Questioning Texts and Discourses
Empowerment and Access in EFL Contexts: A Different Emphasis
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Foreign Language Learning and Critical Literacy: Patterns and the Two Cases of Issam and Hameed
Participants and Context
Instruction
Data Collection and Analysis
Findings and Discussion
How Have Issam and Hameed’s Critical Writing Developed Over Time?
CDA of Issam’s Task 4
DA of Issam’s Task 4
Have the Participants Improved Their Language Without Direct Instruction?
Why Didn’t the Instructor Address Language Issues in Instruction?
The Intuitive Sense of Progress
Institutional Constraints
Class Dynamics
How Did the Prolonged Engagement in Critical Literacy Affect the Participants’ Social and Language Identities?
Some Persistent Resistance
Conclusions and Some Pedagogical Implications
Chapter 6: The Teachers’ Worries: Conclusions and Recommendations
Can EFL Young and Adult Learners with Beginner Language Proficiency Deal with the Complexity of Critical Language Tasks?
What Do I Do with the Non-target Like Structures Students Exhibit?
Do I Allow the Use of the Native Language?
How May I Plan CALT-Based Instruction with Due Emphasis to the Various Language Skills?
An Illustration
Lesson Plan: The Industry Analysis Report
The Concerns of the Marginalized Groups
An Illustration
A CALT-Based Lesson: The Marginalized Groups in Celebrity Awards
How Do I Introduce Critical Literacy to My Classes Without Conflicts with the Administration, with Colleagues, and/or with Parents?
Wouldn’t CALT Classes Give Rise to Some Controversy Among Students and/or Between Students and Me?
What Do I Conclude from These Experiences?
Doesn’t CALT Make Students Question Everything and Lose Their Moral Grounds?
Spaces for Fun and Enjoyment
Conclusion
Appendices
Appendix A: Sample Lessons
Lesson 2: “Tuesdays with Morrie,” a Memoir Written by Mitch Albom, Grade 11
Lesson 3: “Footsteps on The Moon,” Grade 5
Lesson 4: Parents, Teens, and Tech: Bridging the Generation Gap
Lesson 5: The Necklace, By: Guy De Maupassant, Grade 8
Lesson 6: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Grade 3
Appendix B
References

Citation preview

English Language Education

Nizar Kamal Ibrahim

Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language From Theory to Practice

English Language Education Volume 29 Series Editors Chris Davison, School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Xuesong Gao, School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia Editorial Board Members Stephen Andrews, Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Anne Burns, University of New South Wales, Ryde, NSW, Australia Yuko Goto Butler, Penn Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Suresh Canagarajah, Depts of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA Jim Cummins, OISE, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada Christine C. M. Goh, Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education, Singapore, Singapore Margaret Hawkins, Dept of Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA Ouyang Huhua, Faculty of English Language & Cultu, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China Andy Kirkpatrick, Department of Humanities, Lang & Soc Sci, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia Michael K. Legutke, Institut für Anglistik, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Gießen, Hessen, Germany Constant Leung, Dept of Educ & Prof Studies, King’s College London, University of London, London, UK Bonny Norton, Language & Literacy Educ Dept, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Elana Shohamy, School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel Qiufang Wen, Box 45, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China Lawrence Jun Zhang, Faculty of Education & Social Work, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

This series publishes research on the development, implementation and evaluation of educational programs for school-aged and adult learners for whom English is a second or additional language, including those who are learning academic content through the medium of English. The series has a dual focus on learners’ language development and broader societal and policy-related issues, including the implications for teachers’ professional development and policy support at the institutional and system level. The series seeks to engage with current issues in English language teaching (ELT) in educational institutions from a highly situated standpoint, examining theories, practices and policies with a conscious regard for historical lineages of development and local (re)contextualisation. By focusing on multiple educational contexts and adopting a comparative perspective, the series will transcend traditional geographical boundaries, thus will be relevant to both English-speaking countries and countries where English is a very much an additional, but important language for learning other content. This series will also cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries by integrating sociocultural and critical approaches with second language acquisition perspectives and drawing on both applied linguistics and educational research. In drawing together basic and applied policy-related research concerns, the series will contribute towards developing a more comprehensive, innovative and contextualized view of English language education internationally. Authors are invited to approach the Series Editor with ideas and plans for books. For more information, please contact the Publishing Editor, Natalie Rieborn. E-mail: [email protected]

Nizar Kamal Ibrahim

Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language From Theory to Practice

Nizar Kamal Ibrahim Faculty of Education Lebanese University Beirut, Lebanon

ISSN 2213-6967     ISSN 2213-6975 (electronic) English Language Education ISBN 978-3-031-04153-2    ISBN 978-3-031-04154-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To my sons, Alexander and Ghady, and to my wife, Areej. As I was writing this book, I was thinking of you, of your love—bigger than the world, of your “creativities,” and of your uniqueness. I was thinking of the happy moments we spent together and of your charming laughter, and I wanted this laughter to fill the Earth. All this joy of being united and all the grief that our social conditions force upon us were food for thought, for the book aims to bring to reality a pedagogy of hope, of equity, of peace, and of pleasure.

Preface

To every educator in the world, I would like our children “to fly off, …. only outside, over the trees, higher than the world. … I wish (them) well, … good, intelligent (children) with no cramp in (their) vision-… … (their) way … as clear as water, right through the clouds ….” (Karen Brennan). Brennan’s quotation has inspired me to contribute to the making of a better world—a dream that can be realized through small, micro-cracks in the system of the globe. It is through education that these cracks can be made. It is through education, language education in particular, that our dreams can be allowed spaces to grow or can be distorted or stifled. This book about critical literacy has been motivated by my hope that language education—all education for that matter—plays its role in making our children’s dreams richer, more authentic, more inclusive, and more just. It is important to note that critical literacy concerns itself with various areas of study, not just with language teaching. Actually, from a critical perspective, fields such as biology, math, and social studies are literacies that have social, economic, political, and personal implications. The present book focuses but on just one area among these socially situated literacies: English as a foreign or an additional language. Educators get enthusiastic upon encountering the term “critical literacy,” but they become perplexed when they start reading about its theories. This causes some to avoid it altogether and leads others to argue for practicing it without theory. Both positions should be reconsidered. Critical literacy has always been a must in our world, and practicing it atheoretically is unsound and may lead to chaos. The term “praxis” has been coined by Freire to explicate the various subtle connections between theory and practice (see Freire, 1993, 2001). It is these connections that the present book aims to establish with as less perplexity as possible, particularly in regard to EFL contexts. Thus, the different theoretical assumptions of the critical approach to language teaching are introduced gradually and are grounded in practice. Teachers, program developers, policy makers, and researchers constitute, among other interested individuals, the audience for the book. Teachers find many ideas vii

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Preface

that make them reflect on their instructional practices. They are also provided with practical alternatives for these practices that help them develop an informed, social vision of language teaching. This informed vision helps teachers, program developers, and policy makers make appropriate decisions. In addition, researchers find food for thought in the various arguments and in the case study the book presents. Chapter 1 in the book explicates some basic theoretical concepts of critical literacy, using a reader-friendly writing style with as little jargon as possible. The chapter capitalizes on these principles in arguing for a critical approach to language teaching (CALT) and presents ways of implementing it around themes and texts that language teachers usually tackle. To reduce the confusion that the shift from the dominant instructional patterns to CALT-based instruction may cause, I present an alternative model (the CALT model). When educators deconstruct the current instructional practices, they can use the CALT model to reconstruct them on solid grounds. Chapters 2 and 3 show how critical language teaching theories and practices are connected. Both chapters critique the dominant EFL instructional practices and provide practical alternatives based on CALT. Chapter 2 explains how the CALT model functions in text-use focused instruction, and Chap. 3 does the same in relation to text-production focused instruction. Both chapters illustrate this explanation with three instructional sets. In addition, these chapters add more depth to the theoretical notions of critical literacy discussed in Chap. 1 and explain some new ones. This aims to empower educators with a reflexive approach to teaching. Chapter 4 helps the reader understand the complexities of the various critical literacy theories and argues for the adoption of two of these theories in EFL settings in complementary ways. Chapter 5 presents a case study on the implementation of a whole-year critical literacy program in an EFL high-school class. The study highlights the issues to which teachers wishing to transform into critical instructors should pay attention. It also shows how the critical responses of students with various language levels and interests as well as their attitudes towards critical literacy evolve over time in different ways. Chapter 6 wraps up the various arguments made throughout the previous five chapters. It responds to the teachers’ worries about the abilities of EFL students to engage in critical literacy tasks, about handling various kinds of oppositions to critical literacy instruction, about evaluation, etc. It offers practical tips to handle these worries, and it provides tools to plan critical literacy lessons. It is time for all educators, EFL educators included, to follow the suit of those of us who have successfully demonstrated that getting out of the box, that removing all unnecessary constraints, that teaching to the mind and to the spirit, and that believing in the creativity and intelligence of all children to imagine various possibilities for a better life will help them grow “…with no cramp in their vision… … (their) way … as clear as water, right through the clouds ….” as Brennan’s quote implies. The book shows how a social vision of education based on equity and justice empowers teachers with pedagogies that make learning meaningful, rewarding, enriching, and fun. Beirut, Lebanon

Nizar Kamal Ibrahim

Contents

1 The Critical Approach to Language Teaching: Theoretical Framing and Practical Implications����������������������������������    1 Grounding Theory in Practice������������������������������������������������������������������     1 The Social View of Language Teaching: Basic Characteristics��������������     3 Shifts in Philosophies and Practices��������������������������������������������������������     5 Authenticity������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     6 Problem-Posing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     7 Dialogue����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     8 Principled Task Implementation����������������������������������������������������������     8 CALT: A Comprehensive Curricular and Instructional Model����������������    13 Principles of the CALT Model������������������������������������������������������������    13 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    14 2 Critical Text Use: Challenges to the Current Instruction in Reading and Listening������������������������������������������������������������������������   15 From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison����������������������������    15 The Interactive Approach: An Exclusive Focus on Cognition����������������    22 Formulaic Instruction��������������������������������������������������������������������������    22 Reinforcing Unquestioned Assumptions��������������������������������������������������    26 Further Complications: Bloom’s Taxonomy and Formulaic Practices����    28 Learning Is Social������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    30 Shifting to CALT ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    33 The Need for Support��������������������������������������������������������������������������    34 The CALT Model: A Balanced Focus on Text Use���������������������������������    36 Illustrations������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    45 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    47

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3 CALT in EFL Text Production: Challenges to the Dominant Approaches ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   49 Connecting Practice and Theory: A Critique and an Alternative������������    50 Inauthentic Writing������������������������������������������������������������������������������    50 Focus on Text Structure ����������������������������������������������������������������������    55 Story Grammars and Literary Metalanguage��������������������������������������    56 The Process and the Genre Approaches: Maintaining the Status Quo����    56 Process Writing������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    57 The Genre Approach����������������������������������������������������������������������������    58 CALT: A Balanced Emphasis on Critical Text Production����������������������    59 Illustrations������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    65 Why the Meaning-Construction Phase?��������������������������������������������������    67 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    68 4 Critical Literacy in a Foreign Language: Deeper Insights into Theory������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   69 Critical Approaches: An Important Distinction ��������������������������������������    69 The “Critical Theory” and the “Resistance Theory” ������������������������������    70 Critical Literacy Approaches: What to Adopt in EFL Contexts?������������    71 The Freirean Perspective����������������������������������������������������������������������    72 The Feminist and Poststructuralist Views��������������������������������������������    74 Text-Analytic Approaches��������������������������������������������������������������������    78 EFL Contexts: The Case for Two Complementary Views ����������������������    80 Questioning Texts and Discourses ������������������������������������������������������    85 Empowerment and Access in EFL Contexts: A Different Emphasis��    86 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    86 5 Foreign Language Learning and Critical Literacy: Patterns and the Two Cases of Issam and Hameed������������������������������   87 Participants and Context��������������������������������������������������������������������������    88 Instruction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    88 Data Collection and Analysis������������������������������������������������������������������    89 Findings and Discussion��������������������������������������������������������������������������    93 How Have Issam and Hameed’s Critical Writing Developed Over Time?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    93 Have the Participants Improved Their Language Without Direct Instruction?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   104 Why Didn’t the Instructor Address Language Issues in Instruction?��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   106 The Intuitive Sense of Progress ����������������������������������������������������������   108 Institutional Constraints ����������������������������������������������������������������������   109 Class Dynamics������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   109

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How Did the Prolonged Engagement in Critical Literacy Affect the Participants’ Social and Language Identities?��������������������   111 Some Persistent Resistance������������������������������������������������������������������   113 Conclusions and Some Pedagogical Implications ����������������������������������   114 6 The Teachers’ Worries: Conclusions and Recommendations��������������  117 Can EFL Young and Adult Learners with Beginner Language Proficiency Deal with the Complexity of Critical Language Tasks? ������   117 What Do I Do with the Non-target Like Structures Students Exhibit?����   118 Do I Allow the Use of the Native Language?������������������������������������������   121 How May I Plan CALT-Based Instruction with Due Emphasis to the Various Language Skills?��������������������������������������������������������������   122 An Illustration��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   124 Lesson Plan: The Industry Analysis Report����������������������������������������   126 The Concerns of the Marginalized Groups����������������������������������������������   127 An Illustration��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   128 A CALT-Based Lesson: The Marginalized Groups in Celebrity Awards������������������������������������������������������������������������������   128 How Do I Introduce Critical Literacy to My Classes Without Conflicts with the Administration, with Colleagues, and/or with Parents?����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   129 Wouldn’t CALT Classes Give Rise to Some Controversy Among Students and/or Between Students and Me?������������������������������   131 What Do I Conclude from These Experiences?����������������������������������   137 Doesn’t CALT Make Students Question Everything and Lose Their Moral Grounds?��������������������������������������������������������������   140 Spaces for Fun and Enjoyment����������������������������������������������������������������   141 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   142 Appendices��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  143 Appendix A: Sample Lessons��������������������������������������������������������������������  143 Lesson 2: “Tuesdays with Morrie,” a Memoir Written by Mitch Albom, Grade 11��������������������������������������������������������������������  143 Lesson 3: “Footsteps on The Moon,” Grade 5 ��������������������������������������  147 Lesson 4: Parents, Teens, and Tech: Bridging the Generation Gap��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  148 Lesson 5: The Necklace, By: Guy De Maupassant, Grade 8����������������  149 Lesson 6: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Grade 3�������������������������������������  150 Appendix B������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  151 References ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  155

About the Author

Professor Ibrahim is a Doctor of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) from Lebanese University, Faculty of Pedagogy, Beirut, Lebanon. He has earned the following degrees: • A Doctorate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, University of Arizona (UA), Tucson, Arizona, USA, August 2002 • Master in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, The American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut, Lebanon, July 1995 • Bachelor of English Literature, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon, July 1991 • Teaching Diploma, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon, July 1991 He also has occupied the following positions: • Trainer in quality education • Program developer specialist, leading a team that developed a textbook to teach Arabic as a foreign language at UA • Writing instructor at UA • Project manager in disability NGOs • Researcher in disability NGOs He has several publications in the field of TEFL (see references). He is active in the domain of visual disability from the rights perspective, being visually disabled himself, and he was the president of the Youth Association of the Blind (YAB) in 2017-Feb. 2022, Lebanon. Email: [email protected]

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List of Tables

Table 2.1 Cognitive versus social literacy practices������������������������������������������� 21 Table 2.2 Examples of authentic tasks and strategies/subskills������������������������� 35 Table 2.3 MA students’ analysis questions around “The Necklace”: comments and alternatives������������������������������������������������������������������ 42 Table 3.1 School versus CALT-based writing prompts�������������������������������������� 51 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4

The eight instructional units��������������������������������������������������������������� 90 The non-target-like structures in Issam’s four tasks������������������������� 105 The non-target-like structures in Hameed’s three tasks������������������� 106 Comparing the frequencies of non-target-like structures in the two participants’ work������������������������������������������������������������ 107

Table 6.1 Instructional objectives and suggested tasks������������������������������������ 125

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Chapter 1

The Critical Approach to Language Teaching: Theoretical Framing and Practical Implications

Foreign language teaching, which addresses some languages in various settings, is guided by various pedagogic orientations, depending on its context, on its purpose, on the learners’ desires and needs, and on a host of other factors. English as a foreign language (EFL), however, has received more scholarly attention than the teaching of other foreign languages because it is widespread, due to complex economic, political, and social factors (see Mckay & Rubdy, 2009; Pennycook, 2001 for more details). It is well documented that in most contexts, EFL class instruction dissociates itself from its sociopolitical and socioeconomic circumstances and bases itself in the cognitive view of learning/teaching (Ibrahim, 2015a, 2015c, 2016; Pennycook, 2001). It actually focuses on functional as well as on more advanced skills in typical, discrete manners (Crookes & Lehner, 1998; Haque, 2007; Ko & Wang, 2012; Shin & Crookes, 2005a). Meanwhile, both first and second language teaching have recently shifted from the cognitive and functional views to a broad social perspective in some countries, e.g., Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the USA (Luke & Dooley, 2011; Knobel, 2007; Pennycook, 2001). One direction in the social view is critical literacy that has become systemic in informal and formal education in some contexts and is being implemented in all grade levels “…in the fields of English, language arts, writing, TESOL, social studies education, media, and information technologies” (Luke, 2012, p. 5).

Grounding Theory in Practice Tremendous differences exist between the cognitive and the critical approaches to language teaching at the theoretical and at the practical levels. Three instructional situations are described in this section to illustrate how these differences may be reflected in instruction. Each situation consists of two classes: Class A is taught with © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_1

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a typical, dominant approach; class B is taught using the critical literacy approach. This aims to foreground the discussion of some basic theoretical principles, based on Freire’s notion of praxis mentioned in the preface. The comparison also motivates a reflection on the theoretical assumptions that underlie the two sets of practices. Situation I • Class A. You are planning to go to Sri Lanka for a vacation. Work in pairs and read the hotel brochures you have in order to select the one that suits you. Explain your choices to the class. • Class B. Do the following tasks: –– Go to the UNESCO World Heritage page below and do the activity about Sri Lanka on this page. http://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/LK –– Did you like the Sri Lankan areas that the page shows? Which one did you like most? –– Suppose that you would like to go to some of these areas. Work in groups and search for information that helps you make a plan for a trip. You may want to look for the following: ticket prices, hotel expenses, taxi expenses in Sri Lanka, restaurants, cost of cites you would like to visit there, etc. Share your findings with the class, and discuss whether or not everyone can afford the cost of a trip to this country. –– You have certainly found hotels of different ranks whose expenses vary. Write an argumentative essay in which you tackle the reasons for this variation and whether or not good hotel services should be accessible to everyone. Situation II • Class A. You went to a restaurant, but you were not served well by the attendant. Write a complaint to the manager. • Class B. Do the following tasks: –– You went to a restaurant, but you were not served well by the attendant. Why do you think the attendant did not serve you well? What conditions may have caused this (work load, conflicts with the boss, low salary, family problems)? –– Work in pairs. One of you is the attendant and the other is the customer. The customer will ask the attendant about the real reasons for the bad service in a polite, friendly way. Situation III • Class A. Watch the video about Bill Gates and answer the questions that follow. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZnuig6x0eo –– When was Bill Gates born? –– How did he start his business? –– Did he graduate from the university?

The Social View of Language Teaching: Basic Characteristics

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–– What made him successful? –– What would you do to be as successful as Bill Gates? • Class B. Do the following tasks: –– Watch the first video about Bill Gates and take notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZnuig6x0eo –– What has the story made you feel? –– Watch the other two videos and take notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6UIlptvJAc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q49DnoSTV6E –– Compare the notes from the three videos and answer the questions. • What do the three videos emphasize? • What do they not emphasize? • Who may have played a significant role in the success of Gates but is not mentioned in the videos? • Do you think that Gates has become so rich just through his own effort and talent? • Do you know of other talented people who have not become rich? Why haven’t they become so? • Can everyone become as rich as people like Gates? Why or why not? –– Surf the net for the percentages of rich people and of people who live below the poverty line in the world. What are the reasons for this difference? –– Rewrite the story of Bill Gates based on the previous discussion. The differences between Class A and Class B in the three situations seem simple. However, they reflect complex and subtle differences between the cognitive and the social views of language teaching, bearing significant practical implications. In the remainder of the chapter, some foundational differences between the two views are discussed. The chapter offers some practical instructional ideas to help the reader make connections between the theory and the practice of critical literacy.

The Social View of Language Teaching: Basic Characteristics The social view of language recognizes that language teaching has social, economic, and political dimensions and is embedded in historical, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic contexts. Phillipson and Skutnabb-Kangas (2009) best explain how languages, particularly the dominant ones like English, affect our lives because of their intricate social dimensions as follows: “English (particularly) is central to corporate globalization spearheaded by economic, political, and military forces in the “English-speaking” countries, … (and it) currently oils the wheels of most global

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finance and commerce. The class of English users worldwide is now connected to a neoliberal economic system (“The New Imperialism,” Harvey, 2005) and ideological systems, forms of consciousness, consumption, and growthism that cultural globalization is propagating” (p. 28). These sociopolitical and socioeconomic dynamics of language, particularly English, benefit some groups at the expense of others, may threaten the language identities of many people, and propagate the injustices that result from the globalized market economy. At the same time, however, it is a very much needed communication tool in our world that has become a global village. This presents language educators and policy makers with the dilemma of whether or not to include English as an additional language in their curricula. The case of Malaysia provides a strong example of this dilemma. “In the previous colonial system, English-medium schools were located in urban areas and were primarily attended by non-Malays and a small number of elite Malays” (Mckay & Rubdy, 2009, p. 22). This frustrated many Malay nationalists who observed that knowledge of English provided this group with a social and economic power and marginalized those who do not know this language. The Malays believed that they should designate Bahasa Melayu as the official language in order to make it a language of a higher status, thus transferring the linguistic capital previously held by the English-­ speaking Chinese and Indians to the Malays (Gill, 2005, as cited in Mckay & Rubdy, 2009). To achieve this, Bahasa Melayu was established as the language of education in all educational sectors. However, it was not late before this policy shifted from Malaysian-only policy to the addition of English as the language of instruction in some subject matter areas, stating that people need English to access the tremendous amount of scientific and technological knowledge available in this language in order to be competitive in a globalized world (Mckay & Rubdy, 2009). The Malaysian case exemplifies the complex sociopolitical and socioeconomic dynamics of TEFL that exist in many settings, though they take various forms (see Canagarajah, 2004; Norton, 2007). It shows how English serves dual, contradictory purposes; on the one hand, English promotes and maintains the interests of the new corporate order that centers wealth in the hands of the half dozen “lords of the global village” that puts the majority at a disadvantage (McLaren & Da Silva, 1993) and that escalates socioeconomic and sociopolitical conflicts all over the world. On the other hand, it helps individuals have access to some opportunities in this same order and equips them with a widely spread communicative tool. This implies that while it is unwise to exclude English from the curricula of the educational institutions in countries where it is a foreign language, it is harmful to teach it to reinforce the status quo. In fact, education in general, and EFL education in particular, should respond to the current social order, by empowering students with the functional and academic skills they need as well as by involving them in critiquing the discourses and the institutional practices of the globalized market economy for the injustices they cause.

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Shifts in Philosophies and Practices Clark et al. (1990a) explain that schooling ought to develop in the learners a critical awareness of the world, their ability to imagine better possibilities, and their attitudes that it is possible to change it. Many EFL educators, however, claim that this is not their responsibility and that they should focus on equipping students with the functional and academic language skills they need (Bacon, 2017; Ko, 2013; Ko & Wang, 2012; Kuo, 2009; Zhang, 2008). Many scholars rightly respond to these claims in that because through language, specifically English, the dominant values of consumerism and of the capital tendencies that dominate the world economy and politics are spread, helping language students critique them is a must (e.g., Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Morgan & Vandrick, 2009; Norton, 2007). As B. Morgan and Vandrick argue, language classes, in which language is the subject and the medium of study, lend themselves best to the critical scrutiny of systemic racism, poverty, sexism, religious discrimination and violence, homophobia, etc. Actually, language practices and materials, particularly the EFL textbooks, contribute to our indifference to the social ailments (Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Morgan & Vandrick, 2009). This makes it the responsibility of EFL practitioners and researchers to expose the discourses of difference, of capitalism, and of violence to critical examination (Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Morgan & Vandrick, 2009) and to situate literacy instruction in the life conditions of the students (Canagarajah, 2004; Norton, 2007; Stein, 2004). Some educators and policy makers hypothesize that critical scrutiny of our discourses and texts is not usually done in real life and hence is not authentic. I would say that people have always been involved in various forms of such critical modes of reading, listening, speaking, and writing and that these authentic experiences have often been subjected to suppression by those in power. In this era of globalization in particular, the dominant neoliberal groups, allied with various powerful religious, social, and political institutions, work against any critical examination of their discourses in order to maintain their interests and to ingrain a spirit of submissiveness to these discourses. However, this subjugation of critical literacy affirms its authenticity and, indeed, the very need for it. In the end, what is normalized is not necessarily more authentic than what is not. Actually, many normalized values and practices are unjust; hence, they should be challenged in every way possible. Subjecting what is viewed as normal to critical scrutiny requires the proponents of critical language teaching, a constitutive component of critical applied linguistics, to espouse a clear political vision of the preferred future that helps us shape alternatives to the status quo and recognize possible means of working for a more equitable and peaceful world (Crookes, 2010; Ibrahim, 2015c; Luke, 2012; Pennycook, 2001). This vision materializes in a critical language teaching approach (CALT), also labeled radical language teaching, critical literacy, etc., that engages EFL students in a critical analysis of the politics and the discourses of the time (Luke et al., 2007), in addition to addressing the learners’ functional, academic, and leisurely purposes. This should be done in a balanced approach to language teaching that involves students in a critical analysis of their life conditions, of their

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experiences, and of the social, economic, and political discourses circulating at the time, but without neglecting the functional skills and the pragmatic knowledge that people are interested in, for these form a part of the human condition. To help students become competent, critical language users, CALT balances among critical, academic, and functional language tasks and provides direct instruction in the context of these tasks to facilitate the acquisition of the skills and knowledge which students need. Class B in the three situations at the beginning of the chapter illustrates this balance. In the first situation, for instance, students learn the language needed for travel and reflect on the reasons for the travel expenses. In the third situation, students critique the injustices that result from accumulating wealth and write argumentatively, which is needed for academic purposes. In both situations, direct language and skill instruction may be provided. This balanced critical language learning makes students view school literacy events and practices as fun and instrumental in their personal, social, and vocational lives. However, shifting from the typical language school instruction to CALT is challenging. To help teachers make this shift smoothly, some basic theoretical principles, foundational to CALT, will be presented in this chapter to make them accessible to teachers who do not wish or do not have time to read about various critical literacy theories. These include authenticity, problem-posing, dialogue, and principled task implementation. Readers interested in exploring the complexities of the theoretical underpinnings of critical literacy are referred to Chap. 4.

Authenticity The various critical language teaching approaches ground themselves in an ethical commitment to a more just world. This certainly manifests itself in approaches that link language learning to real-life concerns, both local and global ones, that may have an impact on how people live, communicate, think of the other, and handle individual and group differences. While the concept of “real life” or “authenticity” is shared by both the communicative and the critical language approaches, it is not conceptualized by these approaches in the same way. The old communicative approach concerns itself with daily interactions such as polite requests, ticket reservations, or longer exchanges about meals, places, or university courses. It addresses a group of learners from socioeconomic classes capable of affording tourism or studying abroad (Crookes, 2009). Even when more open-ended interactions take place in communicative classes, the goal is just interaction and the agenda is certainly not about significant socioeconomic and sociopolitical matters related to the promotion of justice. CALT, however, takes up a complex social view of authenticity, addressing those real-life experiences and concerns that may impact the right of people to live with dignity, in addition to the functional, academic, and vocational needs of the learners. CALT assumes that learners may come from various economic backgrounds ranging from very poor to well-to-do people. It thus considers the acquisition of such communicative acts like booking a room in a hotel or asking about certain

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artifacts in a museum as necessary but rudimentary. What is more important from a critical view is to engage the learners in exploratory tasks like questioning the reasons for the inability of many people to travel or the reasons for the high expenses of hotels (see situations I, II, and III above), let alone having access to basic life needs like housing. From this perspective, the first kind of goals is immediate and may be temporary, while the second type of goals is strategic. The more recent version of the communicative approach, task-based language teaching (TBLT), shares with CALT the concept of task as the main unit of instruction and addresses a broader range of objectives than the old communicative method. However, critical language teachers hold a different set of values about the long-term goals of their instruction, and this, in turn, results in a qualitatively distinct instructional approach. In fact, while both approaches employ authentic tasks that engage students in reading, writing, watching, listening, and speaking about a variety of real-life topics, they differ in what aspects of real life they address and, to a certain extent, the types of tasks they employ. Freire (2001) provides a comprehensive view of authenticity on which any critical language teaching should be based. He states: “When we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a total experience that is simultaneously directive, political, ideological, gnostic, pedagogical, aesthetic, and ethical. … In this experience, the beautiful, the decent, and the serious form a circle with hands joined” (p. 31). Freire (1993) argues that education should respond “... to the vocation of persons as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation. (This may happen through) problem-posing education (which) bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality …” (pp.  83–84). From a critical standpoint, then, authenticity refers to teaching and learning that are exploratory of the local and global circumstances that shape our lives; authentic learning experiences also involve the learners in deconstructing and reconstructing knowledge in order to transform the human condition so that all kinds of resources are distributed more fairly; global ethics of acceptance, empathy, and solidarity become stronger; and the values of justice prevail. In addition, authentic learning makes students reflect critically on some of their life stories and experiences that mean to them. This implies significant differences between the typical instructional foreign language teaching approaches and CALT, both conceptually and practically.

Problem-Posing Critical language educators believe that the dominant, normalized ways of talking, writing, and acting are partial and reflect the assumptions, beliefs, values, and interests of their powerful producers. Thus, in many instances, they shape the human condition in unjust, unbalanced ways and inhibit the realization of our full humanity, as Freire (1993, 2001) asserts. Freire argues that these discourses and practices

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should be challenged in order to reveal their inequities. To that end, Freire proposes his philosophy of problem-posing education that constitutes one of the main cornerstones of CALT.  Capitalizing on Freire’s philosophy, CALT involves students in problematizing various global and local matters to which they directly relate or about which they may care. The three situations presented at the beginning of this chapter illustrate the notion of problem-posing. Class B in each of them problematizes what is presented as normal in class A and questions the underlying assumptions of what is usually taken for granted. According to Freire (2001), problem-posing education constitutes an essential form of intervention in the world with an “…aspiration for radical changes … in such areas as economics, human relations, property, the right to employment, to land, to education, and to health …” (p. 99). It engages students in questioning various situations, knowledge, and texts through the lens of equity and justice (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Giroux, 2007).

Dialogue The problematization of the dominant discourses, institutions, human relationships, our sociopolitical and socioeconomic conduct, etc., initiates a dialogue process through which the learners participate in shaping and reshaping them (Freire, 1970). Through dialogue, students get engaged in a systematic, critical reflection on what seems normal, and they provide varied and rich analyses of their causes and consequences. They also may offer more just alternatives in which the human knowledge and efforts are used creatively to serve the common interest of people. In this way, the learners are not passive recipients of knowledge and values, but they deconstruct and reconstruct them so that they serve a more just world. For example, Class B in Situation III problematizes the value of richness as an indication of success. This makes students deconstruct this value, i.e., analyze its potential reasons and consequences and reflect on the strongly normalized beliefs and practices associated with it. This leads to a discourse much more extended than the one in Class A and to richer language. It also may give rise to a reconstruction of the students’ views of richness.

Principled Task Implementation As I have emphasized before, CALT balances between pragmatic communicative goals and critical ones. I have so far explained and illustrated how the values of CALT lead to significant shifts in our practices to encompass both types of goals. This requires further elaboration. A critical language teacher addresses various purposes in his/her instruction. These purposes include transactional, academic, exploratory, representational, aesthetic, and linguistic. Transactional purposes refer to the use of the language in performing daily business and in carrying out simple

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communicative transactions to realize personal, professional, social, or political aims. “Examples of such tasks include but are not limited to listening to a pilot announcing the arrival of the plane to its destination, asking the passengers to keep seated and to tighten the seat belts, writing an advertisement, reading a brochure about a certain product to purchase it, reporting to police about a theft, (organizing advocacy campaigns,) etc.” (Ibrahim, 2008, p. 188). Exploratory purposes include debates, critical analysis, synthesis, etc. Representational purposes refer to the use of language in order to better represent the marginalized groups in our discourse and activities and to provide alternative possibilities to the status quo. Aesthetic purposes refer to the use of language tasks to enjoy the aesthetics that may characterize some texts as well as the production processes of aesthetic genres. Linguistic purposes encompass the language items and strategies the students need to learn so that they become capable of carrying out the specific tasks required in language classes. This broad variety of purposes may be targeted through a range of language tasks which vary in complexity. Illustrations In this section, some practical ideas are presented to illustrate the range of tasks that a critical language teacher may generate. Set I. Sports The topic of sports is tackled in both schools and language centers in typical, repetitive ways. The suggestions below exemplify some CALT-based alternatives. 1. Linguistic. The teacher shows pictures of various sports games and asks students to give the English names of these games. Students look up the English names when they do not know them. The class writes the meaning of each word on a slip of paper. Students fold the papers and put them all in a box. Then, one student at a time draws out one slip and asks the class to guess the word he/she has. While guessing, the students ask questions to arrive at the correct meaning. 2. Transactional. Students are given the following task: You are committee members in a club in charge of organizing a sports event in your country. Teams from other countries will be invited to the event. The committee will meet to plan for the event and will submit a report to the steering committee. The report should include the number of teams who will participate, the countries they come from, the games in which they will participate, the hotels that will be reserved, the cost in each hotel, the airline that will be taken, etc. 3. Linguistic. Provide students with grammar instruction to master one or two grammatical structures needed to perform the task. Instruction may be provided before students write their first drafts of the report; it may also be given based on the needs of the students that emerge in their first drafts.

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4. Exploratory. Students are asked to do one or more of the following tasks: • One of the invited teams wouldn’t be able to participate in the event due to financial constraints. In class, discuss reasons for the inability of the team to find financial support. • You know that some participants have a lot of funding for their sports activities while others do not. Explore the reasons for this difference in an argumentative essay. 5. Representational. Think of ways to help the unfunded team so that they do not miss the event. Think of institutions that can help and write to them explaining the problem and suggesting ways to ensure that this specific team does not miss important sports events. Set II. “On Living” This is a poem by the Turkish poet Nazim Hekmat, which triggers different emotions and thoughts on the meaning of life. 1. Linguistic. Students listen to the poem and guess the meaning of the difficult words. The teacher guides them in using appropriate guessing strategies, corrects the incorrect meanings, and confirms the appropriate guesses. Then, students do a close exercise that helps them internalize the word meanings and be more exposed to the poem. 2. Aesthetic. The students are trained in how to read the poem in a poetic way. 3. Aesthetic. Students read aloud verses they like and explain what these verses mean. 4. Exploratory. Students write a journal in which they reflect on the feelings the poem creates in them, on the thoughts it triggers, on the symbolic representations of the scenes it depicts, etc. They share some of their ideas in class and read the poem again to explore them further. Students may choose one perspective explored in class and write an analysis of the symbolic meanings of the poem from that perspective. 5. Representational/aesthetic. Students may draw the scenes depicted in the poem to portray how they themselves view them. They may explain these images in short, poetic phrases and sentences. This may be done as group work. Set III. Space Exploration 1. Linguistic. Students read the text in the link below and identify difficult words. They share these words with the class and work on finding their meanings with their classmates. The teacher facilitates this classwork; she may guide students in how to use the dictionary; she may help them guess the meaning of some words when this is relevant.

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https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/04/1015519/the-­11-­biggest-­spacemissions-­of-­2021/ 2. Transactional. Students work in groups to prepare a news report about space exploration. A few group members assume the role of one or two space explorers: a few assume the role of journalists, and others play the role of the public. The groups meet to agree on their roles and responsibilities. They use multimedia tools to compose their reports if possible. 3. Linguistic. The teacher may work with the students on question formation. She may work with each group on the type of questions the group poses. She may provide help in preparing the report. 4. Critical text exploration. Students will examine the photos in the web page from the following angles: • What do the photos emphasize? • What do they make us think about space trips? • Whose interests do the photos serve and whose interests do they marginalize? • Look at the photos below. What do they show? How does traveling in space serve the interests of those people, and/or how do these travels marginalize them?

Bangladeshi refugee, Bangladesh. briefing/2021/5/60a23ab4e9.html)

(Adapted

from

https://www.unhcr.org/ar/news/

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Poverty in India. (Adapted new-­cfr-­foreign-­affairs-­poverty-­india)

from

https://www.cfr.org/blog/

Violence in Palestine. (Adapted from https://www.facebook.com/OxfamMENA/ photos/a.884291691658666/4025087987579005/?_rdr)

5. Critical exploration and alternative representation. Based on the discussion in the previous task, write an argumentative essay about whether or not spending a large amount of money, time, and effort on space exploration is fair. You may compare this cost to money, time, and effort spent on social welfare, on fighting

CALT: A Comprehensive Curricular and Instructional Model

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poverty, etc. Based on this, argue for whether or not to keep spending as much money on space exploration. If you do not agree, argue for a better use of this money, effort, and time.

CALT: A Comprehensive Curricular and Instructional Model As the discussion so far indicates, CALT raises some theoretical and practical challenges to the dominant EFL instruction. Teachers who would like to adopt this approach need to deconstruct and reconstruct their instructional views and practices. Thus, it is important to present a pedagogical framework based on the social view so that teachers reshape their pedagogical approaches on solid grounds. The Critical Approach to Language Teaching (CALT) model constitutes one of several alternatives to the dominant instructional models in TEFL. The model is a revised version of the critical reading one (Ibrahim, 2015a) and consists of the following phases: the access phase, the meaning-construction phase, the direct instruction phase, the problematization and critical exploration phase, and the alternative possibilities and representation phase. Each of these phases functions in text use and text production in different ways. Thus, the characteristics of these phases will be explained in Chaps. 2 and 3. It is, however, important to explain the principles of this model.

Principles of the CALT Model The CALT model is designed with the following principles in mind: (a) The CALT model is nonlinear. The different phases of the model are not meant to be performed in sequence. Sometimes direct instruction should be provided before the access phase; at other times, however, direct instruction may be provided during this phase. Students might need modeling after or before the alternative possibilities and representation phase. Problematization and exploration might provide stimuli to access ideas and texts or might follow such an access. These phases are passed through depending on some factors including the instructional objectives, the nature of the tasks students have to accomplish, and the students’ needs to perform these tasks. (b) Students of all ages and at all levels can perform critical language tasks of different kinds on the basis of visionary incorporation of transactional, academic, exploratory, representational, aesthetic, and linguistic purposes in teaching. (c) The use of authentic tasks and pedagogical activities should be balanced, purposeful, and enjoyable. It should take into account the students’ cognitive maturity and language proficiency, the complexity of the skill to be targeted, the topical familiarity and the complexity of the texts and/or issues to be dealt with,

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task demands, and the degree to which the targeted objectives empower learners to become competent, critical language users. (d) Instruction should gradually enable students to become proficient, strategic language users and to produce sophisticated and well-developed critical analysis and synthesis. Thus, complex skills need more practice than simpler ones. Consequently, complex skills—–like critical analysis or intertextual language work—–should be given appropriate instructional time. (e) A variety of skills and purposes should be addressed, balancing among functional, academic, aesthetic, and critical ones. To accomplish this systematically, a skill that has already been mastered should not be the focus of further instruction. In addition, high-stake skills should receive appropriate instructional emphasis. (f) The degree to which students become proficient in any skill and the degree to which complex critical language tasks can be targeted depend on a host of factors, including the duration of instruction, the prioritized goals and objectives of the program, the initial proficiency level of the learners, the learners’ goals for learning the language, and the institutional conditions. These factors also determine the weight given to any phase in the model. The model is intended to be used at the macro and micro levels of language education, i.e., in program and curriculum design as well as in syllabus design and lesson planning. Thus, the model offers educators enough flexibility for addressing the complexity involved in language teaching.

Conclusion The teacher wishing to adopt CALT may be still contemplating some thorny issues related to TEFL, which include: How is CALT not compatible with the dominant, cognitive instructional approaches to TEFL? How can balanced instruction be designed based on CALT? How does the teacher design and/or select pedagogic as well as authentic tasks? How does she/he provide balanced instruction in the four language skills? How can he/she deepen their knowledge of the critical literacy theories? These issues will be discussed fully in the remainder of this book.

Chapter 2

Critical Text Use: Challenges to the Current Instruction in Reading and Listening

Because we use language for social ends, text use and text production, traditionally referred to as reading, listening, writing, and speaking, are interconnected functionally, conceptually, and ideologically. Thus, the various language modes cannot be separated. However, in pedagogical contexts, there should be a focus. This is why the book devotes one chapter for text use and another for text production. With that in mind, the present chapter demonstrates how teachers can adopt CALT to engage students in authentic literacy experiences, without ignoring the cognitive and the linguistic dimensions of reading, listening, and viewing emphasized by the typical school instruction. This adoption demands a critical reflection on the normalized instructional practices in language classes, which many EFL school policies as well as many language textbooks promote. To that end, the present chapter engages teachers in a critical scrutiny of the dominant instruction in reading and listening classes. A CALT alternative is offered, with plenty of illustrations. This empowers teachers to develop an informed social vision of language education and to adapt CALT to their contexts. It is worth noting that the terms “text use” and “text production” are not meant to replace the terms “reading,” “writing,” “speaking,” and “listening” that we are all used to, but they are meant to direct our attention to the social uses of language (see Luke, 2012; Morgan, 1997). Thus, they will be used interchangeably throughout the book.

From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison As I have argued before, the book capitalizes on the notion of praxis in its content and in its presentation of this content. Based on that, this section compares a typical reading lesson with an alternative, CALT-based one. This comparison serves more than one purpose. First, it illustrates the practical differences between the two approaches. Second, it facilitates the connection between theory and practice that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_2

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the chapter makes throughout. Third, it shows how teachers can design CALT lessons, using the same textbook that their institutions recommend. Lesson 1: “Early Explorers” A typical grade 7 lesson taken from a widely used textbook Prepare to read The big question 1.1 Where can a journey take you? 1.2 Why do you think people have the desire to explore the unknown?

From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison

Adapted from Chamot et al. (2013)

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1.3 How can explorers and their discoveries change the world? 1.4 Which explorer do you know about? Fill the information that you already know about the explorer in a chart. As you read the article, add new names and facts to your chart. Vocabulary 1.5 Read aloud and listen to these sentences. Use the context to figure out the meaning of the highlighted words. Use a dictionary to check your answers. Then, write each word and its meaning in your notebook. (a) The explorer was surprised to find large cities, or civilizations, in the new world. (b) Many expeditions to faraway places were long and difficult; explorers sometimes died along the way. (c) During the exploration of the new lands, the men discovered gold. (d) Early explorer searched for new markets where they could buy tea and spices. (e) A navigator uses maps, compasses, and sometimes the stars to point the right direction. (f) The explorer wanted to trade with another country. He wanted to buy silk and sell his goods. 1.6 Take turns reading the sentences aloud with a partner. 1.7 Work with a partner to answer these questions using the new words: (a) Have you ever conducted a tour around your school or home? (b) Have new clubs or organizations been established at your school? (c) Who financed the clubs at your school? (d) Which region of the world would you most like to visit? (e) Do you eat a healthy and varied diet? What does it consist of? 1.8 As you read “Early Explorers,” look at the photos and maps. What do they tell you about life at the time of the early explorers? Set a purpose for reading 1.9 Why do explorers take journeys? What motivates them to go? 1.10 Where were the Vikings from? 1.11 Where was Marco Polo from? Where did he travel? 1.12 What country financed Prince Henry’s trip around Africa? 1.13 On your own: Why are the early journeys of exploration important? After the text Recall 1.14 Where did the Phoenicians live? Where did they explore? 1.15 Where did Christopher Columbus want to go? Where did he land instead? Comprehend 1.16 Why did the Vikings set out to explore new regions? Where did they go? 1.17 What was the purpose of the Silk Road? Analyze 1.18 Why do you think that the Chinese kept the secret of silk to themselves? 1.19 Why do you think Columbus took some Taino people back to Spain?

From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison

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Connect 1.20 In what ways are long journeys easier now than they being hundreds of years ago? 1.21 If you were an explorer, where would you go? In your own words 1.22 Use the words below to tell a partner about early explorers. Voyages: expeditions, trade, markets Explorers: established, trade route, conducted Vikings: pillaged, plundered, ceased Exploration: expeditions, civilizations, markets, trade, finance Discussion 1.23 Discuss in small groups. Ask your peers or the teacher for their feedback. (a) The explorer’s experiences varied, but what did they have in common?

(b)

What were the effects of exploration in the fifteenth century?



(c) How did the Europeans journeys change the lives of the people they encountered?



(d)

Are there any places left to explore today? If so, where?

Read for fluency 1.24 Take turns to read aloud. Give each other feedback on your reading. Extension 1.25 During the age of explorations, many explorers faced great dangers and difficulties on their expeditions. Men died and ships sank. Others fought with the people they encountered. Search the Internet or the library for information about what happened during one explorer’s expeditions. Write a paragraph to report your findings. Try to use as much academic language as possible. Grammar: passive and active 1.26 Work with a partner. Write the sentences below in your notebook. Write whether each sentence is in the active or in the passive voice. (a) The king of Portugal financed many expeditions. (b) Gold and pearls were brought back to Spain. (c) Columbus was later proved wrong. (d) They established trading routs along the Mediterranean. (e) New civilizations were discovered in the Americas. 1.27 Work with a partner. Look at the second paragraph under the heading “The Silk Road.” Identify which sentences are in the active voice and which are in the passive. Transform the active sentences into passive. “Early Explorers”: A CALT-Based Lesson 1. The access phase. • Look at the picture of the early explorers. What does this picture make you think about early explorers? What does the picture highlight? What does it hide?

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• Work in groups. Read the text and choose five difficult words. Then, each group will take turn asking the rest of the class to guess the meaning of these words. Guesses will be confirmed by using the dictionary. • Students share their understandings of the text in a whole class discussion. 2. Direct instruction. The teacher takes notes of the incorrect guesses and provides instruction in guessing strategies at the end of the game. She also takes notes of some misunderstandings of the text that may have occurred during class discussion and identifies the strategies that may help students avoid such misunderstandings. She then provides training in these strategies. 3. Meaning construction. Suppose that you want to transform the text into a movie. Work in groups and decide on the textual parts that may be the basis for the movie. Decide on the major events of the movie. Then, write a funding proposal. In this proposal, summarize your plot. Explain the importance of making the movie. List the elements that need funding, and specify the funds you need. 4. Direct instruction revisited. • Students read a sample funding proposal and discuss with the teacher its content and structure. Alternatively, the teacher may provide the students with a proposal template to use for their task. • Students submit their first drafts of the proposal and receive feedback on them. The teacher chooses two or three problematic grammatical structures from the drafts for class work. 5. Problematization and critical exploration. • Read the text about early explorers another time, focusing on the following issues. –– –– –– ––

Whose role does the text emphasize? Why? Whose role does it hide? Why? What information does the text emphasize? What factors, not mentioned in the text, may have played a role in the expeditions of early explorers? Why has the text not mentioned them? –– How does highlighting certain information and neglecting others affect the reader’s understanding of the topic? –– Which contemporary events resemble by any means the expeditions of the early explorers? Choose any of these events and look for reasons that gave rise to them. In what ways are these factors similar or different from what motivated early explorations? 6. Alternative possibilities and representation. Choose any party that has played or is still playing a significant role in the recent event we explored in the previous task (world leaders, local leaders, members in a political party, fighters, etc.). Write an opinion newspaper article in which you propose measures to solve the conflict, explaining what people should learn from the historical events of early explorers. What distinguishes the typical reading instruction in Lesson 1from the CALT-­ based alternatives? The former is undergirded by cognitive view of reading and listening, while the latter is underpinned by the social view. The table below, adapted from Ibrahim (2014) with modifications, illustrates these differences.

From Practice to Theory: An Illustrative Comparison

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Table 2.1  Cognitive versus social literacy practices School literacy practices from a cognitive perspective Do various kinds of pre-reading activities like prediction and warm-up Answer during- and post-reading comprehension questions Skim a text without a real-life purpose

Social literacy practices Read to decide on which product to buy, which university to join, which meal to order, etc. Do various response activities (reacting to a text, reflecting on it, reading it for enjoyment, etc.)

Skim a newspaper; skim different texts to select the appropriate one for a specific purpose (writing a report, producing a research paper, etc.); skim various online sources and, for example, select the one that provides the most relevant tourism information about a certain country; etc. Scan a text without a real-life Scan a text for information the reader/listener needs (traveling purpose information, operating instruction, side effects of a certain medicine, etc.) Read aloud in turn and Give a presentation; read the news on TV; advertise; etc. answer questions Learn about various topics and study for content area classes at Present the textual information in tables, graphic schools and universities, using the suitable organizational devices. Use graphic organizers in comparison and/or analysis organizers, and other reports organizational devices Fill in the blanks, match, and Use information and ideas from one text to produce another one select the correct answer with a different format for a different purpose (use oral and/or written information about a certain object to produce a brochure, a pamphlet, a manual, an advertisement, etc. Use inspector data to report about a certain crime; etc.) Paraphrase and summarize Summarize, paraphrase, analyze, and synthesize to write a for pedagogic purposes research paper, a report, a news analysis article, a book, etc. Answer questions about the Read the text from different angles; explore the hidden assumptions of the text; analyze how the text serves the interests mood and the tone of the of certain groups and marginalizes others; reconstruct the text author based on a critical appraisal of its content Answer questions about Read for enjoyment (poetry, jokes, plays, etc.) and express your story elements reactions to them. Analyze the symbolic representation and/or the social, economic, and political reasons and implications of descriptions, dialogues, and events in a literary text The instructional practices documented in the first column of the table reflect the pedagogical manifestation of the interactive reading model, which predominantly guides EFL/ESL material design and instruction in many contexts. Although the model calls for training in various strategies that readers may need, it does so in a decontextualized, disconnected manner, as Table 2.1 shows. This fails to account for the complex reading act that varies as its social purposes vary. Accounting for this complexity demands a shift to a social view of literacy which forms the basis for CALT. In order to help teachers make this shift smoothly, a brief account of the interactive model of reading and an analysis of its pedagogical manifestation will be presented in the following section. This intends to highlight the practices that teachers need to reconsider when shifting to CALT. Next, the social view of literacy will be concisely explained, and the CALT alternative will be offered with various illustrations, some of which are around the topics usually tackled in the language textbooks.

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The Interactive Approach: An Exclusive Focus on Cognition The interactive approach, developed by Rumelhart (1977) and Stanovich (1980), offers a widely known cognitive explanation of reading, though it is by no means the only one (see Grabe, 2009a; Koda, 2005). Although the approach has primarily been developed to explain reading processes, it is also used to describe listening. A brief review of this model, based on the ideas of many scholars (e.g., Carrell, 1988; Eskey, 1986; Grabe, 1986, 1991, 2009a; Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009; Ibrahim, 2008; Koda, 2005), helps in demonstrating how its emphasis on a cognitive explanation leads to teaching practices that ignore the social nature of language use. This model capitalizes on the schema theory which stipulates that our background knowledge is organized in cognitive structures called “schemata”; these schemata hold everything a person knows about a specific topic. The interactive model posits that the reader’s/ listener’s schemata should be activated through top-down strategies, while the textual data, syntactic and lexical, should be processed through bottom-up strategies. Thus, successful reading, from the cognitive point of view, occurs when the reader succeeds in activating the appropriate schemata and in processing the textual data simultaneously, both of which interact to construct meaning. Bottom-up processing ensures that the listeners/readers will be sensitive to information that is novel or that does not fit their ongoing hypothesis about the content or the structure of the text. Top-down processing helps the listeners/readers to resolve ambiguities or to select among alternative possible interpretations of the incoming data. In summary, the term “interactive” refers to two different conceptions. In the first sense, a general interaction takes place between the reader/listener and the text. In this mode of interaction, the reader/listener reconstructs what he/she reads/hears, based in part on the knowledge drawn from the text and in part from prior knowledge available to him/her. In the second sense, interaction occurs among many component skills potentially in simultaneous operations. This interaction in its two modes, according to the cognitivists, leads to automatic processing and comprehension of what people read or listen to. Simply stated, text comprehension involves both an array of lower-level rapid, automatic identification skills and an array of higher-level comprehension/interpretation skills.

Formulaic Instruction The interactive model provides an appealing explanation of what happens in the mind of skilled readers/listeners. However, it does not account for the social factors that may motivate the use of certain cognitive strategies relevant to a specific task. In other words, it does not tell us how the social uses of text exemplified in the second column of Table 2.1 shape the readers’/listeners’ processing of a certain text and what makes them use different strategies in different situations, even when they read/listen to the same text at different times. Instructionally, this focus

The Interactive Approach: An Exclusive Focus on Cognition

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on cognition manifests itself in the pre-reading, during-reading, post-reading formula. The “Early Explorers” lesson at the beginning of the chapter and the five additional lessons in Appendix A, taken from international, widely used textbooks in EFL contexts and from resources designed by internationally influential language organizations, illustrate the formulaic instructional patterns that result from this model. An analysis of the instructional patterns that follow the pre-during-post-reading model shows how these patterns lead to repetitive reading practices within the same lesson and in different lessons across various school levels. The model, thus, assumes that students always need help with the same processes in order to read, defeating its aim of helping them become proficient readers. The critique also shows how the model ignores some important, complex subskills of text use. This purposeless process works against systematic teaching, which should address a variety of objectives over time; once the target objective is achieved, instruction should focus on another one (Ibrahim, 2014). Pre-reading: Some Inappropriate Purposes Most EFL instructional reading resources include a pre-reading stage, though under different names (see the typical “Early Explorers” lesson and Appendix A). The questions in this stage fall under two categories, lead-ins and warm-ups, and they have several aims, all of which do not involve students in the social uses of texts. These aims include activating background knowledge, providing purposes for reading, providing students with background linguistic or topical knowledge, and helping students become attentive. Activating the students’ background knowledge takes place through lead-­ins which ask for general ideas or information related to the topic of the lesson or which require some prediction. Questions 1.3 and 1.4, in the “Early Explorers” lesson, and 6.4 in Appendix A exemplify the first type of lead-ins, while questions 5.1 and 6.3 illustrate the prediction type of those questions (see Appendix A). Although the prediction activities are fun to do sometimes, all lead-in questions assume that the readers are cognitive apparatuses that need to be activated before they start working. For example, the lead-ins in lesson 6, questions 6.3 and 6.4, presuppose that children need an external activator of their previous knowledge about rats to help them comprehend “The Pied Piper.” This denies the children’s ability to interact with what they read and hear without an external push and views them as machines, detached from their social experiences. This is not to dispute the role of background knowledge in comprehension. Efficient comprehension partly occurs because of the human’s ability to activate her/his background knowledge and to relate it to the textual material. The problem lies in the view that ESL/EFL readers are unable to comprehend a text without the help of someone or something in activating what they possess of appropriate background knowledge, (e.g., Grabe, 2009a; Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009; Koda, 2005).

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The problematic assumption that EFL/ESL readers always need help to activate their relevant schemata during text use has resulted in the recurrence of lead-in questions in most teaching resources across all grade levels. Besides the insult to the students’ intelligence this assumption implies, a simple examination of schema concept from a social perspective shows its falsity. In real-world tasks, people automatically activate their social experiences and background knowledge relevant to a certain situation of concern to them. For instance, most children possess some experience with rats in one way or another; they may have seen someone afraid of rats; they may have observed some harm that rats do to their toys or to stored food; they may have watched cartoons or documentaries about rats; etc. These experiences shape their reactions to these animals in their lives so that, for example, they run or shout when they see one; these experiences likewise unconsciously come into play when students listen to, read, and respond to texts that deal with the topic, like “The Pied Piper.” During reading this story, all children, including EFL/ESL learners, will capitalize on these social experiences that have shaped their background knowledge about rats and automatically use this background knowledge to interact with the text. They will infer that the people of Hamelin are facing a problem without any intentional activation of their background knowledge. In other words, text users approach their tasks with their background knowledge automatically activated, guided by their purposes for reading/listening. In some instances, children may possess incomplete knowledge about a certain topic. For example, some children may not see rats doing harm; their experiences with rats may be limited to cartoons or to scientific documentaries. These children’s activated schemata will be incompatible with the text of the Pied Piper. It is also possible that a few children do not know anything about rats. In both cases, misunderstanding may happen. The teacher in this situation may familiarize children with the different types of rats. This implies that children sometimes need familiarization with new knowledge, but not activation of the existing schemata. Examining how literacy works in social contexts reveals that human beings always activate their background knowledge naturally, not just in language classes but in every activity they do. For instance, people use their background knowledge without any intentional, external activation in locating a new place to which they would like to go. They not only look at the Google map and read or listen to its instruction, they would also match this instruction to the places and texts they see on their way. Many people acquire technological skills without the help of instructors. They may read/listen to some instruction, but many of them, even those who read this instruction in FL/SL, use whatever language they possess and approach new technological tasks through experimentation, based on life experiences and some knowledge they get from here and there. Children watch movies, activate their appropriate background schemata, and understand what goes on without any assistance. These examples show how literacy works and develops in social contexts, which the interactive approach to reading and listening ignores. The second category of pre-reading questions, termed warm-ups, intends to make students active and attentive. Most teaching resources use warm-ups, as Appendix A demonstrates. For example, 1.1 asks students about journeys in general

The Interactive Approach: An Exclusive Focus on Cognition

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in a lesson about early explorers, and 6.1–6.2 ask about the students’ experiences with rats. The aim in the two lessons is to create some class dynamics conducive to learning. Thus, a warm-up is a class management activity, but it is included in most language instructional resources as a pre-reading strategy, based on the assumption that students always need to be made attentive in order to start reading and responding to texts. In addition to the stereotypical view the assumption of warm-ups propagates, it is incongruent with the changing nature of class dynamics. Sometimes students are too active that they need something to calm them down, not to warm them up. At other times, they may need a push to start working. But these needs arise mostly when students are not given engaging tasks which may be either pedagogic or authentic. Furthermore, although warm-ups and lead-ins differ conceptually, both are often used in similar ways. For example, 2.1–2.5 ask about advice received from an elderly and can be used as both warm-ups and lead-ins, and 6.1–6.2 do the same related to rats. This is problematic because such questions lead to unnecessarily repetitive practices. Thus, warm-ups should not be considered as a fixed part of the pre-reading stage. Unfortunately, however, some internationally influential language organizations include this category in their training workshops as part of pre-reading, and many teaching resources do so also. A Harmful Focus on Comprehension Questions and Exercises The three stages of the interactive model to reading focus almost exclusively on comprehension questions and exercises that require the identification of main ideas and/or details. “Paradoxically, concurrent with this emphasis on code-based definitions of reading, school wide programs that rely on repeated readings of decodable texts, choral responses, and timed oral reading exercises have grown in popularity” (Stevens & Bean, 2007, pp. 23–24). Indeed, the six sample lessons demonstrate this focus, addressing the same set of simple subskills in the pre-, during-, and post-­ reading stages across all grade levels. In the first stage, many lead-ins, like 1.9, 4.1, and 6.4, instruct students to look for specific details while reading. This intends to lend direction to reading by giving students something to read for (Leki, 2001), with the assumption that students would like to know or should learn the target details. However, this does not constitute a genuine motive for reading and provides inappropriate strategy practice. For instance, question 5.2 in Appendix A asks students to fill out a KWL chart while reading a literary text. This graphic representation is also demanded by activities 1.4 and 3.5. However, this strategy is usually helpful when people need to memorize or organize information found in long texts for academic or a few other purposes, none of which is addressed in the sample lessons. This mechanical, overly repeated practice of a limited, simple set of reading strategies with merely every text assigns these strategies equal importance, as if readers use them all in the same way every time they read. This does not enable students to determine the strategies appropriate for text use in performing a specific real-life task. In other words, students do not develop the adaptability necessary to identify

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when to skim, when to scan, which text to use, which words to guess or to look up in the dictionary, or which texts to abandon all together. If the purpose in reading and listening classes is only to practice these skills, there can be no internally motivated mechanisms for selecting the appropriate strategy that serves the students’ goals (Leki, 2001). The emphasis on identifying main ideas and finding details by some questions in the pre-reading stage prevails in the during-reading and post-reading stages. Usually, students are asked to take turns reading aloud and answering questions in order “…to assess (their) comprehension, pronunciation, etc., and often students are corrected on the spot. Although reading aloud is an important skill, it is certainly boring and even detrimental to reading improvement to spend a whole session just listening to peers reading the same text and answering questions” (Ibrahim, 2014, p. 31). As Fu and Matoush (2015) and Leki (2001) observe, this pattern represents a problematic universal tendency that reduces the complex act of reading to a disconnected process. In addition to wasting the instructional time, this practice exposes students to a threatening and an embarrassing situation and demotivates them. All sample lessons illustrate the emphasis of most teaching resources on disconnected reading. Most questions in these lessons make students focus on one piece of information or on a single idea in the text at a time. Questions 5.4-5.20 in lesson 5 and 6.6-6.13 in lesson 6 provide the clearest evidence to that effect. Although the two lessons deal with short stories that should be read aesthetically and/or analytically, the questions require restating names, places, and/or events. Even 4.1, which involves some kind of holistic reading by asking to look for examples that support the generation gap, does not represent an authentic purpose. People do not look for examples of something if they do not have to use these examples in a real-life task. This artificiality of most comprehension questions becomes evident when we compare 4.1 to 4.4, which requires students to summarize the authors’ arguments and express their stances toward them. Besides giving students a task that they need both academically and socially, the argumentative response engages them in a dialogue with what they read. This makes them personally connect to the text, requires them to read holistically, and demands that they attend to the details so that they choose what is appropriate for their purpose. However, most other questions focus on disconnected reading and do not involve students in similar, genuine reading experiences. This demonstrates Leki’s observation that the prevalent instructional practices are reductive, “… robbing (text use) of its natural purpose and ignoring its social dimensions” (Leki, 2001, p. 176).

Reinforcing Unquestioned Assumptions Most sample lessons glorify some events and historic figures, reproducing a normalized discourse that shapes an uncritical approach to text. For example, the wording of the following questions in lesson 1 inclines the reader to think positively of explorers:

Reinforcing Unquestioned Assumptions

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1.3 How can explorers and their discoveries change the world? 1.13 On your own: Why are the early journeys of exploration important? 1.23 (b) What were the effects of exploration in the fifteenth century?

(c) How did the Europeans journeys change the lives of the people they encountered?

By making students think that all explorations have changed the world to the better despite their negative effects, these questions create a tendency in the students to accept what they read uncritically. Other lessons show how many questions predispose students to submit to the textual authority in ways that suppress any critical examination of their own experiences. For instance, the first set of questions in lesson 2 make students feel guilty if they haven’t listened to the advice from an elderly. It does not engage them in analyzing their experiences. It does not make them explore the circumstances that would make someone accept an advice or ignore it. In addition, the dominant focus on authorial intentions, for instance, the request of lesson 4 to provide the authors reasons why teens should teach adults about technology, creates a sense that the author’s arguments are unquestionable. Even the few lessons that seek the students’ opinion about a certain issue propagate this authorial power because of the strong concentration on the writers’ meanings and messages. One additional instructional pattern that recurs across all grade levels demands that students state the moral they learn from a certain text. For instance, 5.25 asks whether the main character, Mathilde, “… learned to be satisfied with what she had or (whether) … she became even more envious of those who are wealthy.” This is followed by the following question: What lesson do you suppose we can learn from the story? The wording of the first question provides clear clues to the answer and requires a yes-no response or at most a very limited one: “Yes, she had learned not to envy wealthy people” or “No, she had not.” In addition, it blames the character for the sufferings she had endured, “… being envious of the wealthy…,” which makes students issue judgments without exploring the socioeconomic and sociopolitical reasons for the sufferings. This also shapes the students’ response to the question about the lesson they learned from the story. The sample test included in the section about Bloom’s taxonomy below does the same thing; question 5 in this test asks about what the character, Alex, learns about spending time with his little sister. Educationally, this type of questions does not stimulate any meaningful language use and hence is boring. Actually, all students will respond as expected, even if they themselves behave in ways similar to the characters, for no one will say that envy, theft, lying, etc. are good. Socially, in addition to reinforcing the textual authority, this type of questions reflects a preaching approach. This approach assumes that students need to learn how not to envy others or how to enjoy spending time with their siblings and that this need will be fulfilled by saying what moral lesson they learn from a certain text. This assumption ignores the sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociopsychological grounding of social phenomena like envy, family relationships, or even theft. Asking about the lesson students learn from a text will not make them aware of how to

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handle social problems. Would the response “we learned from this lesson not to lie, not to steal, etc.” make students who behave in this way stop doing so? Harmful social behaviors may only be reduced after analyzing their root causes, on the basis of which they can be dealt with. Likewise, when people have different value systems, morality becomes relative. For instance, cohabitation is not a problem in some societies, while it is prohibited in others. A question about the moral lesson students learn from a text about cohabitation may lead to judgmental responses, and hence an unfair, stereotyping discourse will be maintained. When people analyze reasons and consequences of certain acts, they can make intelligent decisions about whether or not these behaviors help them have a better life, and they can work to root out the causes of harmful phenomena. This leads to less suppressive relationships among individuals and among social groups as well as to fewer conflicts.

 urther Complications: Bloom’s Taxonomy F and Formulaic Practices The formulaic practices discussed above are compounded by the unfortunate, inappropriate use of Bloom’s taxonomy in both instruction and assessment in various EFL contexts. The following test, used in a prestigious, private Lebanese school, supports this argument. The test is presented below as it has originally been designed, but without the reading selection, titled “Watching the Sunset.” Reading Comprehension Test     Grade 2    March 2017    50 minutes 1. Application. Use the compound words in your own meaningful sentences. Do not use the sentences from the story: Campfire: ___________________________________ Tiptoes: ­_____________________________________ Everywhere: _________________________________ Sunset:______________________________________ 2. Knowledge. What is the genre of the story “Watching the Sunset”? List two features of the genre. 3. Comprehension. Why can’t Alex and Kate see the sunset from where they live? 4. Analysis. In the simile “Alex, the sky looks like a painting!” what does Kate compare the sky to? Explain why. 5. Synthesis. At the end of the story, what does Alex learn about spending time with his little sister? 6. Evaluation. From the lesson that Alex learns, how would he feel about spending more time with his sister? A few questions in the test may yield good assessment data, but many of them do not. This is, however, not the target of this analysis. My concern is the formula to which the test is put and the implications of this formula to testing and teaching.

Further Complications: Bloom’s Taxonomy and Formulaic Practices

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This formulaic basis produces questions that assess the same limited subskills that the critiqued lessons address, and these include identifying main ideas, locating details, using vocabulary, and making simple inferences. Applying the taxonomy in this way yields long, tiring, boring, and purposeless tests. More importantly, some questions in the test are categorized as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, but they actually do not address these skills. For instance, the analysis category requires a very simple explanation of a simile, the answer to which is clearly indicated in the wording of the question. The synthesis prompt requires stating what the character learns at the end of the story, which does not involve students in synthesizing. Unfortunately, the taxonomic design illustrated in the test is used in combination with the interactive model to reading in many EFL materials, as lessons 1 and 4 show. The taxonomic division in lesson 1 consists of recall, comprehend, analyze, and connect, and each category consists of two questions that ask about disconnected pieces of details. The first four questions seek information directly from the text, repeating what most other questions in the lesson do. The analysis questions ask students to explain the reasons for which the Chinese kept the secret of silk to themselves and for which “… Columbus took some Taino people back to Spain,” the answers to which are clearly indicated in the text. The “connect” category attempts to make students relate the information they read to their own experiences through demanding them to explain how “…long journeys are easier now than they being hundreds of years ago. However, the answer to this question is common sense and does not engage the students’ experiences in significant ways.” While the taxonomic categories in lesson 1 are similar to Bloom’s to a great degree, lesson 4 provides a little more different division from the original taxonomy, under the broad term “critical reading” (see Appendix A). This division consists of the following groups: draw conclusions, predict, compare, evaluate, compare and contrast, and connect. The “draw conclusion” category in lesson 4 requires the same simple inferencing of the “analyze” category in lesson 1. Also, the “compare” category in the former lesson does the same thing as the “recall” and the “comprehend” categories in the latter. In addition, the “predict” question in lesson 4 asks about the students’ expectations of the future relationship between the characters in the text, which, from the social perspective, is of little significance. The analysis above indicates that instruction based on a combination of Bloom’s taxonomy and the interactive model results in an overemphasis on contrived, simple subskills, neglecting important uses of texts needed in real-life like synthesis, analysis, and critical text exploration. For instance, synthesis is targeted by one question in only two of the sample lessons. Questions 2.18, lesson 2, and 4.9, lesson 4, require synthesis in a very simple way that does not represent the complexity of this skill. Question 4.9 demands the identification of examples in one text that supports the argument in another. Including only one rudimentary synthesis question among plenty of other comprehension ones indicates that the lessons do not aim to help students develop this highly needed, complex skill. This also applies to analysis (see the previous paragraphs). But how can these skills be defined? There exist numerous explanations of these skills, based on varied philosophical assumptions. For the sake of clarity, I will provide a brief, reader-friendly explanation of these complex

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skills relevant to language teaching. Synthesis refers to the use of different pieces of information or ideas from different sources to build a new text for academic, social, political, or vocational purposes. For example, a research paper is composed of ideas sought from various texts and other resources. A news report may synthesize interview data from various interviewees as well as ideas from multimedia sources. Analysis refers to the act of interpreting reasons and implications of the content that are not stated or clearly indicated in the text. It also involves unraveling a text’s hidden assumptions. These will be further elaborated later in the chapter. The last three questions in lesson 4, including the synthesis one, serve some clear and worthwhile objectives. Question 4.8, under the “evaluate” category, is a rhetorical analysis question, i.e., it requires an examination of the strength of the authors’ argument. Question 4.10, categorized as “connect,” requires students to respond to the text, based on their own experiences (see Appendix A for the wording of the questions). Although few questions like those may be found in some teaching materials, designing instruction on the basis of two formulas, the pre-during-post-­reading and Bloom’s taxonomy, results in a repetitive focus on discrete details. For instance, 4.20 requires similar uses of the text to those in 4.4, though they demand different response formats, and both of them, alongside 4.18 and 4.19, make students attend to many of the details asked about in the other parts of the lesson, like 4.1, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, and 4.8. Also, in filling the chart in 1.4, students will already have documented the information that 1.10–1.19 ask about. This same information is sought in 1.22 but in the form of vocabulary practice. The analysis so far demonstrates that despite the “… substantive evidence… (that) supports the premise that learning to read is a complex array of skills and processes, modified by the reader to meet the particular content and purpose of a literacy task” (Stevens & Bean, 2007, p. 23), an alarming simple view of literacy still dominates instruction in many EFL settings. These instructional practices fail to provide appropriate pedagogical conditions for people as complex social, political, psychological, cognitive, physical, and cultural individuals. This reductive view does not challenge the learners optimally; hence, it deprives them of important opportunities to develop as text users in social contexts and grow as members of various literacy communities in which they may be interested. In order to empower students with complex literacy skills that allow them entry to these communities, we should develop a social view of learning and of literacy.

Learning Is Social The term “literacy” from a social view does not only refer to the ability to read and write, but it essentially captures the social uses of these skills in the human continuous search for knowledge. This search is motivated by the human desire to adapt to his life conditions and to intervene in these conditions in order to shape them in ways that suit his interests (see Freire, 1970, 1993, 2001; Freire & Macedo, 1987;

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Fu & Matoush, 2015; Luke, 2012; Morgan, 1997; Pennycook, 2001). To clarify the relevance of this argument to teaching, I will present some assumptions of the social nature of learning in the form of points. I will then demonstrate how the complexity involved in learning as social practice cannot be accounted for by any formula or taxonomic view. To that end, I will capitalize on the original taxonomy of Bloom, which divides learning into levels (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, etc.), but I will not review all the developments to this taxonomy. The analysis aims to empower teachers with an argument that challenges a strongly normalized instructional discourse, and it is based on the following assumptions: • The sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical conditions of the human beings motivate the search for knowledge, which, in turn, stimulates certain cognitive processes. These social conditions and cognitive processes interact dynamically and work together variably in constructing all kinds of knowledge, school-based or otherwise. • Knowledge is constructed in various ways in which knowledge seekers use their creativity, their agency, and the social patterns of learning prevalent in their communities at a particular historical time. • Peoples’ cognition, their agency and their creativity, the contexts in which the search for knowledge and for truth takes place, and the learning patterns available to people interact in ways that make any taxonomic or formulaic view unable to explain the dynamics that result from this interaction. • People engage in their search for knowledge and reflect what they learn in various ways that cannot be typified. The social embeddedness of learning makes our cognitive skills so closely interconnected to the extent that we cannot divide them hierarchically. For instance, we cannot speak of knowledge without comprehension. Any set of data does not become knowledge without comprehending it in one way or another. I will illustrate this argument with two examples: the “flag” concept and the enumeration process. A child learns the word flag by associating it with certain meanings that become more intricate through various social interactions, which give the word emotional and symbolic representations; family members, neighbors, peers, or teachers may tell children that, for instance, holding our national flag means that we love our country, and they may enact this meaning in many social activities (holding the flag on the independence day, hanging the flag on one’s balcony on another national occasion, etc.). This socially situated meaning allows the child to comprehend the social representations of a flag. When children become able to understand abstractions, they learn that different flags symbolize her/his various group identities (membership in a club, belonging to a school, citizenship in a certain country, etc.). These meanings are introduced and are deepened through social discourses that stimulate some cognitive processes, both of which interact variably in various social situations. Without this social sensemaking of the symbol, the “flag” does not become knowledge.

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Our ability to make sense of the phenomena around us through social interaction helps children understand all what they encounter or what they are taught, including the concept of numbers. When the child’s nurture or siblings inform her that she needs to eat two eggs, offering her a dish with these eggs, the child infers that the word “two” represents these physically separate items. It is through similar social interactions that the child comes to understand increasingly complex mathematical operations, transforming them into knowledge that means to her. These subtle and complex social interactions and the specific cognitive processes associated with them make children understand all what they observe and experience, motivated by need or interest. Thus, social interaction transforms data into knowledge by making this data embody some meaning that is socially relevant. In this sense, even if the child can regurgitate some concepts, these concepts do not become knowledge without understanding. In addition, analysis and evaluation are two aspects of the same task. To reach sound and well-informed evaluation, one should engage in analysis. Indeed, evaluation is the outcome of analysis; without analysis, people may shape unfair, over generalized, biased, or stereotypical social discourses. For instance, evaluating the character in “The Necklace” as envious of the wealthy is a judgment that may lead to unfairness. Analyzing the circumstances that led to the characters’ desires to have some luxury may yield an evaluation essentially different from the ones formed instantly and stereotypically. Making unfounded judgments maintains an unjust discourse while basing our evaluation on critical analysis of the reasons for a certain attitude, behavior, situation, etc. is a cornerstone for understanding the complexities of social life and for shaping more just discourses that eventually may lead to a better world. How our cognitive processes work together during socially meaningful learning experiences is clearly evident in the researchers’ work. Researchers attempt to understand a certain phenomenon by carrying an experiment and reporting about it, and to that end, they apply, analyze, and synthesize. The order of application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, etc. is reversed in other social contexts. For instance, before experts use their knowledge to solve a pollution problem, they need to analyze the problem to arrive at the most suitable solution. In this process, they use their background knowledge to understand the problem which they want to solve. Thus, purposeful learning, which is essentially social, motivates the interaction among the various relevant cognitive processes in different ways. Additionally, a taxonomic hierarchical explanation of learning where, for example, application is theorized to be easier than analysis and so on and so forth is defied from both social and cognitive points of view. Socially, difficulty is determined by the real-world experiences of the child as well as by her/his conditions. From this standpoint, analysis may be more difficult than synthesis to one child but easier to another. From the cognitive perspective, a certain application task may be much more complex than a specific analysis or synthesis task. Thus, hypothesizing about difficulty without taking into consideration the targeted group, the nature of the task required from this group, and the context in which they are asked to do the task results in an unfounded estimation of the challenge faced in carrying it out.

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Consequently, designing instruction on formulaic basis results in malpractices and in confusion on the part of both the teachers and the students.

Shifting to CALT The arguments made so far in the present chapter demonstrate that contrived instructional practices do not help students acquire the complex array of literacy skills that enable them to function appropriately in various literacy communities. Students are guaranteed opportunities for acquiring these socially based literacy skills when they are involved in literacy as a social practice. This involvement demands a shift to a principled social approach to literacy instruction that makes use of a range of authentic tasks. These tasks include transactional, academic, exploratory, representational, aesthetic, and linguistic. They should also require the use of various texts to achieve various real-life purposes as well as to acquire the complex array of literacy skills—purposes, skills, and texts that vary in sophistication. The subskills, strategies, and language forms that students need to perform these tasks successfully should be set as instructional objectives. Table 2.2 exemplifies these kinds of tasks and the strategies/subskills they require. The tasks in the table illustrate how students can be involved in various social literacy practices that help them acquire a range of simple and complex skills and have access to different literacy communities. These social literacies, according to Fu and Matoush (2015), Jiang et al. (2020), Leki (2001), and Rosenblatt (2004), involve complexity; they engage the “…reader (listener, and/or viewer) and the text in a complex, nonlinear, recursive, self-correcting transaction” (Rosenblatt, 2004, p.  1371). This requires flexibility in using social and cultural knowledge “… to make dynamic and varied uses of a language in a variety of settings with a variety of communicative partners while focusing on meaningful exchange” (Fu & Matoush, 2015, p. 20). Thus, all literacy acts, including “… reading … (begin) in confusion, anxiety and uncertainty …” (Leki, 2001, p.  173). This results from the fact that people use texts that are often new to them in order to learn about something, to use the text in producing another one, to think about the implications of the text to one’s life or to one’s community, to enjoy the aesthetics of the text, etc. This necessarily involves some kind of challenge, or what Brown (2000) terms optimal incongruity, uncertainty, and disequilibrium. This optimal challenge stimulates the students’ desires to achieve their purposes and arouses their interests in the required tasks. Guided by their desires to achieve their purposes, text users address the initial uncertainty inherent in social literacies with deliberate strategies as well as with intuition and chance, as Leki (2001) stipulates. The language user’s intuition refers to his/her initial conceptualization of the task and of how to carry it out. This is followed by “conscious intent,” which refers to the user’s deliberate, focused planning and to his/her intentional capitalization on previously acquired knowledge and skills. Students call upon their intuitions and on their conscious intents when they are involved in simulated real-world tasks for

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transactional, academic, exploratory, representational, or aesthetic purposes. This involvement leads to an interaction among the students’ purposes, their knowledge about the topic, their L2 knowledge, their life experiences, the nature of the text and of the task, the time they have to finish the task, and the circumstances in which the task takes place; this interaction allows text users to construct meaning by personally connecting to the texts; it does so also by activating reading, listening and/or watching as unitary processes and by establishing overarching connections among the different parts of the same text or among different texts (Rosenblatt, 2004). For instance, the summary in task 5 is made significant to the students by the virtue of being a basis for their report. Their purpose for this task, reviewing the story to tell their classmates whether or not to read it, motivates their attention to the relevant main events and to the significant details. This purpose stimulates their desires to personally relate to the text and experience how a specific purpose requires the use of certain ideas from it. This attention shifts when using another genre for another purpose. For example, when listening to the poem aesthetically in task 3, students need to recognize the effect of the language the poet uses but do not need to identify main ideas and supporting details (Byrnes, 1998). Different purposes not only require differing attention to the text but also different ways of using the same skill. For instance, when students want to compare how the authors of two different short stories use description to affect the reader’s stances, they summarize the stories differently than they do in task 5. Thus, involving students in various social literacy experiences over time will help them acquire the subtleties of literacy practices in various contexts. When students transfer the textual ideas and information to another format for an authentic purpose, when they use these data in composing another text, when they respond to the authors’ ideas, and when they do critical analysis tasks, they comprehend the parts they need from the text deeply, and they use relevant strategies or subskills. This extended discourse, i.e., writing or speaking in response to the text, enhances a sense of ownership of learning. This makes the learners capitalize on all what they possess of the foreign language in performing their tasks.

The Need for Support In working to achieve social literacy purposes like the ones illustrated in Table 2.2, both less skilled and more skilled text users capitalize on their intuitions and conscious intents. This helps both groups approach their tasks with a number of relevant strategies and identify the textual ideas to which they need to attend (Ibrahim, 2014; Leki, 2001), i.e., experiential learning. However, language learners should receive support to meet the challenge inherent in social literacy with success and to develop their language abilities, which takes place through instructed learning. The tasks that students do in a language program should constitute interesting experiences in terms of language, in terms of topics, and in terms of intellectual engagement. In order to maximize the benefits of these experiences, the language program should

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balance between experiential learning and direct or instructed learning. For example, task 3 in Table 2.2 aims to engage students in an aesthetic experience so that they develop both their aesthetic skills and their language (experiential learning). However, students may need to learn some vocabulary before they listen to the poem. They may be given a cloze activity to recognize the words, followed by a Table 2.2  Examples of authentic tasks and strategies/subskills Tasks 1. One group of students role-plays some parts of “The Necklace.” The other students take notes to discuss with the characters their interpretations of the events. Students, then, read the story independently to further prepare for the discussion. The teacher organizes the discussion so that every student can participate 2. Choose any culture in which you are interested. Search for jokes which people from this culture make. Share the jokes in class. Then, analyze the social effects of the language these jokes use (stereotyping some groups for instance) 3. Listen to “A Poison Tree” by Blake. Write a response journal in which you express what the poem makes you feel and think of. Share your ideas with the class 4. Choose any product in which you are interested. Look for advertisements that promote various brands of this product. Take notes of how these advertisements use various techniques to attract the viewer. Then, write a report in which you analyze how advertisements use different techniques to convince the viewer of buying the product. In this report, argue whether or not advertising serves the common interest of people. In case you argue that it does not, suggest some alternatives

Strategies/subskills Read aloud in ways appropriate to the genre Listen and take notes as preparation for a discussion Read closely to confirm or modify ideas in order to use them in a discussion Recognize the subtle, cultural references of certain expressions Interpret the social effects of language manipulation in the joke genre Listen aesthetically React to a literary text in writing

Skim and scan various sources to select texts appropriate to a specific purpose Read, listen to, and/or watch the appropriate documents, using relevant strategies that may include skimming, scanning, note-taking, etc. Examine whether or not the discourses of consumerism serve the welfare of everyone involved in the transactions fairly. Analyze how language may be used to entice the viewer into buying a certain product Paraphrase, quote, and synthesize in order to support the analysis Distinguish between main events and 5. Summarize any short story of your choice and write a review report of that story. Then, share your details reports with your classmates to tell them whether or Use appropriate ideas from the text to tell a specific audience whether or not the not you suggest the story for their own reading or story is interesting to read for class work. (This last part may be done in Read aloud in ways appropriate to a groups, i.e., members of each group share their specific purpose stories together. Alternatively, each student will Listen with a questioning stance present his report in class) Analyze a literary text critically In case the students share their reports in groups. Each group chooses one story for further discussion. Group members select parts of the story that will help their classmates understand the major events. They present these parts to their class mates who raise analysis questions. The group chooses a few of these questions to which the whole class responds

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language game so that they identify their meanings without much effort while listening to the poem (instructed learning). In task 4, teachers may model the analysis process so that students know what kind of response they should demonstrate. If the learners are beginners, they may need a brief explanation of skimming and scanning. They may receive some practice with these skills (instructed learning, and they may do a simple analysis task (experiential learning). Teachers may brainstorm analytical ideas with these students and may co-construct the analysis with them (both experiential and instructed learning). In the process, students may indirectly learn a new grammatical structure or a new word (experiential learning). In addition, even when people read/listen in order to learn about unfamiliar topics, their purposes help them determine which texts should be skimmed, which scanned, which words looked up in the dictionary, or which texts abandoned altogether (Leki, 2001). These purposes also help readers approach their tasks with their background knowledge naturally activated. Certainly, reading and listening about unfamiliar topics is more challenging than reading/listening about familiar ones, but since students may be doing this in their social encounters with texts, they should be prepared for these instances, using whatever directly or indirectly related knowledge they possess. However, although people usually do not read or listen to texts about which they have no clue, in pedagogical settings, it may happen that some texts contain unfamiliar knowledge or language to the extent that comprehension is blocked or interest is not stimulated. In these situations, students need familiarization, not activation, with the new knowledge or linguistic items crucial for understanding in order to read or listen to the text with interest and to achieve their purposes. For instance, before students perform the tasks around “Passport” in the illustrations section below, they may need information about the poet and about his motives for constructing his piece. The teacher may provide this information in different ways. She may give a brief presentation. Students may watch a documentary about the poet, or they may search for information about him, etc. It may also help one group of students to be familiarized with some new vocabulary or difficult grammatical structures in the text. This support should be provided in the context of social literacy tasks, and this is what CALT enables teachers to do. The section below explains how CALT may be materialized pedagogically.

The CALT Model: A Balanced Focus on Text Use When generating transactional, response, academic, exploratory, aesthetic, and representational tasks, teachers should design well-sequenced lessons based on a clear understanding of the main instructional objective of each lesson and of the role of any particular lesson in realizing the long-term goals of instruction. The CALT model explained in Chap. 1 is a tool that helps teachers do that in two major ways. First, it capitalizes on meaningful tasks that involve students in the unitary processes of reading, listening, and watching. Second, it provides contextualized direct instruction in the various discrete strategies and in the language components needed

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for achieving one’s purposes. This section elaborates on how the model functions in literacy instruction that focuses on reading/listening/watching. The five phases in the model draw the teachers’ attention to the need of providing both authentic and pedagogic tasks in a balanced manner in order to help students become proficient and critical text users. Before explaining how each phase functions in relation to text use, it is necessary to assert that from a social perspective, texts serve as means for social ends and not as ends in themselves. However, in most EFL contexts, teachers are restricted to the use of specific textbooks. This should not impede the implementation of CALT. On the contrary, school textbooks lend themselves well to the various goals addressed by CALT, including critical scrutiny of texts, as Behrman (2006), Huang (2011a), and McLaughlin and DeVoogd (2004) assert. In order to implement the CALT model around the school-mandated curricula, teachers need to shift their views of how they can employ texts in their instruction. The following questions, adapted from N. Ibrahim (2014, p. 33) with modifications, assist teachers in making this shift: • Can the ideas and information in a text be transferred to another genre, e.g., using ideas from a provocative text to write a letter to the concerned parties, or using ideas from texts about animals to write a brochure about a zoo? • Can students play different roles based on the text, e.g., a journalist interviewing the author or the characters; participants in a court; groups of politicians, of social workers, of municipality representatives, etc., discussing a textual representation of a social or economic issue? • Can the text be used in projects, e.g., reports, presentations? • Can the text be used aesthetically, e.g., dramatizing, poetry reading? • Can the text be responded to because it incurs emotions or opinions? • Can the text be critically analyzed? For example, does the text lend itself to questioning the values and ideas it promotes in terms of whether or not they promote justice? Does the text hide some assumptions that students can unravel? Do the ideas or events in the text have reasons and implications significant to interpret? • What language support or strategy training do students need to carry out the tasks planned for a certain lesson? • What knowledge do students need to possess in order to construct meaning from the text? These questions enable teachers to generate various kinds of tasks around the school-mandated texts to address worthwhile learning objectives. The explanation of the five phases of the CALT model and the examples presented below aim to empower teachers to base their instruction on the model in a way to suit their students, their institutional conditions, their social contexts, etc. 1. The access phase. In the access phase, students are provided with pedagogic and authentic tasks that help them comprehend the text. As explained earlier, students may need linguistic or knowledge familiarization so that their comprehension and/or interests are not blocked during texts use. Thus, at this stage, teachers may target a complex grammatical structure that hinders text comprehension,

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may provide vocabulary activities to facilitate understanding, or may give some necessary background knowledge. Before reading “The Necklace,” for example, the teacher may do a vocabulary activity around words she deems essential for understanding the story, and/or she may require students to paraphrase a complex selection. Accessing the text can also be realized through some other pedagogic tasks that engage students in meaning construction and that help them in acquiring certain subskills at the same time. To this end, students may summarize a certain text; they may paraphrase some challenging parts in the text; they may read the text and ask questions about it; or they may reorder a scrambled version of the text. For example, one school-text for an intermediate class talks about a chess competition that one girl wanted to attend, but she did not have enough money for that. Before students read for real-life purposes, they may reorder a scrambled version of the text and compare their work with each other. This will help students gain insights into how the ideas are connected logically and to comprehend these connections. What to employ in this phase depends on the students’ needs to understand the text and to use it for the set purpose. If, for example, students need to grasp all the main points in the text, summarizing helps them reach this end. However, access should not be the major objective in a lesson. Meaning construction and/or critical text use should be the focus of instruction. In the access phase, some social aspects of language use may be employed. As Leki (2001) explains, one pedagogic task that involves students in literacy as social practice is asking students to share their understandings of the text and the difficulties they face during reading or listening. This may happen through whole class discussion, through group work, or through peer teaching activities. The process may be guided by the teachers’ questions. For instance, in working on “The Necklace,” students may be divided into groups. Each group may be provided with one part of the story. The members of each group read their part and share their understanding of it. Then, members from the different groups work together to tell their parts to each other. In a whole-class discussion, the teacher asks specific questions about what she deems difficult to the students or about significant details in order to establish a shared understanding of the story before she moves to the other tasks. 2. The meaning construction phase. In the meaning construction phase, the literacy practices take the form of real-life language tasks for transactional, academic, and aesthetic purposes so that students become text users in the social sense. These authentic tasks should be selected based on what students need to develop (subskills, vocabulary, pragmatic knowledge, grammar, etc.). If the target subskill is scanning, for instance, students may scan the chess competition text for details to be used in an advertising the game. One task may address more than one subskill (see Table 2.2 for examples). Furthermore, the tasks in this phase may be selected so that they involve the learners in understanding the textual data needed in the problematization and exploration as well as in the alternative representation phases. They may also help students experience how certain genres are constructed.

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3. The direct instruction phase. The direct instruction phase in CALT intends to support students in developing the target subskills and in acquiring the needed linguistic resources. This aims to make students attend consciously to what they need to learn through direct instruction in the context of authentic literacy tasks. This implies that teachers plan direct instruction based on the students’ needs to accomplish the target task. In strategy instruction, teachers explain the steps involved in a certain strategy, discuss the situations in which this strategy is needed, and model the strategy. For instance, students may need to be trained in scanning before writing the chess game advertisement. A particular group of students may have received instruction in this subskill in a previous lesson, but their performance reveals that more instruction should be provided, in the case of which post-task instruction serves the purpose. Strategy instruction should be targeted over time as need arises, but teachers should always remember that direct instruction should constitute a small portion of the teaching time and that authentic text use guarantees the students the experiential learning that transform strategies into subskills. But what is the difference between strategies and subskills? They both refer to the same cognitive procedures employed in text use and text production. However, we call these procedures “strategies” when they are not yet mastered. When students acquire these strategies and use them automatically and flexibly, they become subskills (Grabe, 2009a). When a certain subskill is acquired, it shouldn’t be the target of further instruction. Teachers should keep providing the learners authentic literacy experiences that allow them to unconsciously practice what they have learned or acquired and give them instruction in strategies that they have not acquired yet. The critique I have made of the overuse of comprehension questions and pedagogic activities does not imply their complete withdrawal from instruction. These questions and activities can actually be used in the direct instruction phase to address some important objectives. In Ibrahim (2014, p. 31), I argue: Comprehension questions, multiple choice items, fill-in activities, and other similar ones have a few aims. They aim to train students in recognizing how discourse markers and key words help in establishing relationships among the different parts of the text. They also help in training beginners in using strategies like identifying main ideas and supporting details. A third purpose that intersects with the previous two is to train secondary students in doing large scale tests. (Thus,) pedagogic comprehension activities should not be ignored but should be employed to achieve specific objectives. (Specifying) these objectives assists teachers in determining (the when and how of this training) Purposeful, well-planned direct instruction that empowers students to perform meaningful literacy tasks is fun and engaging. This contextualization of direct instruction contributes to the students’ ownership of learning, which has a significant positive impact on language development. 4. The problematization and critical exploration phase. In this phase, students become involved in the critical use of texts. This use, often referred to as critical literacy, grows out of three main different theoretical positions: the Freirean, the post-structuralist, and the text analytic. Although the three orientations differ in

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important ways, they share the view that critical language teaching, like any other critical education, aims to promote justice and equity. I do not intend to elaborate on these theories in this chapter, but I want to draw on what is deemed relevant in EFL contexts both theoretically and practically (see Chap. 4 for a detailed discussion of these theories). Thus, some major assumptions underlying critical literacy are presented below in the form of points, based on the works of Freire (1972, 1993, 2001), Freire and Macedo (1987), Gregory and Cahill (2009), Janks (2010), Huang (2011a, 2011b), A. Luke and Dooley (2011), Mellor and Patterson (2004), Misson and Morgan (2006), W. Morgan (1997), Peterson (2009), and Shor (2009). • Language learning is an act of political and cultural power that has serious material and social consequences and possibilities for learners and their communities. • Any literacy act is qualified by assumptions, beliefs, values, expectations, and related conceptual material that occur in particular sociohistorical circumstances. • The sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural constituents of literacy play an essential role in the construction of our identities. • Authors present their partial views and selective information and ideas in their texts, motivated by interested assumptions related to the issues they tackle. This positions texts in certain ways. These texts, in turn, position the readers by enticing them into a certain interpretation or view. • Because texts are culturally, historically, and politically situated, malleable human designs and artifacts, they should be subjected to critical scrutiny. These assumptions imply that, among other things, teachers should involve students in: • A problematization of textual ideas and information in order to “read the word and the world,” i.e., to examine whether or not texts and discourses serve a better life • An exploration of how the dominant sociopolitical and socioeconomic views and values shape our individual and collective lives and whether or not they serve the common interests of people • An analysis of how texts and discourses shape the beliefs, values, and behaviors of different groups and how they construct our identities • Literacy tasks that allow students to imagine possibilities for a more just world • The identification of the audience and the purposes of texts and the examination of whether or not these purposes serve the common interests of the concerned parties • An interpretation of texts and discourses from different angles • An analysis of what a text presents of ideas, situations, descriptions, dialogues, symbols, or events • An exploration of the authors’ hidden assumptions; the reasons and implications for emphasizing certain views and marginalizing others; the interests

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the text serves and at whose expense; the attitudes a text propagates toward different social, religious, ethnic, or national groups; and the interested representations of “truths” a text offers • A critical examination of whose interests the authors’ language serves and whose interests it marginalizes and to what ends. Critical analysis questions represent one way to engage students in exploring texts critically. To illustrate the differences between critical questions and other question categories, I will present the work of my MA students when asked to pose analytical questions about “The Necklace” in a teaching methodology course, alongside my comments in Table 2.3 below. Some of those students taught the story in secondary classes. The table clarifies the differences among some question types, but it does not tackle all of these types. It rather focuses on distinguishing critical analysis questions from other ones. We should bear in mind when asking exploratory questions that the students’ initial responses may reveal how they connect to texts emotionally, socially, politically, or ideologically. It is important that students express these connections and reflect on them so that they examine these initial reactions critically. With appropriate instruction, these responses gradually move from being immediate and judgmental to being more sophisticated and critical. For instance, the question in Table 2.3 that asks about the personality of the main character may yield answers like “the woman is not content with her life,” “she is envious,” and “she is not realistic,” all of which represent unexplored judgments (see the table for more analysis of this type of questions). Tasks that involve students in exploring these responses from socioeconomic, sociocultural, and sociopolitical perspectives may transform these judgments so that they become well founded and fair. Exploratory questions are not the only means for problematizing texts; other tasks also engage students in critical analysis. In the chess competition lesson, for instance, students may work in pairs; one member assumes the role of the girl who wants to attend the chess game and the other plays the role of a journalist. The journalist interviews the girl about why she likes to attend chess games and about reasons for her inability to pay the ticket price. Students assuming the journalists’ roles write their reports, and those who play the girl’s role comment on those reports. Students also may build on their advertisement task done in the previous phase and compare how the advertisements and the text entice the reader to buy the ticket and watch the game. Problematizing texts for their hidden agendas and exploring their implications to one’s life as well as to the life of one’s community are challenging, which leads to some confusion on the part of the text critics. The confusion that may most likely occur during the process drives the students to think and explore, and this results in learning and in the enhancement of the students’ critical thought. This confusion is essential in any kind of learning, not just in critical engagement with texts, and avoiding it leads to a reductionist view of reading, listening, and/or watching. In order to pass this confusion stage, students should be trained in tolerating ambiguity, an important characteristic for learning success. Teachers also should accept the

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Table 2.3  MA students’ analysis questions around “The Necklace”: comments and alternatives Students’ questions How does the text present the woman? Why?

Comments and alternatives The first part of the question requires a close reading as a preparation for analysis. This is referred to by some scholars as “accessing the text.” The “why question” might initiate critical reading; it can be elaborated as follows:  What image does this presentation create in the reader’s mind and why?  Is the image that the text presents biased? Why or why not?  Why does the writer exaggerate how the woman is occupied with appearance? Why does the text emphasize a few traits of the characters?  If you were in the woman’s shoes, what would you say about how she is presented in the text?  Worrying about appearance is a part of our social lives, but what makes it so?  Are all the factors that affect worrying about appearance represented in the text? How? If not, why? This question can be tackled from two perspectives. The first one requires Why did the a discussion of reasons implicated in the text. The second gives reasons woman resent the invitation when her that are not directly stated in the text or indicated indirectly by it. husband brought it The first response may be either informational or inferential. The second home? Is it only the one may be analytical. To make the text-based question exploratory, it can be reworded as follows: What social forces may have led to the woman’s dress? rejection? The answer to this question might be judgmental. If it is not grounded in What can you analysis, the judgments will be stereotypical and biased. In other words, deduce about the this is a reactionary question, which can be asked before students start woman’s analyzing so that they express their emotional connections to the text personality? before they engage in the act of interpretation. Once they explore the factors that may have shaped the woman’s personality, the judgments will be revised, based on reasoning from different angles. The other suggestions in the table give plenty of examples on how to do so. The question is a close-ended one that implies an assumption that the Is it realistic for a young woman like character’s dreams are not realistic. Like many other questions that my students as well as many teachers ask, it assumes that the woman in the the character to story bears complete responsibility for her sufferings, ignoring the unfair, fulfill far-fetched social circumstances that have shaped the course of events in her life. dreams? Better questions are:  Does the woman in the story have the right to dream and fulfill her dreams? Why or why not?  What social views does the story assume about the wishes and dreams of different social groups? What do you think about these views? What moral lesson This is a close-ended question because the expected answer is, women did you learn from should not care about appearance or should be satisfied with their social circumstances. More importantly, it contributes to the formation of the story? narrow-minded social groups who look down at people with a different value system, for taking care of one’s appearance is culture-specific. An elaborate discussion of this issue is made elsewhere in the book. These questions can initiate discussion, but they are not analytical. A better What is your wording that helps initiate the discussion is: opinion about the  What did you or did you not like in the story? story? What is the theme  How did the story affect you? of the story? (continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) Students’ questions How do you relate the woman’s worry about appearances to the women’s concern with the same issue in your surroundings?

Comments and alternatives This question asks for relating the theme of the story to real life. So, it is a good thematic question if its assumption is not biased. The assumption is that concern with appearance is bad, so women having the same concern are bad. This is a stereotypical assumption that leads to a stereotypical judgment on the part of the students. It is in other words anti-analysis. One good thematic question is:  Do you know people who suffer tremendously because of an accidental event? Would you share their stories with us? An analytical follow-up question might be:  Why does such an accidental incident cause suffering? What possible circumstances may have made it so? This is a decision-making question that might or might not require Do you think that analysis. It stimulates the students’ contemplation of different decisions. Mme. Forestier, after she knew the Decision-making tasks are interesting and help students develop their abilities to make appropriate decisions. The question initiates a discussion truth, should give about the students’ choices. This discussion becomes analytical if it is Mathilde the followed up with questions like: necklace? Justify  What does Mme. Forestier’s action reflect about the relationship between the two women?  How do the social differences between the two women affect their friendship? What details show this influence?  Does the relationship among the three characters in the story represent what happens in real life? If yes, how? If no, why? The way this question is asked makes it a language question. It is good if Explain the the purpose is to draw the students’ attention to the creative use of following language expressions. If we want to turn it into an analytical one, we can statement: How ask: little there is between happiness  Why is there little between happiness and misery? Why would such an incident turn things upside down? and misery?  Can you think of factors that create this thin line between happiness and misery other than the woman’s enjoyment of the moment?  Why would some people have access to luxury and fun while others would not?  Why does the writer make the poor woman suffer because she wanted to enjoy one night in her life while her rich friend is presented as having easy access to things?  What assumptions motivate the contrast between the two characters?  How does the story represent sharp, social differences among people? Why does it represent them in this way? What changes would you make to the story in order to create different representations of the social groups to which the characters belong? What has been lost This question might initiate analysis, but it remains at the lower end of the after the loss of the analytical scale. If it is not followed up with deeper analytical questions, it will lead to value judgments that blame the woman for what happened. necklace? Is it Some follow-up questions might be: worth it?  Why do people have to suffer when they lose certain objects?  Even if the necklace were the original one, would it be worth the suffering of the family?  What circumstances may reduce suffering because of similar incidents?  What made the family behave the way they did after they had lost the necklace? Why did they not behave in other ways? (continued)

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Table 2.3 (continued) Students’ questions What do you think are the factors that would make a person unsatisfied in his life?

What does the necklace symbolize?

Where in the sequence of the events lurks the climax of the story?

Comments and alternatives This question makes students analyze the issue itself irrespective of the text. It is a good thematic analysis question. A version of that same question that tackles the text itself is:  What does the text imply about the reasons for the woman’s dissatisfaction with her life? This might be followed up with questions as:  Why does the writer emphasize some factors that cause the woman’s dissatisfaction?  What factors that shape the woman’s attitude does the story hide? Why?  How do these factors contribute to the life conditions of the woman? If you want students to think of untypical symbolism of the necklace, the question would be analytical. Actually, one type of literary analysis is to make students think of what events, objects, descriptions, dialogues, etc. symbolize. But if what things symbolize is known, for instance, a pigeon symbolizes peace, unraveling this symbolism is not analysis because it has become a fixed symbol that people know. If you guide students to interpret the symbol in different, nontypical ways, they become involved in analysis Certainly, this type of questions is not analytical. It is descriptive and even technical. This is discussed in Chap. 3.

students’ initial responses and guide them to explore these responses from different angles so that they provide deeper analytical insights. Systematic, cumulative experiences in this kind of tasks will ultimately lead to a sophisticated critical analysis of texts. 5. The alternative possibilities and representation phase. In this phase, students get involved in language tasks that represent the marginalized views or parties in the original text in more just ways. They also reconstruct the texts to be more inclusive of the human interests, to embody values that serve justice, to represent more just institutional practices, etc. For example, students may assume the role of Mathilde in “The Necklace” and write a letter to the author. In this letter, she expresses her opinion about how she is presented in the story and talks about how she sees herself. Students may transform the story into a comedy in which Mathilde is presented as someone suffering from social injustice. They may make posters on the school website of rewritten dialogues and descriptions, accompanied by some multimedia input to represent their evolving views of the character. Other texts may receive other treatments in the alternative possibilities phase. For example, students may imagine that they are going to organize a chess game at the national level. They work in groups and agree on the details for the game. Then, each group designs advertisements that invite people to the game for free.

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They talk about measures that make the game accessible to all social groups (people who cannot attend because of any transportation problem, because of a certain disability, because of busy schedule etc.). Students may carry out an awareness campaign to bring to light the importance of making luxury activities accessible to everyone. They may propose a line of action to a concerned party and send it to that party. These are just a few examples of the tasks that involve students in presenting better alternatives to the status quo and in representing the marginalized groups more fairly.

Illustrations In this section, I present three sets of instruction to illustrate how the critical literacy model described above works in classes focused on text use. Set I. “The Technology Generation Gap” See lesson 4 in Appendix A for a typical, school-based lesson on the topic. 1. The access phase. The students do a vocabulary game to become familiarized with the new words and to revisit words they have learned before. They read the text silently in order to prepare for a talk show described in the meaning construction phase. They highlight the ideas in the text that they will use in the talk show. Then, they share their understandings of the text in a whole-class discussion and talk about how they will use it in the talk show. 2. Meaning construction. The students are divided into two groups to participate in a talk show. One group opposes the idea of children teaching parents technological skills. The second group agrees with the idea. Each of the two groups includes members who represent both parents and children. The groups prepare for the talk show in class before they perform it. Students take notes of the interaction during the talk show to be used in the fourth phase. 3. The direct instruction phase. The teacher gives students training in some reading subskills, based on her observation of their needs during the access phase. These subskills may include identifying how ideas are related through connecting words, how one scans to determine the appropriate ideas for the specified purpose, etc. 4. Problematization/exploration and alternative representation. Students are asked to use the notes they have taken in the talk show to respond to the following prompt: You will write a response to the text from the viewpoint of a parent who does not agree that the gap between him/her and his/her children should be filled by the children themselves. Support your argument with stories about parents who can manage pretty well with technology for their own purposes. You may back up your position with stories of parents who hate technology and do not

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care about it. You can also talk about parents who want to learn, but not through their children. You can use stories you personally know, or you can interview people. 5. Direct instruction revisited. The teacher reads the students’ essays and selects problematic areas (rhetorical, grammatical, and/or reading) as reflected in the students’ use of text to support their argument. She plans for direct instruction in these areas. Set II. “The Pied Piper” Appendix A includes a typical, school-based lesson around the story. 1. The access phase. Students are given a scrambled version of the story in order to unscramble it in groups. Then, they share their unscrambled texts in class and compare them to the original story. 2. The direct instruction phase. Students guess the meaning of words they do not know from context. They use the dictionary to confirm their guesses. The teacher chooses some words that students did not guess right in order to model the guessing strategy and instruct them in how to guess. The teacher examines the students’ unscrambled texts to identify some reading difficulties that they may have faced. Based on that, she gives instruction in the reading subskills that may help students tackle these difficulties. 3. The meaning construction and the problematization phases. One group of students acts out the Pied Piper. The rest of the class takes notes in order to question the characters about their behaviors. They prepare questions about the failure of the mayor to fulfill his promises, about the risks at which the Pied Piper put the children, about why the rats have invaded the town, and about the Children’s feelings when they were kidnapped by the Pied Piper. The teacher makes sure that every student participates in the discussion. Set III. “Passport” A poem by Mahmoud Darwish, a famous Palestinian poet. 1. The access phase. Students respond to the following questions orally: • What does the passport concept mean to you? • What functions does it serve? • Where would you like to travel and why? Students respond to the following questions in writing: • Go to the website of the embassy of the country you would like to visit and take notes of the required measures in order to be allowed to go there. Reflect on whether or not these measures are difficult.

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• Suppose your grandparents own a house there and you have some relatives living in that area, but you were not allowed entry to the country. In a journal, express your feelings this prevention incurs. Compare what you wrote with “Passport” 2. Meaning construction. Students listen to an aesthetic recitation of “Passport” or of selections from it and discuss how the recitation makes them feel. Then, they write their interpretations of the poem individually and share these interpretations in class. They are guided to make their interpretations more valid. 3. Access revisited. Students search for information about Mahmoud Darwish and about why he wrote “Passport.” Then, they reexamine their understandings of the poem with that knowledge in mind. 4. Problematization and critical exploration. Students are asked to look for poems in their own culture or in other cultures that tackle similar issues to “Passport.” They work in groups to select a poem that they would like to share in class. Then, the groups read the poems they would have chosen and the class selects one for analysis. After that, the groups prepare critical analysis questions. The teacher organizes an analysis session, in which the groups respond to each other’s questions. The teacher guides the discussion so that the students go as deep as possible in their analysis. 5. Alternative possibilities and representation. Students choose any problem which the poems they have read tackle. They imagine how life will be like in the absence of that problem. They write a genre of their choice (poem, narrative, reflective, etc.) to describe this life. For example, they may imagine that the sociopolitical borders among countries do not form any obstacle to mobility and that people do not need immigration procedures or passports to move from one country to another. They may imagine that occupation, political and social conflicts, and competition have seized to exist and that, instead, people all over the world have started to cooperate to make life better for everyone.

Conclusion I have argued in this chapter that teachers need to challenge the dominant EFL instructional practices and move to a social view, so that we can prepare our students for the social use of texts, including reading, listening, and viewing critically. Any significant shift from the mechanistic view of literacy to a social one requires trusting teachers and guaranteeing them the professional freedom to deal with the complexity of language education (students with various experiences, skills, interests, ETC; local communities with various expectations, values, and belief systems; school contexts; etc.). In addition, teachers should be allowed to use their professional knowledge and skills in material selection, for most

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textbooks reflect a commercial tendency to typify; these textbooks adopt dominant views regardless of what academics think of these views and what valid research shows (Long, 2009; Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005). Even the few textbooks and pedagogic resources that are built on sound theory and research cannot tailor instruction to the particular needs of students that vary from context to context. Thus, teachers should be always involved in reflective practice, part of which should be the provision of opportunities to challenge what is presented in materials and textbooks. They also should be empowered to involve their students in critical literacy practices in a balanced manner.

Chapter 3

CALT in EFL Text Production: Challenges to the Dominant Approaches

It is important to emphasize, at the outset, that critical literacy approaches address text use and text production in an interrelated manner (e.g., Canagarajah, 2006; Ibrahim, 2015c; Luke & Freebody, 1999; Serafini, 2012; Wallace, 2003). However, these approaches are accused of lacking a specific methodology and of relying on other pedagogies like the process and the genre approaches to writing (Polio & Williams, 2009). After reviewing the work of various scholars on critical writing instruction, Polio and Williams (2009) conclude: “There is usually little mention of how writing is taught or practiced. This may mean that the critical pedagogy begins and ends with consideration and discussion of social and political contexts, and issues with instruction with nuts and bolts of writing, with ideas on issues of rhetorical and linguistics form drawn from other sources” (p. 501). While it is true that critical approaches to writing draw on what is sound in other pedagogies, they do not adopt these pedagogies in their totality. A number of pedagogical principles set critical text production instruction apart from the other pedagogies (see Canagarajah, 2006; Janks & Vasquez, 2011; Tate, 2011). For instance, CALT calls for problematizing the students’ experiences as well as the local and the global conditions that shape these experiences; this has many pedagogical implications that make CALT distinct from other approaches (see Chaps. 1 and 2). However, all critical orientations to language instruction do not represent formulas that can be applied in the same way in all pedagogical settings because of their sensitivity to variation in the contexts, in the participants, and in the concerns of people at the time of instruction. With this in mind, CALT empowers teachers to adapt its principles to suit the context of their instruction. To facilitate this process, this chapter provides teachers with plenty of opportunities to reflect on the dominant instructional patterns in writing and speaking classes and presents some CALT-based alternatives.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_3

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 onnecting Practice and Theory: A Critique C and an Alternative Some may be wondering about the way with which theory and practice can be connected. While there are several ways to do that, comparing practices that are based on different theoretical underpinnings may help us engage in reflection on the theory we adopt and on our instructional practices derived from this theory. Before moving to this comparison, it is important to clarify the complexity involved in this task. Although CALT views the various language modes as interconnected, scholars working within the cognitive paradigm have theorized about each skill separately. For example, speaking and writing have been explained by different models. Even the genre approach, which is socially based, predominantly addresses writing. All of them, however, have not addressed critical language skills. To illustrate this argument practically, Table 3.1 compares between a number of writing prompts taken from various EFL/ESL sources with CALT-based alternatives. As the first column of the table shows, many writing prompts require the construction of compare-contrast, cause-effect, advantages-disadvantages, descriptive, narrative, and persuasive essays. These questions dominate writing instruction in many EFL contexts. I hear you exclaim: “What is the problem with this?”

Inauthentic Writing The prompts in the first column of Table 3.1 show that most of what EFL students are required to compose in many contexts does not bear a resemblance to what people write in real life. They rather “… are … strategies or what Hadley (2001) calls cognitive processes used in producing (authentic) genres” (Ibrahim, 2015b, p.  15). For example, the first six questions in the table focus on strategies like description, cause-effect, compare-contrast, advantages-disadvantages, etc., in contrived ways. In genuine communicative situations, no one writes a cause-effect, a descriptive, advantages-disadvantages, etc., essays. People rather write reports, research papers, advertisements, etc., in which they use different combinations of composing strategies, as the second column in Table  3.1 and Table 6.1 in Chap. 6 demonstrate. However, “most school-essays isolate these strategies from their context and focus on each of them separately” (Ibrahim, 2015b, p. 15). This has led to contrived school genres that are not found beyond the school walls. For example, writing a friendly letter to describe an imagined trip lacks authenticity, for no one writes about an imagined trip except if it has a communicative function in a broader narrative or other types of genres. “A Passage to India,” a canonical novel, illustrates this communicative role; it includes a detailed description of a trip to a cave because the trip constitutes a central event with many symbolic representations in this sociopolitical literary work. However, most trip-related prompts repeatedly given at schools do

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Table 3.1  School versus CALT-based writing prompts Typical writing prompts from various EFL resources 1. Describe a famous park or recreation area in your home country.

CALT-based alternatives Work in groups and assume that you are employed by the tourism ministry in your country to develop a campaign to attract tourists. The campaign will target various cites (hotels, recreation parks, historical sites, restaurants, etc.). Each member in the group will describe one site as creatively as possible. Then, the group will meet to give each other feedback and to organize the campaign. Based on your group work, write an argumentative essay in which you tackle the following points:  How do campaign designers play with the language to attract people?  To what degree do such campaigns present a true picture of their objects?  Who benefits from such campaigns and who does not?  How does the money and effort spent on these campaigns serve the common interest of the public? You are committee members in a club in charge of 2. Imagine that you are on a planning for a trip abroad and of writing a report about it vacation at your favorite resort. to submit to the steering committee. The committee will Write a short letter to a friend or relative describing the activities you meet to discuss the plan and prepare a report about it. The report should include more than one offer from tourism are doing, things you like there, people you meet, and your feelings. companies, specifying the target countries, the places that will be visited and the activities that will be carried out in each country, the airline that will be taken, the hotel ranks mentioned in the offers, and the cost in each package. The report should also give some information that tourists usually need about the target country as well as some helpful links. You are a member in a club that organizes a trip abroad, but you may not be able to take this trip, or you may know someone who cannot go. Write a reflective journal in which you express your feelings as well as the reasons for your inability or that of your acquaintance to take the trip. In class, the teacher may initiate a discussion about the reasons why such luxuries are inaccessible to many people. This may include a discussion of who benefits from such activities in the club and who is marginalized. The discussion may also address some alternative plans that may include people from various socioeconomic backgrounds. (continued)

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Table 3.1 (continued) Typical writing prompts from various EFL resources 3. Write an essay about the advantages and disadvantages of public schools and private schools.

CALT-based alternatives In many parts of the world, teaching is carried out by public and private schools. What do you think of this duality? Respond to the question in an essay that tackles the following points:  What are the reasons and consequences of having two types of schooling in the same country?  Does this duality ensure educational equity? How? If not, what system may ensure the right of everyone to quality education? Work in groups. Construct a multimedia news report about the differences between public and private schools and/or among schools of different districts in your country. In the report, you may interview parents, students, principals, and/or officials. You may use reports by educational organizations, newspapers, specialized journals, or NGOs. The report will be posted on the school website. The company in which you work needs a car for its 4. Write a comparison-contrast business. You are asked to prepare a report in which you essay about two objects of your choice from the following list: A car suggest more than one option. Write a report in which you compare among more than one car. Based on this and a school bus, the country and comparison, recommend the car you think is better. the city, two restaurants you’ve Some pets are lucky enough to be taken care of by eaten in, and two pets you’ve had. families or by some institutions. Others, however, are jammed in pet stores or are left in the streets unattended to by anyone. Choose any pet you are interested in in order to write a news report, comparing between pets that are taken care of in good ways and pets that are treated unfairly or ignored altogether. In your report, provide vivid description so that the reader could visualize the situation of the pets and develop a sense of empathy toward them. You have read a few texts about water pollution that show 5. Water pollution is a serious its damaging effects in many parts of the world from a problem that the world is facing. Write an essay in which you define scientific point of view. Choose any area, local or international, that suffers from a severe water pollution water pollution, discuss its major causes and effects, and present ways problem. Write a news analysis article in which you explore the political and the social reasons and that help solve the problem. consequences of this problem. (continued)

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Table 3.1 (continued) Typical writing prompts from various EFL resources 6. It has been said, “Not all learning takes place in the classroom.” Compare and contrast knowledge gained from personal experience with knowledge gained from classroom instruction. In your opinion, which source is more important?

CALT-based alternatives It is argued that classroom learning is most effective when it is related to real life. Write an opinion essay discussing what you think about this argument. Support your ideas with your real-life learning experiences. If possible, compare a classroom that related learning to real life with another that did not. Learning should serve social and personal growth and should not be limited to formal settings like the classroom. Describe some life learning experiences and other classroom ones that have played significant roles in your social and personal lives. Discuss how the social and the classroom learning experiences can be connected positively. Many historical figures have played significant roles in 7. If you could meet anyone from the world. Choose one of them and explore the history, who would you want to circumstances that helped or impeded his/her work. meet, and why? Discuss the impact of this leader’s work on the lives of people, and explain how we can capitalize on this work to make the world better. Choose an event that has impacted your country or the world in significant ways. Describe the event briefly and specify the participants in that event. Discuss the causes and consequences of that event and analyze the motives of the different participants. Organize an international tribunal to indict some world leaders for atrocities they allegedly have committed. Groups assume the role of the different parties involved in the tribunal and carry out the oral task in class. Many people play lottery games in the hope of becoming 8. What would you do if you win the lottery? Would your life change rich. Write an analysis essay in which you tackle the following points: day to day?  Why do people dream of winning the lottery?  What is the likelihood that one would win it?  Who pays for the lottery that few people win?  What social effects do lottery games have?  How do lottery games affect people’s thinking? 9. It is better for children to grow up Not all children grow up in a healthy and enjoyable in the countryside than in a big city. environment. Write an opinion essay discussing the following: Do you agree or disagree?  What causes these differences?  Shouldn’t everyone enjoy a quality life?  What makes all areas in any country (village, town, city, capital, suburb, etc.) possess the characteristics that maintain a high-quality life. Propose measures to realize such characteristics. (continued)

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Table 3.1 (continued) Typical writing prompts from various EFL resources 10. What is your opinion about fortune telling?

11. Choose any human disaster and write a narrative essay about it. Narrate the events in chronological order. Use story elements (plot, setting, character, etc.). Write a coherent essay with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Use the past tense. 12. Imagine that you are the owner of a very successful company, which you have built from the ground up. You have been asked to share your experience with a group of young entrepreneurs who have hopes of owning their own businesses someday. Write a narrative of your success story, including the type of business you own, how you came up with the idea, and how you managed to make it a success.

CALT-based alternatives Fortune telling is something that many people would like to seek. In a short research paper, explore the reasons for this practice. In your research, interview at least two people who would like to listen to fortune tellers. Also, interview one or more fortune tellers. If it is not possible to conduct the interviews, search for information about fortune telling and base your research on what you find (videos, articles, books, etc.). Choose any disaster (the nitrate explosion in Beirut, the earthquake in Haiti, the suffering of children in Yemen, etc.). Choose one person or family who lived through that event and write a story in order to reflect their experiences in the best way possible. You may imagine some events. Use vivid description, dialogues, narration, etc., to construct a text that best represents the stories of those who have experienced the event. Many big corporations present their success stories as the result of personal effort and talent. Yet, there are some alternative narratives of these corporations and their owners. Explore these alternative narratives, examine how these narratives shed light on hidden factors behind the success stories, and rewrite the official stories based on your evolving understanding of them. In your reconstruction of the narratives, highlight the conditions and the unknown people that helped the corporations be successful. Choose any person who owns a small business in your surrounding and interview that person and some customers in his/her business. Based on that interview, construct a multimedia report to tell the story of how this person established the business and whether or not it is as successful as he wanted it to be. In your report, highlight the factors that may contribute to the success of such initiatives. The report may also be about a business, which has failed.

not capitalize on any significant purpose for describing this occasion. Additionally, with internet communication, no one writes a letter to a friend anymore. This artificiality shapes the teachers’ presupposed template for the content and the structure of the letter. This most probably leads to poor description and ideas in the responses of many students. Additionally, some prompts assume a stereotypical image of the object or person to be written about. For instance, comparing the city and the country presupposes that there are uniform, ideal places that students have experienced in similar ways. The problem lies in that some countryside locations possess characteristics that make them indistinguishable from some cities. Moreover, many places in the world, cities or countries, suffer a great deal of negligence because of the socioeconomic

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conditions of their people. Thus, some students may have experienced these places in ways that make the comparison artificial. Additionally, many students do not have the chance to visit one of the two places, which may cause difficulties in composing their texts. These students, who are still learning to write, will produce lifeless descriptions dominated by clichés. Furthermore, some cause-effect or compare-­ contrast questions require scientific information that the students either memorize or copy from a certain source. For example, prompt 5 about water pollution in Table 3.1 does not involve students in idea generation because the response should be based on scientific knowledge that the students either retrieve from memory or transfer from a text. This artificiality causes confusion and boredom to both students and teachers. Some prompts in Table 3.1 reflect an attempt to make writing interesting, like questions 7, 8, 10, and 11. However, they lack the social purpose for writing. Even the opinion prompts do not have this social dimension. For instance, although people may differ in terms of where it is better to live (question 9), it is of little significance from the social point of view because most people are forced to live in a specific place due to their life conditions. This social significance is reflected in the CALT alternative that demands an exploration of the circumstances that lead to differences in the quality of life. This social significance gives the students more chances to generate rich and interesting ideas. Question 10 provides another example on interesting prompts that lack the social dimension. The response to this question about fortune telling may be superfluous. Students would probably say that fortune tellers tell lies. However, when they explore this social practice the way the CALT alternative suggests, many interesting, not predetermined responses may be given.

Focus on Text Structure Many prompts given in EFL writing classes inappropriately focus on rigid essay structure. Question 11 provides the clearest example on that. It instructs students to write a coherent narrative essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. It also requires them to present their stories in a chronological order. However, narrative genres (stories, novels, poems, plays, etc.) do not apply the essay characteristics. They rather employ creative writing techniques like flashback and do not necessarily present events chronologically. Writing a letter to a friend, a supposedly personal piece, that should abide by formal elements reflects the emphasis on structure. Thus, the inappropriate focus on structure, an essay in narrative and descriptive pieces and formats for personal communication, confuses students as well as teachers.

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Story Grammars and Literary Metalanguage Many language resources give story grammars undue emphasis in both reading and writing. The narrative prompt in Table 3.1 and Lessons 2 and 5 in Appendix A support this observation. Lesson 2, for example, focuses almost exclusively on literary elements. Questions 2.8–2.16 ask about the theme, the figurative language, character traits, the contribution of text organization to the theme, the role of details in the plot, and the reactions of the characters to some events. Also, the five questions under the “literary focus” category in Lesson 5 seek the same information. Many language resources and teaching practices focus on this knowledge in both reading and writing. This rigid emphasis on story grammars is detrimental to the benefits that students may reap from literature, even in first language contexts. Hedgcock and Ferris (2009) argue that any overemphasis on story grammars is limiting and frustrating. It actually embodies an underestimation of the students’ ability to understand and tell stories. Both young and older learners can tell interesting stories, read literature, interact with characters, and reflect on problems in literary work without knowledge of terms like plot, setting, and characters. Teaching literary terms should only aim to help students recognize them (Hedgcock & Ferris, 2009) so that they know what they refer to when the teacher uses them in her instruction. When teachers give technical language a considerable instructional time as if school children are specializing in literature, they spoil the joy of reading stories and poetry and of engaging these genres aesthetically and critically.

 he Process and the Genre Approaches: Maintaining T the Status Quo EFL writing instruction in many settings has been predominantly influenced by the process approach; recently, the genre approach has started to exert some influence in some contexts, though to a much lesser degree. Both approaches, however, do not engage the learners in critical writing. Additionally, although these approaches have led to significant positive changes in EFL writing instruction, they have not modified the typical, reductionist school-instructional patterns which aim to teach contrived composing strategies, certain organizational structures, and the language related to certain themes. This form-focused view of writing results from the adherence of language educators to the old-established teaching approaches since the institutionalization of FL writing instruction. This pattern has been maintained by the widely adopted process approach and will most likely be preserved by the genre orientation for reasons that I will discuss below.

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Process Writing All the developments in process writing, since Zamel introduced the approach to the ESL field in 1976, are grounded in the cognitive paradigm, which views writing as a problem-solving activity. In this activity, writers use cognitive processes which include planning, drafting, revising, and editing (Ferris & Hedgcock, 2013; Hyland, 2003; Raimes, 2002; Silva, 1990). The cognitivists believe that classroom tasks like journals, invention, peer collaboration, multiple drafts, and attention to content before form would encourage students to employ the strategies that they need to arrive at a good product. Additionally, peer and teacher feedback that may take various forms play significant roles in the writing process. As has been theorized by the process scholars, cognition plays an important role in writing, but composing cannot be reduced to cognitive strategies which, when used by individual writers working in solitude, lead to the production of good texts. Literacy is socially situated, but process approaches overemphasize “the cognitive relationship between the writer and the writer’s internal world” (Swales, 1990). (As a result) they fail to offer any clear perspective on the social nature of writing or on the role of language and text structure in effective written communication” (Hyland, 2003, p. 220). Actually, the process approach is not explicit about the need to teach students the genres they need socially and academically. Moreover, process-based instruction in planning, drafting, revising, and editing does not attend to how the writer may manipulate both the content of his/her text and the language used to achieve various purposes. These manipulations are socially embedded and constrained by some factors that the process approach does not account for. Indeed, the cognitive focus of the process approach places the social dimensions of text construction at the margin and ignores how the common interests between writers and readers shape the text both in terms of content and structure. This cognitive focus fails to explain the variation in the strategies and in the composing stages the writers capitalize on when composing various tasks under various institutional, sociopolitical, cultural, and socioeconomic conditions. For example, are the cognitive processes and the writing stages used in writing a research report the same as those used in writing a pamphlet? How do these processes and stages differ when composing a response piece to a certain hot social or political issue? The emergence of various technologies that utilize the internet as a space for the production, we may say publication, of various kinds of new genres as well as of traditional ones, brings the concerns of what cognitive strategies to employ and of what composing stages to go through to the forefront, which the process approach does not tackle. This negligence is projected to the issue of what students need to write about. Although the approach calls for giving students the freedom to choose topics, it is silent on the need to engage students in writing critically about local and global concerns that may affect their lives in particular and the human condition in general. In other words, addressing critical writing that aims to help students recognize how the world may become more just is left to chance, which most likely will

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be taken up by a very few number of instructors, knowing that the dominant pedagogical discourse does not encourage this kind of engagement.

The Genre Approach The genre approach has emerged in some countries (e.g., Australia, New Zealand, Britain, etc.) in response to the process movement and its emphasis on the individual writer (Hyland, 2003, 2007; Luke, 2012; Pennycook, 2001; Rose, 2015). Hyland (2003, 2007) defines genre as a set of texts that share the same purpose, and consequently the same structure. According to him, these texts use language in specific ways to get things done. He explains: “To get things done, to tell a story, request an overdraft, craft a love letter, describe a technical process and so on, we follow certain conventions for organizing messages because we want our readers to recognize our purpose. These abstract, socially recognized ways of using language for particular purposes are called genres” (2003, p. 19). While various views on genre exist (see Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010; Devitt, 2009), the genre orientation that places heavy emphasis on direct instruction and practice is the focus of this discussion (e.g., Hyland, 2003, 2007; Rose, 2015). Genre theorists in this school hypothesize that in order to communicate effectively in writing, students should recognize, through a careful study of genre structures, the differences among genres and their communicative functions; they should also learn the various rhetorical and language patterns to produce coherent prose that serves specific purposes. In the genre approach, teachers focus on how texts use certain linguistic patterns that represent social choices and constraints, through analyzing “expert texts” rather than through experimenting and exploring (Hyland, 2003; Reppen, 2002). In order to realize these goals, teachers start with an emphasis on direct instruction, during which genre structures are explained, models of expert texts representing the target genre are analyzed, models are imitated, and guided practice is provided (Hyland, 2003, 2007; Reppen, 2002; Rose, 2015). “The teacher here adopts a highly interventionist role, ensuring that students are able to understand and reproduce the typical rhetorical patterns they need to express their meanings. At later stages learners require more autonomy” (Hyland, 2003, p. 21). Hence, this orientation in the genre approach focuses on text features with the aim of helping students progress toward the production of “expert texts,” or as Reppen states, “… from the role of active observers to autonomous learners” (2002, p.  323). It postpones the independent production of genres for communicative purposes until students master the linguistic and discourse structures characteristic of the genre in question (Hyland, 2003; Reppen, 2002). How the genre approach under study conceptualizes writing development is problematic at many levels. Its emphasis on teaching writing through a strictly controlled process rather than through exploration returns us back to the static view of writing that emphasizes structure, resulting in formulaic instruction. Indeed, direct

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instruction in grammar and in genre structure occupies a central place in this genre approach, as the following selection by Hyland (2007, pp. 152–153) implies: Genre teaching involves being explicit about how texts are grammatically patterned, but grammar is integrated into the exploration of texts and contexts rather than taught as a discrete component. This helps learners not only to see how grammar and vocabulary choices create meanings, but also to understand how language itself works, acquiring a way to talk about language and its role in texts.

Advocates of this orientation in the genre approach justify the strictly controlled instructional cycle in that it helps students gradually progress toward autonomy, which is a goal for all types of writing instruction. However, dichotomizing between the stages when learners are “active observers” and when they are “active writers,” as Reppen (2002) puts it, denies students the necessary engagement with the messiness and complexity of writing. Students should be active writers most of the time, even at their early stages of language development. Many genre advocates acknowledge the danger that the genre approach may result in formulaic instruction, in which students are simply asked to manipulate certain text features. However, they attribute this danger to the teacher’s inflexibility, lack of training, and lack of creativity, in which case, according to them, is a danger of all pedagogies (e.g., Hyland, 2003, 2007; Reppen, 2002). Hyland assumes that unimaginative, untrained teachers may transform any pedagogy into a static formula that intends to give writing students a how-to-do list or a recipe for successful writing. I would argue that most teachers are always creative, but they need empowering training and institutional conditions that allow them to question any theoretical discourse, particularly the one that emphasizes form and direct instruction in a static cycle. More importantly, the genre approach theorizes that learners should not move to critical writing before they master the various genre structures and discourses. Actually, some genre theorists believe that “it is unfair to ask learners to question dominant discourses before they can use them. Instead, it is an educator’s responsibility to give students access to these genres and help them toward mastery. Once they have gained access to these discourses, struggling against them should be left up to the learners and left out of the classroom” (Polio & Williams, 2009, p. 501). Because of this stance toward critical literacy, the genre approach will be discussed further in the next chapter.

CALT: A Balanced Emphasis on Critical Text Production As has been emphasized before, CALT balances among the following goals: helping students interact with those who do not speak their language; empowering them with the skills needed to have access to job, educational, and travel opportunities; and engaging them in critical analysis of the dominant discourses and social circumstances at the global and the local levels. Thus, this balanced approach does not emphasize critical writing at the expense of other writing goals and at the expense

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of the immediate students’ needs. But how does CALT address the various text production goals, accommodating the students’ desires and needs and responding to contextual variation? CALT empowers teachers with an informed, social vision of language education and provides a model to help them realize this vision in their pedagogical contexts. It is important to reiterate that the model is not a template that should be followed blindly; it rather offers a way of conceptualizing language teaching and designing instruction to address language, skill, and critical goals in a balanced way. This balance should be sensitive to the educational and social contexts of the learners as well as to their desires and needs. With this in mind, the CALT model with a focus on text production will be presented in the next section. Each phase of the model will be illustrated with tasks about the students’ hobbies, a topic included in the language curricula of many schools. Also, three sets of instruction will be provided in the next section to show how the model works coherently and flexibly. 1. The access phase. Access in text-production-focused classes refers mainly to conceptualizing the topic and gaining insights into its different dimensions. To that end, the brainstorming strategies suggested by the process approach can be employed. However, the purpose of the major task determines what access strategies to use and how to use them. For example, problematization often guides the access phase in case the unit of instruction aims to involve students in exploratory and/or alternative representation tasks. This guiding principle does not only affect what tasks to use and what purposes to address, but also determines the order of the tasks and how they relate to each other. This may happen in whole-class questioning sessions during which both the teacher and the students raise critical questions about the posed ideas and statements. For instance, in case the teacher aims to involve students in problematizing and reflecting on their experiences in practicing some of their hobbies, the access phase may include the regular question about the students’ hobbies. Let us assume that three hobbies were mentioned by the students: chatting via social media, watching horror movies, and playing football. The teacher, then, asks the students to say why they have their particular interests, a regular question. A follow-up question about the time each spends in practicing his/her hobbies may initiate a critical exploration of the students’ practices. This initiation could be maintained by more questions that ensue from the students’ answers like: • Do you have enough time and facilities to practice your hobbies? • What constrains your practice of your hobbies? • Is the time you spend practicing your hobbies affecting other aspects of your social and academic life? How? • Are there other important things that you may do during that time? • Does the time you spend practicing your hobbies create any conflicts with people in your close social circle (parents, friends, relatives)? Questioning may continue based on the students’ responses.

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The regular brainstorming strategies may be used differently than in the process approach if the major task is a critical exploration or alternative representation one. For example, the teacher may stop asking critical follow-up questions like the ones posed above when students suggest a problematic response. Students at this point may write a reflective journal in which they comment on any thought-­ provoking idea in the discussion. Looping may be used to help students generate deeper analytical ideas, etc. Thus, brainstorming strategies are used with a specific focus on a problematic aspect of the students’ initial responses. They may also provide students with a platform to reflect on the pedagogical process itself. Additionally, the meaning-construction phase may itself serve as a tool for accessing ideas. For instance, students may start the access phase with the following task: Suppose that you are going to establish a club in your area. You want to know the interests of people. Prepare a survey to collect data about the hobbies that people in your area practice and about how they spend their leisure time. After you prepare the survey individually, you will receive peer feedback. Then, you will finalize the survey. The survey may replace many of the questions suggested above. It may be the basis for a critical exploratory task or even for direct instruction. Access and meaning construction in this case are addressed in one task. Furthermore, reading and listening may be used in the access phase. In addition to the traditional way of using these two language modes, i.e., to get introduced to the target topic or genre, students may read or listen to texts that respond to their initial ideas, that provide a problematization opportunity of their ideas and experiences, that tackle a marginalized view about the issue in question, or that may provide students with opportunities to distance themselves from their initial reactions and contemplate them with thoughtfulness. For instance, students may read texts that describe certain conflicts that some people have experienced because of practicing their hobbies and may compare these texts to the journals they wrote. They may read texts about the obstacles imposed on persons with disabilities in practicing their hobbies due to physical, environmental, and/or social barriers. 2. The meaning-construction phase. As discussed earlier, CALT does not only involve students in writing critically, but it also helps them construct various real-life texts that do not necessarily require any critical exploration. The aim of the meaning-construction phase is to engage students in producing such texts for authentic purposes, in the context of which students develop various writing and speaking strategies or subskills. Thus, this phase addresses the students’ needs to develop the strategies of cause-effect, description, narration, etc., but not through the typical school genres that isolate these strategies. For instance, the students who discussed their hobbies may write an advertisement about a football game, about a certain horror movie, and/or about a new social media tool in order to learn how to describe vividly. They may also write a report about the social media interaction around a certain significant event, about a certain movie, and/ or about a specific sports game. In report writing, students use more than one strategy, which may include cause-effect, description, narration, etc. They may

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write a story, not a narrative essay, to learn how to have a certain effect through creative narration, description, reflection, etc. The meaning-construction phase also targets some typical school genres like research papers and persuasive essays, which are actually needed in some contexts beyond the school walls. Other genres, typically ignored at schools, like petition letters, application letters, response pieces, etc., but not the outdated letters like a letter to a friend, may also be needed in the students’ lives; hence, they may be included in this phase but without too much focus on the letter format. Thus, instruction in this phase involves students in writing as a social practice, during which the needed strategies/subskills are addressed. The meaning-construction phase also involves students in the processes of text construction, capitalizing on some aspects of the process approach like drafting and revising. This aims to make students construct their texts appropriately so that they achieve their purposes and reach their audience in the best way possible. Thus, CALT gives the learners enough opportunities to make their meaning clear, to construct their tasks in ways to meet the targeted objectives, and to write with simulated real-life situations in mind, including purpose and audience. 3. The direct instruction phase. Direct instruction in text use and text production shares many common principles explained in the previous chapter, but text construction involves a distinct set of strategies and requires adequate knowledge of various genre types. Thus, direct instruction targets these strategies and genre characteristics in appropriate ways. • Strategy and Language Instruction Text production involves a set of complex subskills that differ between speaking and writing. In oral text production, the involved subskills include speaking fluently and with an appropriate tone and intonation, using socioculturally appropriate expressions, using appropriate body language, etc. The production of written texts involves using the appropriate text structure, using cohesive devices, producing coherent texts, revising, editing, etc. For a comprehensive list of speaking and writing subskills, see Brown and Abeywickrama (2010), Burns (2012), Seow (2002). Moreover, text-­ production tasks form opportunities for learning grammar, vocabulary, and the mechanics of language. The direct instruction phase capitalizes on these opportunities to provide skill and language instruction in the context of meaningful learning. Language and strategy instruction should be gradual and prioritized so that it helps students achieve specific objectives and progress toward more appropriate writing and/or speaking and better language. For instance, in constructing the advertisement mentioned before, students may receive direct instruction in the strategy of vivid description and in the vocabulary that may attract the audience. Although they may have other strategy and language needs, it may not be possible to address them all in this particular unit of instruction. Other objectives may be tackled in other lessons and instructional units. Additionally, in strategy instruction, the target strategy should be explained, modeled, and practiced. Whether you do one, two, or all

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three steps depends on the complexity of the strategy and on how well students respond to instruction. • Genre Instruction CALT calls for employing a variety of real-life genres in helping students become proficient, critical text producers, “… but to what degree should students adhere to genre conventions? How much direct instruction should teachers give, and which genres should receive more emphasis” (Ibrahim, 2015b, p. 18)? The degree of abiding by genre conventions depends on the nature and purpose of the language program or course and the students’ needs to realize their goals. School writing instruction usually aims to develop the overall composing skill of the learners and the general characteristics of a few genres, which allows a large degree of flexibility in abiding by genre conventions; hence, an overemphasis on genre characteristics in these contexts is counterproductive. Variation in explicit genre instruction is conditioned by the likelihood that the students have an immediate need to use the specific genre in formal or informal settings. For instance, students are not likely to compose advertisements or tourism brochures in their real lives except when they work in these domains. In language classes, they construct such texts to learn how to describe vividly and to present ideas creatively in interesting tasks. Thus, they just need some awareness on how to shape their texts so that they are clear about their general formats. However, reports and research, argumentative papers, are genres that students need in content area classes, in their higher education, and in some social contexts. This necessitates more focus on the characteristics of these genres in the context of meaningful tasks. In this sense, when the possibility that a specific genre is going to be used by students is high, teachers may focus on genre characteristics in the context of meaningful text construction. When such a possibility is not high, it is enough to make students aware of the organizational pattern and major features of the genre in question. In all cases, the focus should be on reading and writing different genres for various real-life purposes, in the context of which explicit instruction and model analysis are used to raise the students’ awareness of the possible patterns they can employ. Model analysis helps students in recognizing genre conventions, but it should not be overused. A few model-analysis activities suffice for the recognition of the features of a certain genre. Once students recognize the rhetorical characteristics and discourse employed in the genre in question, it becomes time wasting to give them more model-analysis activities. Furthermore, model analysis should be done in interesting ways that involve students in games, information gap activities, etc. As with any other direct instruction activities, students should know the purpose of doing model analysis and should link it to their text-production tasks. Additionally, it is certainly harmful to ask students to imitate model texts. Although some patterning exercises may be cautiously used, imitating a model text will leave the students with the false idea that writing is filling out a template. Instead, when students recognize the

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features of the genre in question, they can generate texts for authentic purposes, in the context of which they receive feedback on the rhetorical structures and discourse based on their needs for immediate and/or delayed mastery of a specific genre. 4. The problematization and critical exploration phase. As explained in Chap. 2, the problematization phase engages the learners in exploring the hidden assumptions of textual discourses, the underlying belief systems of their authors, the reasons for how they represent one view or party and how they marginalize others, and the manner with which these discursive representations may promote or demote justice. This takes place through extended discourse, i.e., through writing or speaking as response formats, which constitutes one dimension of critical text production. Another dimension of this phase lies in the critical exploration of the learners’ experiences and discourses regardless of their representation in printed or electronic texts. Various discourses have become so entrenched in the community’s social fabric that no specific print or electronic text is needed to write or talk about them. These discourses shape the beliefs and practices of the members of a certain community. Students may be engaged in questioning these discourses as well as the social practices and beliefs shaped by them without necessarily referring to any text. Moreover, the problematization phase involves the learners in exploring social problems that their communities suffer from. For instance, an oral problematization task may be initiated by the following question: one issue that emerged in your responses to the questions about your hobbies refers to your inability to practice sports easily due to the unavailability of time and of the needed facilities like affordable clubs or free public playgrounds. Why aren’t these available? Certainly, more questions will be asked to guide the discussion based on the students’ ideas. A writing task may also be given based on the discussion or as an alternative. 5. The alternative possibilities and representation phase. In text-use-focused instruction, this phase involves students in reconstructing the discourses embedded in a specific text. In text-production-focused instruction, another dimension is added: The reconstruction of the discourses that circulate in the learners’ communities so that they present a more just view of the issue at hand or offer better possibilities. For instance, students may be asked to write a newspaper article in which they explain the need for sports facilities and suggest measures to ensure that people from all socioeconomic backgrounds have access to these facilities in their contexts. Also, this task may be supported through intertextual practices. As Stevens and Bean (2007) stress, reading words to read the world is in essence intertextual. Intertextuality refers to “… how texts draw upon, incorporate, recontextualize and dialogue with other texts” (Fairclough, 2003, p.  17). An illustrative pedagogical event of intertextuality comes from a language course I taught to language teachers enrolled in an in-service training program. One of the topics we discussed was whether students evaluated as “weak” by teachers should repeat their classes. Many trainees were adamant in their view that these

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students should fail. During the discussion, I asked them to read an article against failing students, after which many of them either changed their minds or softened their views about making students repeat their classes. This could be followed by a campaign on alternatives to the assessment practices, in which students capitalize on texts similar to the one they read during the discussion. In these intertextual practices, students use all language modes (reading, writing, listening, watching, and speaking) in order to shape an informed view of the issue at hand, to reconsider their discourses, and/or to suggest better alternatives to the status quo.

Illustrations In this section, the focus of the critical literacy model on text production will be illustrated with three sets of instruction, as I noted before. Set I. How Do We Think of People with Mental Impairment? 1. The access phase. In class, students watch selections from “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” a movie directed by Lasse Hallstrӧm. They share their understandings of these selections in a whole class discussion. They may also talk about their expectations of the events in the parts they have not watched. 2. The meaning-construction phase. Students watch the whole movie at home and take notes of the notable events and dialogues to use in a later task. Then, they write a journal in which they express the feelings that the movie may have triggered in them. 3. The problematization and critical exploration phase. The teacher guides a class discussion to stimulate critical reflection on the feelings and thoughts that the students would have documented in their journals. The questions should problematize any discourse of pity toward people with mental impairment. The dynamics of the discussion determine what questions and activities to use, but the goal is to help students reflect on how they think and talk about this group and to develop a discourse of empathy, based on the view that all human beings should enjoy their right to life with dignity whatever our differences. 4. The alternative possibilities and representation phase. Students interview parents of children with mental disabilities to ask them about the challenges their children are facing. They give them a brief account of the movie and seek their opinions about it. Then, they present their findings in class. Alternatively, the class may organize a discussion in which some parents of children with mental disabilities give their views about the movie. The parents talk about the conditions in which they prefer their children to live.

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5. The direct instruction phase. The teacher takes notes of the learners’ oral performance and designs training based on the needs that may arise in the oral tasks. Training may target presentation strategies, fluency, etc. Set II. Housing 1. The access phase. The teacher tells students that they will search the net for houses they would like to rent and discusses with them good search strategies. She asks them for the characteristics of the house they would like to rent and gives them appropriate vocab that will help them find these houses based on English descriptions. 2. The meaning-construction phase. Students are given the following task: Suppose you want to move to another country or city. You want to rent an apartment. Choose the place to which you would like to move and search for apartments for rent in that place. Select the one you like most and write an email to your parents or to friends describing the apartment and giving them some details like number of rooms, rent, location, etc. 3. The problematization and critical exploration phase. Students are given the following task: You are members of a human rights organization working on the right of people to decent housing. You want to prepare a documentary in which you tackle the following points: • Causes for the unreasonable variation in the housing costs, whether to rent or to buy, in the same city, in the same country, and among countries • The impact of these sharp differences on ensuring everyone’s right to decent housing • The groups who benefit from these differences and the groups who do not • The tricks that housing advertisements play and the effect these have on people 4. The direct instruction phase. Students share the difficulties they may be facing in creating the documentary. The teacher guides them in tackling these difficulties. Students submit written first drafts of what they will include in their documentaries. The teacher reads them and identifies some rhetorical and/or language issues that students need to work on and devotes some time to that end. Set III. Technology 1. The access phase. Students do a vocabulary game to learn words they need in the other tasks. 2. The meaning-construction phase. Students carry out the following task: Your friend has asked you to help him/her choose a laptop. Skim and scan different computer brochures and websites, and select two or three laptops that you want to suggest. Then, write an email to your friend explaining why you suggest these laptops.

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3. The critical exploration and representation phase. Students are given the following task: Search for information about the companies that produce the laptops you prefer to possess. Also, search for the places in which these laptops are manufactured, the size of the manufacturing companies, the revenues of these companies, the wages the workers are paid, etc. Put these data in a table in order to compare them, and write an analysis essay in which you tackle the following points: • • • •

Are the laptops sold for fair prices? Why or why not? Are the revenues of the companies reasonable? Why or why not? Are the workers paid fairly? Why or why not? Do the companies compete reasonably? How? Does this competition serve the consumer? How? • What do you conclude about whether or not competition serves the common interest of people? Are there better alternatives to competition? 4. The direct instruction phase. The teacher reads the first drafts of the students’ essays and provides written feedback on rhetorical issues like depth of the analysis, coherence, organization, etc. When she reads the final drafts, she marks some language issues and works with the students on making corrections in class. Alternatively, some grades may be taken off which the students regain when they make corrections themselves. Students may make the corrections in groups; they may be asked to refer to previous grammar and vocabulary lessons that help them make the corrections.

Why the Meaning-Construction Phase? Some may question the “meaning-construction” label of one of the CALT phases, for meaning construction happens in all phases in the model to various degrees. For instance, critical analysis and alternative representation tasks help students generate deep understandings of significant social issues, but they are based on deconstructing and reconstructing various significant experiences and the discourses that affect our lives in one way or another. However, the meaning-construction phase incorporates all the social practices, including academic situations and genres, that the problematization and alternative representation phases do not encompass, i.e., the meaning-construction phase engages the learners in constructing transactional, vocational, and academic tasks that do not necessarily require deconstruction and reconstruction of issues, texts, and discourses. The different illustrations exemplify the broad range of tasks that may be constructed in the meaning-construction phase, i.e., a report about organizing a sports game event, a multimedia news report about space exploration (Chap. 1), a talk show about the technology generation gap, a reaction piece to an aesthetic recitation of “Passport” (Chap. 2), a survey about hobbies, a journal about the feelings triggered by “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” an email about a house to rent (Chap. 3), etc. The meaning-construction phase, then,

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aims to direct the attention of the program developers, material developers, course designers, and teachers to the need to address various real-life purposes in language classes. Again, this should be based on the local pedagogic and social conditions, on factors related to the participants, and on institutional conditions and constraints.

Conclusion By and large, this chapter demonstrates how text-production instruction can build on the view that language teaching is a social practice that connects the personal with the political and the private with the public (Morgan & Vandrick, 2009; Shor, 2009) and that considers students as people with agency and with an internally persuasive discourse (Tate, 2011). To that end, this chapter clarifies how the CALT model addresses the various language components and skills necessary for students to become competent, critical text producers. The model gives teachers enough flexibility to balance instruction in a way to incorporate critical literacy and school-­ mandated skills and knowledge in a principled and informed approach.

Chapter 4

Critical Literacy in a Foreign Language: Deeper Insights into Theory

Before exploring the theoretical underpinnings of critical literacy, it is important to clarify the different terms used to describe critical approaches to education, the meaning of criticality, and some origins of critical literacy. “There is much debate about what is meant by a “critical approach” to education and applied linguistics” (Hawkins & Norton, 2009, p. 30). Hawkins and Norton explain that a number of terms are used interchangeably to describe a critical approach to education, and these include critical theory, critical pedagogy, critical literacy, critical applied linguistics, critical language awareness, critical discourse analysis, critical reflection, liberatory education, social justice education, education for equity, transformative practice, empowerment, and praxis. These terms reflect the view that education is a political enterprise (Benesch, 1993). Because education reflects a vision of the society, which is always someone’s partial, non-neutral dream, it has a moral and a political dimension, and it serves the interests of the powerful groups whose vision dominates (Freire, 2001; Simon, 1992, as cited in Benesch, 1993). Critical education scholars argue that this partial dream should always be subjected to critical examination in order to make it more just and inclusive of the concerns and interests of all social groups. But what is meant by the term “critical”?

Critical Approaches: An Important Distinction Criticality is best described by Shor (2009) as “… habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse” (p.  279). This © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_4

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comprehensive definition implies that students are participants in the educational process. It also means that critical pedagogues should give students every possibility and resource to question the discourses that impact our lives and to interrogate the world for its injustices. This view of criticality goes beyond the traditional concept of critical thinking, which refers to the skill of problem-solving, of evaluating the credibility of any argument, and of making intelligent choices. “Critical thinking is used to describe a way of bringing more rigorous analysis to problem-solving or textual understanding; a way of developing more critical distance as it is sometimes called” (Pennycook, 1999, p. 51). As Benesch (1993) argues, advocates of the so-­ called critical thinking espouse this idea of an apolitical version of critical work, which according to Pennycook (1999) “…is a far cry from the sociopolitical and socioeconomic work that critical applied linguistics seeks in … research and pedagogy” (p. 51). According to Pennycook, in critical education, “a central issue always concerns how the classroom, text, or conversation is related to broader social cultural and political relations. However, in a critical thinking class, teachers assume an objectivist view of knowledge and instruct students to evaluate texts’ “credibility,” “purpose,” and “bias” as if these were transcendent dualities” (p.  51). Benesch (1993) critiques this pragmatism of liberal educators for avoiding questions of power, justice, and difference. She suggests: We could… negotiate academic curricula responsive to urgent social, economic, and political issues, rather than serving one that is so narrowly focused on career preparation: The aim of education is not only to prepare students for productive careers, but also to enable them to live lives of dignity and purpose; not only to generate new knowledge, but to channel the knowledge to humane ends; not merely to study government, but to help shape citizenry that can promote public good. (p. 714)

Thus, critical education does not refer to problem-solving or to evaluating an author’s argument, despite the importance of these skills. It rather problematizes our experiences, our social discourses, and our life conditions. This aims to create awareness of how people can realize the dream of a world in which all humans enjoy a luxurious, nondiscriminatory, equitable, and peaceful life.

The “Critical Theory” and the “Resistance Theory” The critical theory, founded by the Frankfurt school and such thinkers as Adorno, Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, and Jurgen Habermas, has been foundational in the work of many critical pedagogues such as Freire, Apple, Giroux, and Canagarajah (Pennycook, 2001; Wallace, 2003). Critical theory scholars have been influenced by the Marxist theory of reproduction, which stipulates that schools are used to reproduce the values of those in power and to indoctrinate people to unconsciously maintain these values (Luke & Dooley, 2011). The critical theory proposes that our ideas, interactions, language use, texts,

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learning practices, and so forth, are not neutral and objective but are shaped by and within social relationships that systematically advantage some groups at the expense of others. Critical theorists explain that this social, economic, political, and cultural embeddedness of the different forms and contents of our interaction produces and reproduces inequitable relationships of power and makes the dominant ideologies look natural. This explanation challenges concepts like naturalism, rationality, and neutrality, advancing instead that our understandings of the world are constructed by contextual factors that are ideologically informed. From this standpoint, reality is subjective, social, and partisan (Hawkins & Norton, 2009; Wink, 2000; Zhang, 2009). Although critical pedagogy capitalizes on the explanatory power of the critical theory in calling for social action and change, critical pedagogues recognize the need for “resistance” (Zhang, 2009; Wallace, 2003). To that end, Giroux (1983) has developed “The Theory of Resistance.” This theory advances the view that educational institutions operate to maintain the status quo in the interest of the dominant groups, but it emphasizes transformative possibilities through the empowerment of humans (Giroux, 1983). It maintains that in order to empower humans with a transformative vision, agency must not only accommodate, mediate, but also resist dominating social practices (Giroux, 1983; Wallace, 2003; Wink, 2000). These and other conceptualizations of critical education have led, among other things, to diverse paths to critical literacy (Shor, 2009), which will be examined below.

 ritical Literacy Approaches: What to Adopt C in EFL Contexts? Three main theoretical orientations underpin critical literacy: the Freirean, the feminist and poststructuralist, and the text analytic. These approaches share the view that literacies are social practices, intricately bound to broader social, ideological, and political concerns (Cho, 2015; Huang, 2011a, 2011b; Luke, 2012; Morgan, 1997; Pennycook, 2001). From this perspective, all texts and discourses are interested human designs that should be subject to critical questioning (Shor, 2009). Although the various critical literacy approaches adopt the Freirean principle of problem-­posing to varying degrees (Wallace, 2003), they differ in some important ways both theoretically and practically. These differences have resulted from the varied schools of thought that gave rise to these approaches and, more importantly, from the sensitivity of critical literacy to contextual variation (see Luke, 2000/2012; Luke & Dooley, 2011; Morgan, 1997; Pennycook, 2001). It is this sensitivity that motivates the question: Which approach is more relevant to EFL contexts? In responding to this question, the main characteristics of each approach will be explained, and an argument for adopting the complementary views of two of them will be made.

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The Freirean Perspective One of the most influential philosophies of education is critical pedagogy, developed by the landmark scholar Paulo Freire (1970, 1972, 1973, 2001). Freire (1970) analyzed the educational system through a Marxist lens, describing it as “banking education,” and in response, he generated what he termed “problem-posing education.” “Freire’s work remains a major point of reference for many critically-oriented projects, though it’s drawn on and interpreted very differently from one setting to another, what is shared is a concern to offer people, through literacy, tools for the critical and creative analysis of their own circumstances” (Wallace, 2003, p. 62). To this end, Freire calls for engaging students in ideology critique and in deconstructing the dominant systems that create and maintain inequality, based on the students’ lived experiences and key problems (Luke & Dooley, 2011). This happens through problem-posing education that empowers the learners to read the word and the world in order to question power relations, discourses, and identities in an unfinished, unjust, and inhumane world (Freire & Macedo, 1987). Reading the Word and the World The notion of “reading the word to read the world” (Freire & Macedo, 1987) captures a central assumption in the Freirean approach to critical literacy. Freire and Macedo argue that learning how to read and write should be related to the students’ experiences and circumstances in order to dissect the conditions that shape their lives in the way they are. According to them, reading and writing classrooms should not only build on the students’ experiences but should also connect literacy practices and instruction to the social conditions in the students’ societies and in the world at large. Shor (2009), who has worked closely with Freire, explains that this aims to make us rethink our lives, to situate discourse in our historicity, and to examine the individual and group experiences in relation to the conditions of mankind in order to promote justice in place of inequity. Thus, according to Shor, critical literacy points to providing students not merely with functional skills, but with the conceptual tools necessary to critique and engage society along with its inequalities and injustices. From this viewpoint, “as students read words, they analyze their implications to their lives and to how the world is constructed. They also come to recognize different forms of struggle and collective action” (Ibrahim, 2015c, p. 443). To realize these goals, teachers use texts as a springboard to pose real-life problems, during which students name a problematic situation in their lives, reflect on it, and take action (Bishop, 2014; Freire, 1998; Ibrahim, 2008; Wink, 2000).

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Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals and Epistemological Curiosity Critical literacy involves the learners and the teachers in a continuous process of transformation, during which both are the subjects of constructing and reconstructing knowledge (Freire, 2001). According to Freire, this requires a teacher with a democratic vision who possesses a methodological rigor. Teachers with methodological rigor extend “… teaching… to the creation of the conditions for critical learning. These conditions imply and demand the presence of teaching and learning simultaneously in the context of a rigorous methodological curiosity anxious to explore the limits of creativity, persistent in the search, and courageously humble in the adventure” (Freire, 2001, p, 33). From this perspective, language tasks that problematize the students’ experiences and significant human concerns initiate students into reflection and action, which in turn motivates them to use all the language resources they possess in constructing knowledge that shape the human condition in more just ways. Freire’s following critique of some inhibiting reading practices provides a contrast that clarifies this idea: It becomes clear that the role of the educator is one of a tranquil possession of certitude in regard to the teaching not only of contents but also of “correct thinking.” Therefore, it becomes obvious that she/he will never develop a truly “critical” perspective as a teacher by indulging in mechanical memorization or the rhythmic repetition of phrases and ideas at the expense of creative challenge. Intellectuals who memorize everything, reading for hours on end, slaves to the text, fearful of taking a risk, and speaking as if they were reciting from memory fail to make any concrete connections between what they have read and what is happening in the world, the country, or the local community. They repeat what has been read with precision but rarely teach anything of personal value. They speak correctly about dialectical thought but think mechanistically. Such teachers inhabit an idealized world, a world of mere data, disconnected from the one most people inhabit. (2001, p. 34)

Transformative teachers, in contrast, stimulate the learners’ curiosity; this curiosity is characterized by restless questioning that aims to unravel what is hidden and to search for clarity in explaining the human condition (Freire, 2001). According to Freire, “There could be no creativity without the curiosity that moves us and sets us impatiently before a world that we did not make, to add to it something of our own making” (p. 37). This curiosity becomes what Freire calls “epistemological curiosity” when people are increasingly critical in their learning. Epistemological curiosity refers to the continuous process of getting immersed in the existing knowledge, constructing it, and producing something new. Freire (2001) categorizes what happens during the critical learning cycle as “two moments of the epistemological process”: being immersed in the existing knowledge and being open and capable of producing something that does not yet exist. “These two moments of the epistemological process are accounted for in teaching, learning, and doing research” (Freire, 2001, p. 34). The following selection exemplifies this gnostic cycle: “In the physical world itself, I am not impotent. For example, our knowledge of earthquakes has helped us develop the kind of engineering that now makes it possible to survive earthquakes. We can’t eliminate them, but we can minimize their effects” (Freire, 2001, p.  73). Thus, observing and recording

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occurrences and acting upon them in order to intervene in the course of events generate knowledge that is much deeper and significant than just a simple adaptation to the status quo.

The Feminist and Poststructuralist Views Poststructuralism refers to a philosophical and literary criticism movement that began in France in the 1960s, building on, as well as critiquing, the earlier movement of structuralism. Some prominent poststructuralists include Michel Foucault, Roland Barthe, Jacques Lacan, Mikhail Bakhtin, Pierre Bourdieu, Chris Weedon, and Jacques Derrida (Augustyn, 2021; Norton & Morgan, 2012). It is beyond the scope of this book to provide a full account of this philosophical movement, of which there are competing strands. As such, I will draw on some main propositions advance by Foucault to shed light on some of its theoretical constructs, including discourse, truth, knowledge, and power. Foucault (1980) argues that these four elements of our social bodies are integrated in that they function together within networks of power relationships. To make these propositions more accessible, I will summarize a discussion I had with my undergraduate students majoring in teaching English as a foreign language in the elementary classes. The discussion illustrates how discourses create truths at several levels and how both are inextricably linked to power and knowledge, as Foucault (1980) argues. In a children’s literature course, which I taught in the fall semester of 2021, my undergraduate students and I addressed the goals of involving children in reading stories and poems. Most class members emphasized that literature conveys messages that aim to teach children moral lessons, a belief held indeed by many language teachers. From a Foucauldian perspective, this educational discourse “produces truth” by the social groups constructing it, in alignment with these groups’ world views and interests. In this sense, “Truth is … a system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation and operation of statements (or discourses)” (Foucault, 1980, p. 133). This implies that the “morality” statement/discourse shapes many “truths” and circulates them. One of them is that literary texts embody ideal and universal representations of morality, which readers, children in this case, should infer and learn (see Chap. 2 for a detailed discussion of this idea). This in turn shapes another pedagogical “truth”: The instructional approach focusses on making children accept the text’s assumptions as unquestionable and internalize its messages as fixed morals. During the discussion, I challenged the students’ “morality” discourse by helping them question it from different angles. The give and take about the issue led to the emergence of another discourse, which I may describe as poststructuralist and categorize as “values” discourse for convenience. The students concluded during the discussion that literary texts, any text for that matter, are partial in the sense that they produce interested versions of the issue at hand; they represent the biases of their authors and the social groups with whom these authors are affiliated; they

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marginalize some views/ideas/information and emphasize others, and they have gaps in the sense that they do not cover all sides of the issue at hand (Mellor & Patterson, 2004; Norton & Morgan, 2012). They are underpinned by different value systems of the societies in which they are produced. This implies that values are relative, are not universal, and evolve over time. Thus, this “values” discourse shapes a regime of truths that is qualitatively different from the regime constructed by the “morality” one discussed before. Additionally, our discursive practices and the knowledge they induce are implicated in power relationships (Foucault, 1980). The “morality” discourse leads to conflictual power relationships at the social and at the pedagogical levels. Socially, viewing a text as an embodiment of morality implies that the social groups whose values are represented in this text claim possession of the ultimate truth. This leads to stereotypical judgments regarding what is moral and what is not. From a Foucauldian viewpoint, this discursive truth may result in conflictual power relationships among different social groups. Pedagogically, the learners from a poststructuralist perspective may initially come up with multiple interpretations of what they read (Mellor & Patterson, 2004; Norton & Morgan, 2012). However, the teacher with a “morality” discourse will repress these multiple meanings to impose her views of how to read and what lessons to derive from texts. Since she possesses more power than the students by the virtue of her institutional position (the school gives her the authority to make pedagogical decisions, to manage, to assess, etc.), students will compromise their initial understandings. Thus, the “morality discourse” generates unbalanced, conflictual power relationships among different social groups as well as within the same group, and this induces knowledge in accordance with the dynamics of these relationships. The “values” discourse also is constructed within power networks, albeit cooperative and non-repressive. In a class adopting this discourse, the members of the class interact to generate knowledge that is not predetermined, capitalizing on what power everyone possesses. A pedagogical approach based on this discourse engages students in problematizing the texts’ assumptions and content, in analyzing them, in readings open to varied, but legitimate interpretations, and in considering how different value systems, or regimes of truths, serve the interests of different social groups. A critical instructional approach based on this discourse would help students recognize how they may exercise their power cooperatively to generate knowledge that contributes to a more just world, a point that will be discussed later in this section. Foucault explains that power does not only repress, it also “…traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse” (p. 119). From this standpoint, students subjected to the “morality” discourse do not submit to the teacher’s views only because they have less power, but because they find the discourse of interest to them (enjoying what they learn, appreciating clear, straightforward explanations of the text, getting high grades, etc.). It may happen that some of these students challenge the teacher’s interpretations of what moral lessons to derive, in which case a change in the power relationship occurs. Consequently, from a poststructuralist perspective, discourse, knowledge, and power interact differentially and create different dynamics (Foucault, 1980).

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To illustrate how discourse produces knowledge within networks of power not only in texts, but also in the society at large, let us look at how this works in the societies that face economic and political hardships. During what is called “The Arab Spring,” for instance, one slogan/discourse has been repeated and popularized in several Arab countries; it says “the people wants to overthrow the regime”. This discourse has been circumscribed by other discourses about the corruption of the regimes and has functioned within existing networks of power relationship. As a result, different power relationships accrued differentially in various contexts. Another example refers to the hard economic, political, social, health, etc., conditions we have been through due to the unbelievable corruption that plagued Lebanon in complex political circumstances. People who have demonstrated in reaction to the situation have repeated the famous slogan “all means all” to indicate that all the political leaders are corrupt and should leave their positions. This discourse/truth has shaped the course of action that the demonstrators have pursued. Additionally, we have been attempting to stand up to the various enormous challenges by sharing our thoughts about the problems, by interpreting events, by arguing, by hoping that the situation gets better, etc. This is not material action; it is rather language in action or discourses that may generate collective knowledge and power to manage the situation; it results in different patterns of action. This depends on the discourse/ language each group speaks, which reflects their affiliations and identities. The poststructuralist ideas (relational power, the constructedness of truths and knowledge, the identities as the by-products of discourses, etc.) have been adopted by many feminist scholars, and both poststructuralism and feminism have given rise to a specific direction in critical literacy, distinct from, and in reaction to, the Freirean approach. However, although this critical literacy orientation is based on these ideas, the poststructuralist assumption that the different regimes of truths we create are neither wrong nor right has been critiqued for its absolute relativity. In analyzing their students’ discourses around a critical event, Norton and Morgan (2012) problematize this idea as follows: “In short, on what basis do we ultimately determine the “truth” of what happened and the best way to proceed?” (p. 5). They clarified: “Arguably, when truth, reality, and meaning become pluralized and destabilized—as the work of Derrida and Foucault would indicate—we can become politically paralyzed.” We become “prisoners of discourse,” as Sarup (1993, p. 97) suggests, both afraid to act and interpretively desensitized to the physical realities of poverty and violence, a critique also made by Luke (2009) in respect of discourses on race and racialization” (p.  5). People need to distinguish between right and wrong, between what is less fair and what is more fair, and between what may promote justice and equity and what may not. This has historically been underpinned by the poststructuralist understanding that truth is relative and that knowledge and power are constructed through discourse. The understanding that truth is relative and that knowledge and power are constructed discursively and historically have led to poststructuralist literacy approaches that aim to provide students with an understanding of textuality (i.e., of how texts work to advance certain agendas and to marginalize others) (Misson & Morgan, 2006). This is premised on the idea that all texts, literary and nonliterary, print,

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electronic, or multimedia, shape our social orders and practices as well as contribute to the formation of our identities. Let us take “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen as an illustration. From a feminist/poststructuralist standpoint, “The Little Mermaid,” like many other interesting children’s stories, portrays a patriarchal, stereotypical view of the relationship between men and women. The Little Mermaid fell in love with the handsome prince only because she saved him from drowning. She willingly lost her life for the sake of this love, although the prince did not recognize her. This textual discourse, which induces power differentially, shapes certain patterns of relationships and practices. It depicts women as the party who should always sacrifice and who is inferior to men. Additionally, “The Little Mermaid” romanticizes “the other” based on physical attributes. The sacrifices of the character were enormous based only on her passions toward a handsome prince with whom she had not communicated much. She changed her identity, and she died for someone whom she met accidentally. This stress on physical appeal shapes a stereotypical notion of beauty and marginalizes anyone who deviates from the ideal image that people construct. Consequently, someone who is not perceived as beautiful or handsome is inferior, a second class human being, cannot be loved, or even is rejected (Ibrahim, 2008). From a poststructuralist viewpoint, this is but only one among other multiple meanings that may be generated, and students should be enabled to reveal their different interpretations of the text. Poststructuralist scholars have presented many ways of engaging students in deconstructing texts and discourses (see Mellor & Patterson, 2004 for a comprehensive review of the different ways they have used over time). However, questioning the text is one strategy that has been highlighted in the literature. Stevens and Bean (2007, p. 11), for instance, suggest the following questions to help students deconstruct a text and see it from different angles: • • • • • • • •

Who/what is represented in this text? Who/what is absent or not represented? What is the author trying to accomplish with this text? For whom was this text written? Who stands to benefit/be hurt from this text? How is language used in specific ways to convey ideas in this text? How do other texts/authors represent this idea? How could this text be rewritten to convey a different idea/representation?

Wooldridge (2001) provides another set of questions to deconstruct and reconstruct texts: • What (or whose) view of the world or kinds of behaviors are presented as normal by the text? • Why is the text written that way? How else could it have been written? • What assumptions does the text make about age, gender, and culture (including the age, gender, and culture of its readers)? • Who is silenced/heard here? • Whose interests might best be served by the text? • What ideological positions can you identify?

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• • • •

What are the possible readings of this situation/event/character? How did you get to that reading? What moral or political position does a reading support? How do particular cultural and social contexts make particular readings available? How might it be challenged? (p. 261)

In short, poststructuralist/feminist educators have typically worked on engaging students in questioning the authors’ stances, in exploring the underrepresented or marginalized views, in examining texts from different perspectives, and in deconstructing and reconstructing texts. This aims to bring to consciousness how texts/ discourses are positioned by the authors’ choices and how they position the reader through their interested versions of what they address. It also intends to “…bracket and disrupt the texts’ “natural” given or taken-for-granted authoritative status in institutional and everyday contexts” (Luke & Dooley, 2011, as cited in Ibrahim, 2015c, p. 445). However, Norton and Morgan (2012) explain that a third wave of critical work has arisen, with the intention to re-engage the economic, materialist, and modernist conditions of the human being. According to the authors, this work involves students in analyzing how the social, economic, and political circumstances may promote and/or demote justice. The authors report on two class events to illustrate the workings of this orientation to critical literacy in the classroom.

Text-Analytic Approaches In countries like Australia and Britain, critical pedagogy has been critiqued for its endorsement of the “politics of voice” and ideology analysis at the expense of helping ESL students get access to the forms and structures they need to engage in both traditional and multimodal texts and to function in the society (Luke, 2012; Luke & Dooley, 2011; Luke & Woods, 2009; Pennycook, 2001). From this perspective, critical pedagogy does not attend to the incremental and developmental acquisition of language, texts, and discourses (Luke & Woods, 2009). Luke and Woods argue that critical pedagogy lacks a broader template for engaging students with levels of linguistic and discourse complexity as well as with diverse cultural uses of literacy in a developmental manner; it also overlooks their need to master a range of scientific and other textual genres needed for membership in various scientific and social communities. Pennycook (1999, p. 338) summarizes this argument as follows: Many … argue for providing students with access to the different genres, drawing on propositions by Delpit (1988) that well-intentioned, white liberal pedagogies that back away from overtly teaching “the culture of power” do not help African Americans and on similar propositions by Australian genre theorists (Christie, 1996; Hammond & Macken-Horarik, 1999). They contend, therefore, that students need to master generic structures before they can engage in critical literacy and that skipping that overt instructional process in favor of a general injunction to be critical does a disservice to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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According to text analysis scholars, overlooking the need of ESL students to master the genres of power does not lead to equitable access to the functions of texts, which represents an essential component to redistributive justice (Luke & Dooley, 2011). In response to this need, text analysis approaches to critical literacy focus on grammatical and semantic models of critical reading through explicit instruction in and direct access to genres of power (Luke & Woods, 2009). This was augmented by critical discourse analysis (Clark et al. 1990a, 1990b; Janks, 2010), “… an explicitly political derivative of systemic functional linguistics” (Luke, 2012, p. 5). This aims to help students unravel the ideologies embedded in various genre structures and in the linguistic choices associated with them and to interpret the social functions they serve; it manifests itself in a critical language awareness (CLA) approach (Clark et al. 1990a, 1990b). CLA entails training students in analyzing a range of text types, focusing on lexico-grammatical structures, on the ideologies embedded in texts, and on the identifiable conditions in which texts are produced and used (Luke, 2012, 2000). “Language awareness programs (from this perspective) ought, therefore, to help children develop not only operational and descriptive knowledge of the linguistic practices of their world, but also a critical awareness of how these practices are shaped by, and shape, social relationships and relationships of power” (Clark et al., 1990a, p. 250). “This enables teachers and students to focus on what texts say, that is, how words, grammar, textual and discourse choices shape a representation or “version” of the material, natural and sociopolitical worlds. It also enables a focus on what texts “do”, that is, how words and grammar bid to establish relations of power between authors and readers, speakers and addressees, designers and digital text users” (Luke & Woods, 2009, p. 7). Clark et al. (1990a, 1990b), Luke (2012, 2000), Luke and Dooley (2011), and Wallace (2003) argue that this provides students with the technical resources to analyze how words, grammar, and discourse choices create interested versions of the “truth” and establish power relations with the audience. According to Luke (2012), students gradually acquire language, genre structures, and discourses and become able to critique the ideological contents of texts. Practitioners and researchers adopting the CLA perspective borrow from systemic functional grammar to examine the textual ideological positioning. For example, Janks (1997) suggests looking for the following in a textual analysis: • • • • • • • • •

Lexicalization Patterns of transitivity The use of active and passive voice The use of nominalization Choices of mood Choices of modality or polarity The thematic structure of the text The information focus Cohesion devices (p. 335)

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Thus, in reaction to the “voice pedagogy,” text-analytic approaches focus on the technicalities of genre construction

EFL Contexts: The Case for Two Complementary Views One of the main theoretical debates about critical approaches to ESL centers around the following question: Does critical literacy aim to empower these groups so that they make their voices heard, or does it aim to provide them access to the dominant discourses, economies, and cultures so that they integrate well in the host society? This debate between the advocates of “voice pedagogy” and the proponents of “access pedagogy” (see Luke, 2012; Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Pennycook, 2001) has resulted from the Western concern to advance ESL policies and instruction conducive to the inclusion of immigrants and linguistic minorities; it has been the focus of instruction and research in some contexts (e.g., J. Hammond & Macken-­ Horarik, 1999; Reppen, 2002; Wallace, 2003). In an interesting study, J. Hammond and Macken-Horarik (1999) examined the ESL students’ need to control mainstream literacy practices and to have enough cultural and linguistic knowledge before they become engaged critically with texts. They also explored the time and effort needed for systematic instruction to assist students in developing such resources. The study focused on a 10-week unit of reproduction in a biology program for year 10 secondary students in an Australian school. The teacher of this class supported students with explicit language and genre instruction in order to enable them to engage in critical reading, writing, and talking about the ethical considerations implicated in various aspects of reproduction. The students also analyzed, in groups, the social functions of the typical genres in science study, explanation, report, procedure, exposition, and discussion, as well as the language patterns these genres employ to achieve these functions; they were asked to follow a written framework of explanation provided by the teacher. J. Hammond and Macken-Horarik concluded that the treatment developed the students’ scientific knowledge as well as their ability to produce explanatory texts. According to them, students also showed an increasing ability of speaking, reading, and writing critically. However, although some weak students started talking critically about complex materials, they “…did not produce much in the way of written critical texts…” (Hammond & Macken-Horarik, 1999, p.  549). Based on their case analysis, the researchers suggested that critical literacy development of weak ESL students is dependent on their control of mainstream literacy, that systematic instruction should incorporate the provision of the knowledge and language support students need alongside their involvement in critical literacy in a well-balanced program, and that this instruction should take the time and effort it requires. Reppen (2002) reported on a pilot ESL unit of instruction in a grade 5, social studies class about explorers. Reppen examined whether providing students practice with school-valued ways of writing may increase their content knowledge. The unit was implemented in a public school which enrolls Native Americans, Hispanics,

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and European Americans fairly evenly in each of its classes, in a small city in Arizona. Reppen used the genre approach to literacy, in which she combined aspects of process writing with language arts activities and with direct instruction in different genre forms. Six explorers were studied through interesting tasks that simulated the following situations: “After the explorers returned, they would have told these stories (narrative). Second, they would have given detailed descriptions of the places and people that they had seen (descriptive). Explorers would have had to persuade crew members to accompany them, and royalty or other affluent people to fund their expeditions (persuasive). Finally, explorers would have had to provide reports about their explorations (expository)” (p. 323). The students discussed particular characteristics of each genre and compared the different genres with each other. “For example, students compared the verbs used in narrative, descriptive, and persuasive texts and realized that the action verbs used in narratives (e.g., sailed, conquered, explored) are not found in descriptions, in which be and have are common, and that the persuasive texts had a lot of emotion verbs (e.g., think, feel, know)” (Reppen, 2002, p. 323). The students practiced with the genre models in a way linked to their tasks. Reppen concluded that through the strategies of direct instruction in genre characteristics, of explicit practice and guided support, and of modeling, students were familiarized with different text formats, became aware of various ways of text construction, and could focus their attention on the content to be studied simultaneously. According to the author, modeling through think-aloud happened during joint text construction on an overhead projector, which allowed students to gain valuable insights into decisions made during text construction. She added that students also had opportunities and tools to talk about language and worked to overcome their strong tendency to write narratively whatever the task; they became aware that tasks with different purposes demand texts with different genre characteristics. Reppen hypothesized that “The results … indicate that this approach may offer ESL students valuable practice in various school-valued ways of writing while they learn content material and work through steps in the writing process” (p. 326). Both Reppen (2002) and J.  Hammond and Macken-Horarik (1999) described interesting, real-life tasks in their studies. However, although both used some very helpful instructional measures, they emphasized explicit instruction in genre structures and the linguistic choices employed in the targeted genres to express specific social functions. While this may be relevant to contexts like the Australian and the American, it may not serve well the students in EFL contexts. Since genre is a cultural artifact representing the values of a specific cultural group, it is problematic to instruct students in genre structures and the affiliated linguistic choices, which vary from one culture to another. EFL students may not want to affiliate with any specific English culture and may not encounter the school genres in their social lives. Indeed, many school genres taught in EFL contexts do not have any value beyond the school walls (see Chap. 3). Research suggests that even the disciplinary authentic genres that students learn at the universities and may need in their careers may differ across contexts. For instance, Parks (2001) conducted a study about the adaptations that francophone

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nurses, who were trained to write nursing care plans during their studies in francophone universities in the province of Quebec (Canada), had to make to the genre when they were employed to work in an English-medium hospital in Montreal. Eleven nurses participated in the study, and the qualitative data included interviews, observation on the units, and the collection of documents including a formal task. Parks found that before they started their work as nurses, the participants viewed care plans as university-based genre of little significance to their future career. When these nurses entered the workplace, however, they started to see the use of the genre in their professional work and “… began to perceive differences between the way they had done care plans while at university and those which they had begun to do on the units” (p.  415). Some of these key differences were the level of detail required and the structure of the care plans. At the university, the nurses learned to construct a three-part care plan, with details about a patient’s diagnosis, cause of illness, and symptoms, and they were instructed to avoid the use of certain medical language. However, their experiences as nurses in the hospital and their interaction with colleagues made them recognize that the care plan did not often take the detailed three-part structure that they had been taught to use in school and that the language of medical diagnosis was encouraged in their professional context. Parks (2001) explained: “The crucial differences that the nurses recognized between what they were taught and what they were required to construct in their workplace caused them to adapt the care plan genre to fit the new socio-rhetorical context, influenced by colleagues and by perceptions of the genre and the motives or purposes they associated with it—dispositions which were informed by their beliefs and personal histories” (p.  408). Depalma and Ringer (2014) interpreted Parks’ results in light of the notion of “adaptive transfer” that they have coined. The researchers concurred with Parks that the nurses’ simplification of their care plans in their professional setting did not indicate a lack of linguistic competence or of genre knowledge, but it rather signified adaptations of what they learned to fit their new socio-rhetorical situation. Hence, adaptive transfer was at work, as Depalma and Ringer hypothesized. The authors defined adaptive transfer as “… the conscious or intuitive process of applying or reshaping learned writing knowledge in new and potentially unfamiliar writing situations” (p. 46). They characterize adaptive transfer as follows: • Dynamic, premised on the notion that writing practices learned in one context may be reused or reshaped in another, thus allowing space for change and fluidity • Idiosyncratic, in that they are particular to individual learners and influenced by factors such as language repertoire, race, class, gender, educational history, social setting, genre knowledge, and so forth • Cross-contextual, occurring when learners recognize a resemblance between a familiar writing situation in which a skill was learned and an unfamiliar writing situation in which rhetorical production is required • Rhetorical, meaning that it takes place when a writer understands that the context, audience, and purpose of a text influence what is suitable

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• Flexible, in that it makes space for the possibility that differences in students’ texts are “matters of design” or the result of a “strategic and creative choice by the author to attain his or her rhetorical objectives” • Multilingual, in that it views all languages and varieties of language as fluid and in process and in that it recognizes the agency of writers to draw from among a variety of discourses and languages in order to influence contexts of writing • Transformative, recognizing that writers shape and are shaped by rhetorical practice, hence allowing for the possibility that newcomers working with a genre might act as brokers who introduce new ways of seeing, doing, or knowing into writing practice (pp. 46–47) The interesting concept of adaptive transfer implies that any rigid focus on genre characteristics in writing instruction, even in settings where a particular genre is needed socially and professionally whether in L1 or in ESL/EFL settings, may be counterproductive. It shows how the assumption of “access pedagogy” that disciplinary discourses and texts are stable and uniform is at odds with the observed co-constructed dynamics of these discourses, as Morgan and Ramanathan (2005) argue. The implications of the notion of adaptive transfer are even greater for writing instruction in English for general purpose courses, the regular courses required in schools. Actually, many genres taught at school in EFL contexts do not have any social significance. They also may differ among schools in the same country where English is taught as a foreign language. Thus, the emphasis of the text-analytic approach on the students’ learning of genre characteristics in the way of accessing the genres of power is inappropriate and may be counterproductive in EFL contexts. Any rigid adherence to genre characteristics through a focus on explicit instruction will lead to what I call “resistive transfer,” which may happen when the participants resist the challenges that a new rhetorical situation presents to the skills and experiences they bring with them. Indeed, abiding by a rigid genre system, as is the case in many EFL contexts, gives the students the impression that formulaic writing is the only real-life way of writing, at times when many of these formulas should be challenged for their inauthenticity. This fixation of school-genre formulas may lead students to resist changes that new rhetorical situations demand. Moreover, science and many other domains of knowledge are viewed as social literacies in many Western countries (See Luke, 2000, 2012; Pennycook, 2001). However, in many EFL contexts, such disciplines are still viewed as knowledge that students should learn regardless of any social implications. These disciplines may be taught in the students’ native language, and hence, EFL has a little role to play in these disciplines. Additionally, in many context, TEFL still focuses on discrete skill development and the learning of discrete language items. This makes the analysis of genres and the associated linguistic choices as a target of language instruction difficult at best and harmful at worst—harmful because it will reinforce model imitation and language regurgitation and will reduce the opportunities for the meaningful engagement with the language. While many pedagogical notions and practices in many EFL contexts should be challenged, including the technical and static views of literacy and of knowledge,

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critical EFL instruction should be adapted to the particular setting in which it is implemented. The various examples given in the previous chapters illustrate how this can be done. Also, any overemphasis on voice pedagogy may put the marginalized groups at a disadvantage (Luke, 2012; Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Pennycook, 2001) and does not serve EFL learners in realizing their goals. Researchers call for combining elements from both pedagogies in an approach that views students as people with agency, capable of adapting to and influencing the rhetorical demands of a certain community (Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Pennycook, 2001). Even in disciplinary and vocational writing contexts, new comers should be viewed as agentive writers, who, through being immersed in experiential learning with appropriate guidance, will access the genres of power over time and will develop their writing expertise in certain genres as their socio-rhetorical situations demand. Some research employs a critical language awareness approach to language instruction in ESL/EFL settings (e.g., Janks, 2010; Wallace, 2003; Zinkgraf, 2003). For instance, Zinkgraf (2003) explored how EFL first year university students majoring in translation reacted to the CLA approach used in a language course. The CLA instruction lasted for 7 weeks and involved students in exploring how “… linguistic choices in any text might not only imply a subjective evaluation of facts and people, but also assumptions and ideological beliefs that have acquired the status of “facts” or unquestionable truths” (p. 4). The 40 university students analyzed 11 texts about social problems taken from the British press and arranged in five groups. Students worked intensively on analyzing the linguistic choices made in these texts to unravel how these choices were ideologically laden. The linguistic choices that were analyzed included voice, modality, quoting, normalization, etc. According to Zinkgraf, although the participants reported that they started being aware of how language choices hide the authors’ assumptions and beliefs, they found that the approach presented them with obstacles, some of which were: • The implementation demanded a lot of time. • The tasks were repeated too much to make the students familiar with the CLA procedure, which made the participants feel that they were repetitive and tedious. Zinkgraf’s findings illustrate how a focus on CLA in EFL classes may be inappropriate, particularly to school-students taking general English courses. Even university courses cannot afford the time required by this tedious approach, as Huang (2011a) describes it. An analysis of a few linguistic choices made in texts can be addressed without overwhelming the students with too much technicality, in an approach mainly based on the complementary views of the Freirean and the feminist/poststructuralist approaches. The instructional set about snipers in Chap. 5 illustrates this light use of a few CLA elements in this integrated manner. However, this depends on many factors including the nature of both the text to be analyzed and the task to be done, the duration of instruction, the familiarity of students with critical literacy, the language proficiency of the students, etc. In some Western countries, the relatively long history of critical literacy instruction,

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which has made it systemic in some contexts and familiar in others, facilitates the inclusion of complex text-analytic approaches into a balanced language program. The unfamiliarity with critical literacy by many school teachers, administrators, and policy makers in countries where English is taught as a foreign language as well as the nature and goals of EFL school courses make it hard to focus on unraveling the ideological nature of texts through the analysis of the technicalities of genre construction.

Questioning Texts and Discourses It is beyond the scope of this section to explain the commonalities and the differences between the Freirean and the poststructuralist views as well as the critiques each presents of the other (see Aronowitz, 1993; Luke, 2012; Morgan, 1997). EFL educators, however, may capitalize on their common assumption that education is a political human activity that interacts dialectically with the various types of discourses circulating at a particular time. This interaction affects our identities and shapes our lives in significant ways. Thus, literacy education should empower students to play agentive roles in shaping social, economic, and political discourses that are conducive to a more just world (e.g., Crookes, 2009; Freire, 1970; Giroux, 1983, 2007; Janks, 2010, 2012; Shor, 1993, 2009). To realize this goal, the two approaches call for questioning all texts and discourses. Although the scholars who theorize about discourse have significant theoretical differences, they share the view that discourses and texts are socially, economically, and ideologically situated. Additionally, “particular uses of language (as discourses) do not just arise out of an ideology or social practice but help to constitute it. Thus, people’s thinking (both their ideologies and their argumentation), their social actions and attitudes, and even their very sense of self are shaped by discourses” (Morgan, 1999, p. 2). Hence, students should be empowered to question any discourse and analyze its purposes and consequences. “Neo-liberal economics (currently) constitutes a planetary “newspeak” that lines the pages of newspapers, blogs, and screens with the language of “the market,” and with its images and discourses of competitive and possessive individualism” (Luke et al., 2007, p. 4). These discourses, according to A. Luke, C. Luke, and Graham, rationalize the ideology and practices of the new corporate order as well as its structural and material consequences and, by so doing, play crucial roles in realizing them; more importantly, they render these practices and consequences “… inaccessible and incomprehensible to the lay literate reader, viewer, and blogger” (p. 2). The discourses and practices of those who hold more power in the neoliberal system cause gross, systemic violations of the basic rights of people, such as access to clean water, health, housing, etc., and reproduce hardships and conflicts in many parts of the world. This demands that education should empower the learners to unravel the discourses and economies of unconstrained hyper-capitalism and of individualism (Giroux, 2007; Luke et al., 2007).

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 mpowerment and Access in EFL Contexts: E A Different Emphasis In EFL contexts, the concepts of empowerment and access take on different meanings than they do in English-speaking countries (see the section “EFL Contexts: The Case for Two Complementary Views”). EFL students should be empowered to realize their goals for learning a foreign language (social, academic, vocational, etc.) and should be provided access to the linguistic forms and textual structures that they may need beyond the school walls. Equally important, these students should be enabled to critically analyze texts and discourses and explore their social, economic, and political circumstances. To realize these goals, the Freirean and the poststructuralist views of education in general and of literacy education in particular should be adopted in EFL instruction in complementary ways, as some scholars argue (e.g., Aronowitz, 1993; Janks, 2010). Furthermore, such instruction should accommodate some solid language acquisition research findings in a balanced approach. This approach should stimulate the students’ desires to learn the language, should help them realize the goals set either by their institutions or by them, and should empower them to question what they read and hear as well as their life conditions. In this approach, direct instruction in text structure and in language form should address well-determined and prioritized needs of the students; it should be facilitative of the developmental acquisition of language and the characteristics of particular genres which the target groups may need in their lives; this, however, should happen in the context of meaningful language experiences. CALT actually balances among these various pedagogical concerns, as evident in the previous chapters.

Conclusion It may be counterproductive to import any pedagogy, particularly critical literacy pedagogies, which has been reported as successful in ESL/L1 settings to EFL contexts without careful considerations of the conditions of these contexts. The goals and the institutional circumstances of EFL instruction and the broad educational, social, political, and economic conditions of EFL learners differ significantly from those of ESL as well as among different EFL student groups. Many EFL learners, for example, do not wish to travel to English-speaking countries or to become citizens of these countries, and they have varied desires to learn the language. Additionally, the duration of instruction they receive determines the instructional priorities. This demands that we make appropriate pedagogical choices grounded in suitable theoretical framing.

Chapter 5

Foreign Language Learning and Critical Literacy: Patterns and the Two Cases of Issam and Hameed

Since critical literacy cannot follow a template because of its sensitivity to contextual conditions, scholars argue for offering illustrative case studies that show teachers how this approach can be adapted to fit different student groups and to operate under varied institutional constraints. A relatively limited number of studies has done so in EFL contexts. Some of these studies have examined how the discourses of EFL education reflects sociopolitical power structures and/or how the EFL learners’ social experiences may enrich learning (e.g., Hammond, 2006; Kubota, 2014; Lin, 1999, 2004; Norton, 2007). A few other researchers have examined how critical and traditional literacies may be integrated in EFL university courses (e.g., Huang, 2012; Huh, 2016) and how multimodal text production may engage students in critical literacy (e.g., Ajayi, 2015; Huang, 2015; Stein, 2004). Most other studies report on the EFL learners’ engagement in and reactions to critical literacy instruction (e.g., Abednia & Izadinia, 2013; Ghahremani-Ghajar & Mirhosseini, 2005; Huang, 2009, 2011a, b; Ibrahim, 2015b, 2017; Izadinia & Abednia, 2010; Ko, 2013; Ko & Wang, 2012; Kumagai & Iwasaki, 2011; Kuo, 2015; Sadeghi, 2008; Shin & Crookes, 2005b). Many of these studies have revealed that even beginner language learners enjoy critical literacy instruction and think positively of it. Only a few of them, however, have explored the challenges that EFL teachers face during a prolonged implementation of critical literacy, and none has tracked the development of EFL students’ language and critical stances over time (Bacon, 2017). The present chapter responds to this need; it also addresses the EFL educators’ fear that critical literacy instruction takes time at the expense of helping students develop their language abilities for functional and academic purposes and that critical language tasks may be particularly hard for students with beginner language (Bacon, 2017; Ko, 2013; Ko & Wang, 2012; Kuo, 2009; Zhang, 2008). The chapter reports on a case study of one-year implementation of CALT in a high-school EFL class, guided by the following questions:

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_5

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• How does EFL high-school students’ language develop during a one-year critical literacy instruction? • What factors affect the instructors’ implementation of CALT that attends to language form, to traditional language skills, and to critical literacy practices in a balanced way? • How does prolonged critical literacy instruction affect the students’ language identities as well as their desires to learn English?

Participants and Context Twenty-four male students whose ages ranged between 15 and 16 years participated in the research. The participants, who were given pseudonyms, were enrolled in a public high school in the Southern Suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, an area mainly populated by people from the low and middle social classes. “Many demonstrations and strikes were organized in Lebanon during the period of the study, putting forth some economic and social demands and protesting some laws like the new rent law, which was the focus of the last instructional sequence” (Ibrahim, 2017, p. 446). Additionally, Lebanon and many other Middle-Eastern countries were, and still are, witnessing political troubles. In Lebanon particularly, it is difficult to explain all the subtleties of the Lebanese politics, which resulted from old religious and sectarian conflicts that had accumulated over time and that took different directions at different historical points. (The Lebanese Civil War that started between the Lebanese left and the Palestinian refugees on one side and the Lebanese right on the other quickly turned into a military struggle between Muslims and Christians.) The war that lasted for three decades ended in 1990. However, it turned into political (hardships) in which different religious groups have been trying to maintain their interests. The conflict between the two major Islamic sects in Lebanon, Sunnis and Shiites, was the latest twist in (this) political turmoil. The situation was even more complicated by the intervention of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, who targeted civilian areas dwelled mainly by Shiites with more than ten terrorist attacks (in a relatively short period). These attacks killed and injured hundreds of people. Some victims were relatives of some participants in the study during which two simultaneous suicide bomb attacks hit an embassy very close to the research site, causing many casualties. Fortunately, however, (neither the school nor its students were physically hurt) (Ibrahim, 2015b, pp. 446–447).

Instruction After meeting several times, Nijmeh, the instructor who cooperated with me in the study, and I came up with an instructional plan, which originally consisted of 13 instructional units. However, unexpected strikes forced us to implement only eight

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units described in Table  5.1. Also, the plan incorporated some school-mandated activities not mentioned in the table, because Nijmeh did not document when she implemented them; she, however, estimated that those accounted to not more than five sessions, dispersed throughout the year. The course materials consisted mainly of the school textbook, “Themes,” alongside some other supplemental resources. This was based on the observation that since bias is a normal, unavoidable aspect of expression, all texts, including school-sanctioned textbooks, are biased to various degrees (Huang, 2011a; McLaughlin & DeVoogd, 2004). In addition, most EFL teachers are restricted to using what their schools recommend. Indeed, this approach to material selection facilitated access to the research site; the participating school director welcomed the idea of engaging students in critical literacy as long as we use the school textbook. He also allowed the use of supplemental material. The eight units consisted of 19 sessions, each lasting for 50 minutes. The students carried out various reading, writing, listening, speaking, and drawing tasks about social, economic, and political issues, in addition to some vocabulary activities. Instruction was based on an older version of the CALT model.

Data Collection and Analysis The data in this case study consist of the following two sets: Set I. Set I comprises three tasks performed by two participants, Issam and Hameed, and an additional task carried out by Issam. The tasks are: • • • •

A critical analysis essay, unit 1, session 3. A simulated interview report, unit 5, session 11. A critical reflection, unit 7, session 16. A critical analysis essay, unit 8, session 19.

The four tasks represent different instructional periods beginning session 3, middle sessions 11 and 16, and end session 19. See Table 5.1 for a detailed description of each task. The two cases of Hameed and Issam serve well some purposes of this report, namely, to show: • The participants’ responsiveness to cumulative involvement in critical literacy in terms of developing, gradually, coherent critical positions. • The variation among students in how they develop their critical views as reflected in their tasks. On one hand, Hameed best illustrates the few participants who demonstrated a sophisticated critical stance despite their beginner language. On the other hand, Issam’s work represents many participants’ weak rhetorical and critical responses that evolved over time. • The degree to which students developed their language during their involvement in cumulative critical literacy practices with no or little form-focused instruction. • The relationship between desire and engagement as reflected in why Hameed did not do the last task.

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Table 5.1  The eight instructional units Unit Bringing homeless out of the cold, from BBC news

Session Instruction 1 • The teacher introduced the students to the topic of the text. She did a vocabulary game to familiarize students with the difficult words • Students were assigned the following roles for a talk show: Journalists, charity workers, psychologists, and homeless individuals • Students read the texts silently to prepare for the talk show • Students shared their understanding of the text in class under the supervision of the teacher 2 • Students were divided into four groups to perform the talk show. They were confused since they were not used to these tasks. The teacher modeled a dialogue between a journalist and a homeless individual. Then, students performed the task and took notes of their interaction 3 • Students used the notes they took in the talk show to write a critical analysis essay of the following points: The effectiveness of the NGO’s work as represented by the text, the consequences of depending on nongovernmental organizations in working with the homeless; better alternatives to the work of NGOs, and reasons for the persistence of the problem • Students read the poem silently and looked up the meaning of the My lost youth, 4 difficult words a poem by • Students shared some of their personal memories Henry • It was planned that a visitor reads the poem aesthetically; the Wadsworth teacher did that instead Longfellow • It was planned that the students address the reader in a letter about from “themes” how they felt while listening to the poem (was not done) • Students read the poem silently, identified repetitive themes, and drew the images that the poem presents. • A discussion was supposed to take place, with the following questions in mind (was not done): • What makes the poet sad? • Why does he always refer to the thoughts of youth? • What dreams is he talking about and why haven’t these dreams been realized? • What does the poem remind you of? 5 • It was planned to train students in reading the poem aloud in a If, a poem by poetic way (was not done) Kipling from • The remaining activities in the session were not part of the original “themes” plan • Students watched a short movie that sheds light on an alleged problematic teen-father relationship • Students were shown five pictures and were asked to group them into those that symbolize a harmonic relationship and those that represent a problematic relationship • Students discussed what leads to a problematic teen-parent relationship • Students shared their experiences related to the issue 6 • Students read verses they liked and explained what these verses mean • The teacher guided the students to come up with a reasonable understanding of the poem • Students wrote a similar poem in which they addressed their parents (continued)

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Table 5.1 (continued) Unit Marwan, a Lebanese famous song translated into English, from “themes”

Session Instruction 7 • Students listened to the Arabic song before they read the poem. Then, they read the translated version at home and found the meaning of the difficult words (not part of the original plan) • Students read the verses they liked in the poem and stated why they liked them • In a journal, students wrote about the emotions that the poem expresses and mentioned the verses that express these emotions 8 • Students were divided into two groups. One group played the role of journalists. The other played the role of people planning to immigrate and/or work abroad. The journalists interviewed the members of the other group about reasons for leaving their countries, about their responses to the call of the poet to come back, and about their feelings caused by having to go abroad. Teacher and students took notes of the interview 9 • Students were trained in writing a report about the interview as preparation for a similar task • Students read the text and used it to write a biography about mother Woman of the 10 Teresa, illustrating it with drawings of the scenes the text describes world, a text • Then, they brainstormed ideas in response to the following about mother question: What made the woman famous? Teresa from “themes” 11 • Students imagined that they interviewed people with whom mother Teresa worked. They wrote a report in which they had to document the interviewees’ opinions on the following: Their life conditions, their relationship with mother Teresa, their preferred solutions to their problems, and their reactions to the textual descriptions of mother Teresa • Students read and discussed the short story “The sniper,” a 12 short story by 13 • Students discussed causes and effects of wars (not part of the O’Flaherty original plan) from themes • Students read the three newspaper articles and tabulated the “Sniper fire information these articles presented about sniping that was taking kills two in place at the time in Tripoli, a Lebanese city Lebanon’s 14 • The teacher guided a discussion around the following questions: Tripoli,” from • How do the three articles differ in presenting the events? Al-akhbar • Which one is more biased? Why? newspaper • Has your background affected your choice? How? “Tension: • Can the other articles be biased? Why? Sniper fire in • How can you determine the more biased article? What textual ideas Tripoli,” from support your choices? Annahar newspaper “Sniper fire wounds two in Tripoli,” from the daily star (continued)

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Table 5.1 (continued) Unit Suicide explosions in Lebanon

“Lebanese parliament votes on new rent law” a web blog

Session Instruction 15 • Students selected an image from the social media about the suicide bomb attack that had shortly taken place by that time close to their school, commented on it, and discussed their comments 16 • Based on the discussion in the previous session, students wrote a critical reflection on the following: Their feelings during and right after the moment of the explosion, their reactions to the event, their interpretations of the attackers’ motives and goals, their understandings of the Lebanese political situation, and their suggestions for possible solutions 17 • Students were introduced to the new words in the text through a game • They read the text silently and shared their understanding of it in a class discussion 18 • Students worked in groups, each of whom was assigned one of the following roles: House owners, tenants, government representatives, and representatives of human rights NGOs. They carried out a simulated talk show about the fairness of the law 19 • Students used their notes from the previous task in writing a four-paragraph critique of the text’s claims that the new law is fair to everyone, that the new law will lead to lower rents and lower house prices, and that the new law will boost the economy • Students were instructed that they can either support or oppose the claims of the text, taking into consideration the points of view of those whom the text marginalizes

Three analysis methods were used to analyze the participants’ responses. To facilitate the analysis, the sentences in each response were numbered. • Analysis of the non-target like structures that occurred in every response, i.e., error analysis (EA, in order to show whether or not there was any improvement in the participants’ language). To that end, the non-target-like forms were ­categorized. The frequencies of each error category were calculated, and their location were determined in each response. These were tabulated and presented in Appendix B. In order to determine whether or not the non-target-like forms, interchangeably termed “interlanguage,” decreased across tasks, the frequencies of the error categories in the different tasks were tabulated and compared in the findings section. • Discourse analysis (DA) that intended to show the degree to which the students’ texts were coherent and whether or not they became more coherent over time. • Critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore how the critical views of the two participants evolved over time. Set II. The second data set comprises the following: • A structured interview with three participants to seek a deeper understanding of their responses to some tasks. • Two focused groups of 10 participants each to elicit the students’ views toward CALT to which they had been exposed. • Three interviews with the instructor to explore her views about the course.

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The data collected through these tools were analyzed thematically. The themes were not predetermined, but they emerged from the data and were revised several times.

Findings and Discussion Most participants demonstrated beginner language proficiency in the various tasks they performed during the course. These tasks revealed non-target-like language forms that included sentence structure, punctuation, prepositions, pronouns, articles, coordinators, etc. However, this beginner language did not hinder the development of many students’ abilities to engage critically with the texts and with the issues tackled in the course. This does not mean that language proficiency did not have an effect on the students’ performance; it rather means that students could develop their critical views over time regardless of their language proficiency. In addition, involvement in critical literacy stimulated the students’ desires to use the target language even voluntarily and gave rise to their various language and social identities. However, this did not go without challenges, and a few participants exhibited strong resistance to CALT.

 ow Have Issam and Hameed’s Critical Writing Developed H Over Time? This section includes Issam and Hameed’s responses to the four tasks specified in “Data Collection”: The DA and CDA on these responses will be presented, and a comparison will be made between the two students’ development over time in terms of how critical and how coherent their responses were. Task 1: Critical analysis of “Bringing Homeless Out of the Cold” Issam’s response Hameed’s response 1. According to the text, we have homeless is spread 1. Homelessness describe the condition of people without a a phenomena, which is mean that not only in regular dwelling, developing countries but also in the developed 2. People who are homeless lack to countries and exactly in London. safety, security, and adequate 2. The homelessness is over 150 and it is spread in housing. all the societies, and the role of nongovernmental 3. The thing that surprise is that we is not effective so that the alternatives should found 150 people who sleep rough taken. on Central London’s streets because 3. The situations of homelessness in London are 2 of non effective role of the charity short stories and they have mental problems and necessitating practical alternative suffering from the severe, without forget that they should be taken. haven’t a shelter’s to live in, (continued)

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Task 1: Critical analysis of “Bringing Homeless Out of the Cold” Issam’s response Hameed’s response 4. It is like what mentioned up a big phenomena that 4. The role that some organization do, is no effective, because this obliged the government and the rescue team and charity’s team, can also solve one the journalists to protect them and to be provide problem from around 150 condition them in all kinds of living. found on Central London’s street. 5. Moving to the role effective for the homelessness, 5. This limit role is due to many in my opinion they are the most effective people causes. and by depending on the text by petra salva and julie Brett are from the 2 people that are effective 6. The small number of volunteers, also due to the few number of in a higher degree from this phenomena and they benefactors, but on the other side, are from the 150 people that they are vulnerable government is who take to the risk of the big problem and from the responsibility of these homeless situations that they suffering in it, like, for people, example, didn’t have a shelter to live, don’t have a big providing from those who are responsible and 7. It don’t support this charity’s team with any money. without forget the problems and conflicts that they 8. According to text, that charity’s fallen, street rescue team is insurable to 6. On the other hand by the same idea we have the homes and shelters to this London’s people that they suffering from this problem those human. who sleeps under cardboard boxes in a souvenir 9. As suredly, the consequence of shop doorway at the marble arch, depending on non-governmental 7. In general it is a terrible cases of violence and organization in working with abuse that homeless people can experience. homeless is negative by Petra, the 8. In order to discuss the solutions that it may help one of volunteer in charity team these people, and to prevent these bad phenomena said “it took two years totally to get to spread, it depend on the government and the a person off the streets” so the team rescue team, the journalists. funding is don’t exapt them to help 9. All these cases have effected role to stop this this cases. conflict, 10. They should be providing like shelters a place that 10. Also, depending on this nongovernmental charity open the way they can live in it all their life, and by moving the of government to still sleeping on people that they are crazy and suffering from this problem. homeless, 11. According to this negatively role of 11. The should be taking care from them in an depending on non-governmental appropriate way, by the way the first on that if is charity, some better alternative must responsible and more than others in protecting be taken. these peoples and why not to cure them from 12. Firstly, the media must shed light there diseases and all the solutions that it is duty on this cases and the numbers of on the government to support it by money, by this homelessness and the places of people sending them to help or by any way that them to help this cases. help government to taking care and put the 13. Also, they support this cases from homelessness in their priorities to reach a goal the economy of the government, helping then to prevent this phenomena from and for being series in work they spreading and by trying to decrease the numbers must put program for them and of them in all over the world. work on it, to being organized. 12. As a conclusion, this phenomena should be solved in a faster time can, by exerting all the efforts that 14. In conclude, this is not easy problem to be uncare with it, it help the government to stop and finish the 15. We must unforget that they are our biggest problem in all over the world. brothers in our country.

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The responses of Hameed and Issam to the homelessness task indicate that they possessed a similar beginner language level. Despite this similarity, however, CDA and DA presented below show that they varied in their ability to produce a coherent, written critique of the text. CDA of the participants’ critical analysis of “Bringing Homeless Out of the Cold” Issam’s response Hameed’s response Hameed engages the homelessness text critically, drawing Issam’s first response demonstrates an underdeveloped the inference that the NGOs described in the text are critical stance which culminates ineffective in tackling the homelessness issue because they can solve a few cases but cannot handle the whole problem in the argument that the (sentences 3, 4). He supports this inference with ideas from government, the NGOs, and the the text about the small number of volunteers, the small media should cooperate in number of the targeted beneficiaries, the long time it takes tackling the homelessness problem (sentences 4, 8, 10, 11). the rescue team to move one person from the street, and the lack of funding. He argues that under these conditions, In sentence 12, the student clarifies his proposal for the role NGOs cannot be effective in handling social problems.). He even makes an intricate, unconventional/un-normalized of the government. These few arguments seem to be based on a conclusion about the work of NGOs: Their presence gives the government excuses to evade its responsibilities general understanding of the (sentence 10). He supports his point with the text’s issue, but not on a critical analysis of what the text presents. information that the government decreased the funds it used to give to the NGOs. Hameed seems to possess a clear vision This conclusion is supported by of the government’s role in protecting the rights of everyone; the misunderstanding of some textual ideas that Issam shows in in this case there is no need for charity work which, according to him, is harmful. This vision, which embodies a his response. These complex notion of empathy, is evident in the participant’s misunderstandings include argument that since the homeless are our brothers in generalizing the number of the humanity, it is the government’s responsibility to take care homeless individuals in London of them (sentences 6, 14, 15). Hameed acknowledges the to all the societies (sentence 5) and using the story of one boy as complexity of social problems like homelessness, proposing if it happens with every homeless an interesting approach to handle them: a long-term program person (sentence 6). Thus, while funded and supervised by the government in cooperation with NGOs and the media (sentences 12, 13). Like Issam, Issam could somehow write critically about the homelessness Hameed could tackle the homelessness issue despite his issue itself, his ability to analyze beginner language. However, Hameed could also engage the text critically, and this is evident in the textual examples and the textual representation of the matter seems to need more work. ideas he uses in his critique.

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DA of the participants’ critical analysis of “Bringing Homeless Out of the Cold” Issam’s response Hameed’s response Hameed’s text is coherent to a significant degree Issam’s text about the homeless exhibits despite his formulaic introductory sentences that little coherence. The use of appropriate connecters and some appropriate pronouns define homelessness (sentences 1, 2). This is followed by his surprise at the presence of the contributes positively to this little coherence, e.g., “it is like what mentioned problem in developed countries, stating his thesis that serious steps should be taken (sentence 3). The up a big phenomena”, (sentence 4, student then moves to his argument about the “moving to the role’ (sentence 5), “in ineffectiveness of the NGOs mentioned in the text, general” (sentence 7) “as a conclusion” elaborating it appropriately (sentences 4-6). (sentence 13). However, the following Although Hameed uses inappropriate coordinators issues weaken this coherence: to shift to the role of the government in sentence 6   • Starting the introduction with a and does not use a transition to link the sentence to transition; sentence 7, the students’ ideas are focused. For   • Repeating the following ideas: example, sentence 8 explains why the government Homelessness is a spread phenomenon should cooperate fully with the NGO; without this (sentences 1, 2); cooperation, the NGO’s work will have serious The homeless live without shelters negative consequences that the student explains in (sentences 3, 5); More than one side should help in solving sentences 9 and 10. Based on that, the student offers his proposal for the work that may solve the the problem (sentences 4, 8, 9, 12, 13); problem in sentences 12 and 13. This proposal is In addition, the use of run on sentences coherently linked to the problem explained in the further strengthens the sense of previous part of the response through sentence 11. incoherence characterizing Issam’s task. Sentences 14 and 15 conclude the response in a However, Issam’s arguments are relevant subtle way although they are not linked well. to the task specifications. Task 2: The simulated interview with the beneficiaries of Mother Teresa’s work Issam’s response Hameed’s response 1. During my tour for some poverty people we 1. Poverty is a situation of some one who lack to a basic materials and need of life, conducted an interview with them. 2. We notice that they live in a serious conflict 2. Poverty is not a problem that can end easily but who limit it is by some in many ways. huminiterian like mother teresa, 3. In the beginning in our interview with these people and after asking about their situation, 3. Teresa is a woman that put her effort to help poor people. it expressed that they suffer from terrible 4. I made an interview with some persons conflict, who met. 4. They said that this conflict was attached 5. I shed light on the situations how their with us from the day we born, relation ship with this mother and how 5. When we ask the parents they said that we their describe her. are working and practicing to still alive and 6. In the interview we ask about situation of without referring to any organization to these suffering people, respond help inspite we need supports. 7. One of them suggest that he spend three 6. After our interview with those people and day in the street under rain without their reactions towards mother Terresa, they eating, benefit from mother Teresa’s visit and they 8. He drink from the water rain, are grateful because she relieves the conflicts they suffer from by providing them 9. Also we interviewd a women, 10. She talk that she sale her son to a rich the basic needs and protecting in order to person because he will die if still with her, find their life, rights and respect from others. (continued)

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Task 2: The simulated interview with the beneficiaries of Mother Teresa’s work Issam’s response Hameed’s response 11. This miserable state is need to some one 7. In addition they belong to low social level care of it, and to provide them with care that mother Teresa was interested to do her and love and to release from diseases and best to rescue them from. homeless, 8. The lack of education deprives them from 12. In suggestion answers on this people I better job opportunities and consequently asked them about their relationship with from enjoying better life conditions. Teresa, 9. According to them, mother Theresa is 13. They all agree that Teresa is the loyal to perceived as a great leader, them, 10. She is a person who help to limit poverty, 14. They be more good from the moment 11. They showed gratitude to her, they meet this mother, 12. she’s appear a strong and serious taking care 15. She sacrifice for babies to become happy of them, to finish from corruption they and likly as any baby, suffer from, 13. She is like a mother according to them, for 16. She help the men to find work, and provide womens with care and culture, what she did and still do supporting, protecting and helping which is due to limit 17. Ofcourse viewer before this interview. We search about teresa, how she live and her the spread phenomena. biography. 14. As a solution, they suggest to mother Teresa, 18. Breifly, Teresa is a huminterain woman, to stay with them, since they need more 19. She internationally respected for her support and taking care in order to live in effort to release the suffering of the poor, piece without feeling that they are low level 20. Teresa born in India, on Aug −27,1910, comparing with others, 15. Of course all these causes will be fact when 21. Teresa entered the order of the sister of our lady of toreto, mother Teresa, stay with them to reach a strong and serious life which during it they 22. She have many achievement, all of it in helping humans, can live in piece. 23. Mother Teresa is one of many solution to 16. In addition, and as a conclusion all these poverty. poor people that suffer from poverty should reach this spread phenomena to live like all 24. If she founded in all country, the poverty will be finished, people in all over the world. 25. Teresa is go to relief, 26. She tired from work but she gain all people as her sons and lovers.

Obviously, the beginner language that persisted in the second response of Issam and Hameed has not hindered their evolving critical stances. On one hand, the simulated interview report shows that Issam’s critical stance has evolved. On the other hand, Hameed maintains his strong critical position in this report. In addition, Issam’s response does not reveal any misunderstanding of the assigned text. However, Hameed’s descriptions are vivid and moving, while Issam’s are less so. In addition, although Issam’s second text is more coherent than his first one, it is still not as coherent as Hameed’s. These conclusions will be elaborated in the CDA and DA below.

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CDA of the simulated interview report with Mother Teresa’s beneficiaries Issam’s response Hameed’s response Issam’s second response demonstrates a more Task 2reflects Hameed’s sophisticated thinking about the complexity of poverty and the limited developed critical stance than what his first effect of humanitarian work because it “… is response reveals. This stance begins with Issam’s ability to simulate what the poor have not a problem that can end easily” (sentence 2). This understanding is stressed in the student’s to say about their situation and about their thought that “mother Teresa is one of many struggle to survive (sentence 5). Issam solutions to poverty; if she founded in all capitalizes on some resources to ground country, the poverty will be finished” poverty in the social class of the targeted people and in the lack of education (sentences (sentences 23, 24). This embodies the 7, 8) this appropriate use of resources reflects participant’s understanding that effective social work should be carried out at a large scale, not the participant’s growing awareness of by individuals or small groups of people important socioeconomic and sociopolitical because, though their work is appreciated, their factors that shape the human condition. This efforts are dispersed and limited; in addition, evolving critical stance towards the issue of Hameed demonstrates an ability to describe the poverty, however, was still hampered to a situation of his interviewees vividly, certain degree by the dominant social emotionally, and creatively (sentences 7, 8, 9, discourses of philanthropy; these discourses 10) to support his sophisticated understanding are evident in describing mother Teresa as a of the poverty problem. The moving scenes that mother to the poor (sentences 12, 13). This these sentences draw strengthen his idea that image of motherhood is strengthened by depicting the woman as a persistent supporter “this miserable state (requires attention) …care of the needy, “… protecting and helping … to … love, release from diseases and homeless” finish the corruption they suffer from (and)… (sentence 11). Although the student does not to limit the spread phenomena” (sentence 13). challenge the ideal image of mother Teresa that Interestingly, the student links the motherhood the assigned reading and the media give image to the notion of equity in order to pave (sentences 13, 14), he links her work to notions of equality; for instance, he states: “She the way to the poor’s suggestion that the sacrifice for babies to become happy and likly woman stays with them “…since they need more support and taking care in order to live in as any baby, help men to find work, and provide womens with care and culture” (sentences 15, piece without feeling that they are low level 16). Although his conceptualization of how comparing with others” (sentences 14, 15). mother Teresa used to help men and women This contradiction between the need for reflects a paternal view, the idea of providing philanthropists and the notion of equity is accompanied by a clear vision of a just society women with culture indicates an attitude of respect towards women, compatible with his expressed in the following concluding vision of an equitable society. Although this sentence: “All these poor people that suffer vision reflects a social discourse that divides from poverty should reach this spread labor among men and women, it includes the phenomena to live like all people in all over idea that effective help is to guarantee people the world.” job opportunities, love, and culture.

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DA of the report on the simulated interview with Mother Teresa’s beneficiaries Issam’s response Hameed’s response Despite some weakening points like the formulaic Issam’s second task exhibits more beginning with a definition and the repetition of coherence than his first response. The repetition characterizing his essay about the “poverty” in sentences 1 and 2, Hameed’s homeless is limited to one idea only in the simulated interview report is coherent to a large degree. In sentence 2, Hameed connects the simulated interview report (the beneficiaries appreciation of mother Teresa; complexity of poverty to the work of people like sentences 6, 11). The student introduces the mother Teresa in a subtle way. This constitutes an implicit transition to the focus of the report topic of his report, although abruptly explained in sentences 3-5. Although the (sentence 1); provides his general observations of the interviewees’ situation inappropriate pronoun use makes the text less (sentence 2); and supports his observations coherent, the student moves smoothly from one idea to another and among the different report with descriptions of the interviewees’ situations (sentences 3-5). Then, the student parts. Sentence 6, for instance, makes clear that the coming ideas describe the situation of the uses ideas from the course reading about mother Teresa, which describe the feelings interviewees. This is accomplished in sentences of the beneficiaries towards the woman and 7-10. Sentence 11 links the interviewees’ stories to her work (sentences 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13). the need for people who can take action. Sentence 12 introduces the reader to the topic of the few In the last part, the student describes the interviewees’ suggestions for solving their coming ideas, i.e., the interviewees’ views of their relationship with mother Teresa, and this is problems and concludes his report with a realized in sentences 13-16. Sentence 17 uses a critical insight into how all people should prepositional phrase to link the ideas in the enjoy an equitable life (see the CDA part previous section to the next part which gives a above). Most of these ideas are connected brief account of mother Teresa’s life. Teresa’s logically, but the student uses some short biography is provided in sentences 18-22. pronouns and some transitions Sentences 23-26 conclude the report in an inappropriately (“they” in sentence 2, “it” interesting way; the first two provide a critical in sentence 3, “in addition and as a conclusion” in sentence 16). Thus, Issam’s remark about humanitarian work, and the last two indicate the need of mother Teresa to rest due to task 2 demonstrates progress at various her age. Thus, the report meets the task demands, levels. flows smoothly, and is organized in a way that reflects the complexity of the task. Task 3: Critical reflection on a suicide bomb attack Issam’s response Hameed’s response 1. In the last explosion, I was in my 1. At the moment, when the teacher Nejmeh enter the class and my friend is joking we heard an explosion school, and I had history period, sound, 2. In this moment, I imagine that the 2. I see teachers, friends, students, and all the afraid doomsday was began, and surprised what happen. 3. Me and all my friends was afraid 3. Frankly, I don’t care about my self of afraid as other from this accident, because I am a therapist for a cases of explosion, 4. After our noises that happened in wars, hard event, killing or vagrancy, the explosion moment I took our desision to be strong and to carry 4. I learned this specialty in mahdi scout since we are leaders and have to help people in any moment. this serious conflict, (continued)

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Task 3: Critical reflection on a suicide bomb attack Issam’s response Hameed’s response 5. The one thing I was regretted about, is not my 5. I react normal in order to know parent, but I was in my school and don’t give me what will happen, after this permission to leave school and go to help others, but problem. also I don’t sit and not care, 6. This first persons that I thought then in my family, relatives to be 6. I feel as any time, 7. I was accustomed on explosions. safety from this event. 7. After all what happened my brain 8. I don’t think about my mother’s because I know she was in village also brothers in school at Shoiefet but gave me a bad views, beginning my brain go to near girls school, since they are a in imagining the place that the strategic point in affecting peoples and shia, and we accident was how it is now? And are all know what women and girls means to us, many other askings that came to 9. Also I think that the explosion can happened in me and forgot it. Manar station, 8. But after all these events, and after going to my house, I saw the 10. All these idea not mean to me as how can I help people near, new and know that the people that 11. My reaction is not as important or I do something, put the explosion wasn’t arrived their goals in order to win them. 12. I talk to my friend to sit and be quiet but no one heard. 9. Of course, government should 13. They only want to leave school and act as small take this disision in order to children, resolve the political conflict and 14. This thing pushed me to fight with one of them, finish the strong events and 15. don’t heard me to be away from window an sit in his accidents. place, 10. “Lebanon will be a grave for all 16. Also I don’t go up in a fight because I being people want to destroy it”. understand him and I don’t want to mad a more 11. Finally, I wish from all the inner pressure to teacher and student, responsible ways with the 17. Of course, these explosion don’t achieve the main supporting from government to goal but it achieves specific point, stop and finish these conflicts to 18. In a soldiery strategy the explosion in enemy land is reach a kind of piece. to effect him in a important point made to pressure also to change the think of people, 19. So if the Nosra or Daaesh want to solve the war they can kill Hizbullah in Syria and made him left, 20. But under the pressure on them they have to blanked it in aimed the strategy place or as they said the abyssal place in Al-Dahya, 21. It mean the center of the security place, 22. But the one that is affected is childrens and people so it achieves some goals in an personality and inside every person, 23. I evaluate the political situation as normal since from past until now Lebanon don’t finish from war and explosions so the people is get use about what happened and as any time there was a killers and people died. 24. My opinion about suicide bomber is that they use this explosion as a way to defend about themselves, and the two side of war have to attack other side. 25. In his mind the enemy has the right to explode and attack us.

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As you can notice, the reflection on an event that constituted a critical moment in the participant’s life has given rise to strong and sincere emotions as well as to critical reflections, as CDA below shows. The students brought all what they possessed of the language in constructing the task. They also created a response appropriate to the task demands, as DA later indicates. CDA of the critical reflection on a suicide bomb attack Issam’s response Hameed’s response Issam has used all what he possessed of Like Issam, Hameed reflects his ability to provide creative and vivid descriptions of the moment of the language to depict the moment of explosion, using whatever linguistic resources he the explosion vividly and creatively possessed (sentences 1, 2, 8, 12, 13, 14). The (“doom’s day” sentence 2; “my brain participant draws lively and moving images of what gave me bad views” sentence 7; “Lebanon will be a grave for all people happened (sentences 2, 3, 6, 7). In addition, his justifications of his reaction allow some insights into want to destroy it” sentence 10). The student expresses his fear about himself the psyche of tension. Hameed’s feeling of not being afraid is attributed to being a leader in a scout and his family, his worries about the location of the explosion and about the influential in his community, in which he was trained “… to help people in any moment”. This unique situation at the moment, and thoughtfulness regarding how to react characteristic with which the participant distinguishes himself from most of his classmates constitutes a and what to expect next (sentences considerable part of his response, reflecting a deep 3-7). Thus, the nature of the task and sense of social responsibility (wishing he was able to the topic led to the domination of practice his skills of helping the injured (sentences 5, emotional reactions alongside a few 8, 10, 11); and trying to manage the chaos that took arguments. In sentences 9 and 11, Issam advances his argument about the place in class (sentences 12, 13, 14, 15, 16). This major role that the government should student’s distinct stance is also evident in his insightful political and military analysis of the event. He actually play in solving the political conflicts was one of the very few participants who said that that lead to these tragic events; although the explosion did not achieve the goal of according to him, peace can be killing political leaders, “it achieves specific point” achieved through cooperation and (sentence 17). He interprets other motives for the political solutions. However, in his response, Issam repeats explosion “… to pressure … the enemy… also to change the (thinking) of people (sentence 18). This the discourse of some media that the interpretation is further elaborated from psychological terrorists did not reach their political goals (sentence 8), as if killing people and political perspectives (hitting what terrorists consider “an abyss” and a strategic point after they is not important. This indicates the failed to change the course of events militarily strong effect of the social and (sentences 19, 20, 21, 24, 25), which, from Hameed’s emotional discourses on the participant’s critical analysis of a tragic point of view, had both individual and collective event that he lived moment by moment. negative impact because of the civilian casualties (sentence 22). (continued)

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CDA of the critical reflection on a suicide bomb attack Issam’s response Hameed’s response In addition to this intricate political analysis, there are two notable points in Hameed’s response. The first refers to his expressed worries about children and women (sentences 8, 22) from two angles that reflect multiple identities; these multiple identities are revealed in Hameed’s attention to the girls’ school “… since they are a strategic point in affecting peoples and shia” (sentence 8). The word “people” reflects the participant’s identification with everyone with a similar concern and the word “shia” reveals his religious affiliation. In his reference to “people and Shia”, Hameed conceptualizes the concern for women and children as something common to humanity, and he makes a reference to his religious community as a distinct group that shares with other groups these common values. As Hull et al., (2009) explain, these shared values constitute intersections among our multiple identities and may realize a possibility to emphasize the ties that bind us. The second notable point in Hameed’s response is his surrender to the normalized political instability in Lebanon (sentence 23). There is a sense of hopelessness in this sentence. Hameed also articulates his sadness because of the status quo in his expression “… and as any time there was a killers and people died”. DA of the critical reflection on the suicide bomb attack Issam’s text Hameed’s text Hameed’s third response can be divided into Issam’s text is coherent to a considerable degree. The first sentence introduces the topic two sections, each of which is coherent in its own right. Despite the lack of important by specifying his location during the explosion. Sentences 2–7 describe his feelings contextual information in the first sentence, the text provides various descriptions and and his thoughts during and right after the explosion. Sentence 8 provides a transition to narrations that flow smoothly in the first part (sentences 1–16). In the second part (sentences the next part by stating that the terrorists did 17–25), the student analyzes the motives of the not reach their target, paving the way to the suicide bombers and the consequences of their student’s argument about the governmental role in dealing with the conflict (sentences 9, actions. Only one idea (sentence 23) is a little irrelevant to this part but is in accordance with 11). Only the idea of Lebanon being a grave for those who want to destroy it seems out of task demands. place.

Issam’s task 4: Critical analysis of a blog’s comment on the Lebanese new rent law 1. Although the new rent law is advantageous for the tenants, it leaves many people without homes and marginalizes the tenants,

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2. for that reason I am against this law and I disagree it because it will add many conflicts, 3. in general we can pass it without falling, because according to our society and what happen now, Lebanon can’t carry this problem…, 4. of course, I disagree and I have a causes that explain why I am against this law, 5. first of all if this law is fact or is near to be fact, many people will be displaces and homelessness exactly in this level that Lebanon passing through and without forget the poor people those who afraid from this achieving law, 6. where they will go and what they will do?. 7. before suggest this law government should do her best to pass this law and to find a place for these peoples, because in general government should have a kind of justice in suggesting the laws in order to no body touch a kind of risk when they put their laws. 8. Another reason that don’t let me agree for this law in favor of owners marginalizes the tenants, 9. they should be responsible and everyone take his right, no to give each one a right comparing with another, 10. because the tenants will be like a marginalizes people can’t face their problems and can’t solve it, 11. what can they do? 12. if the government before putting like these laws that will be positive on group of people and negative on other, they should look to the advantages and disadvantages and the negative effects before the positive one, in order to keep the justice and the peace in our town, and I mentioned the peace because like these laws will broke the rule of respectation and no one will know what will happen during the next days. 13. last, but not least, in my opinion, this law is negative and it will born a disadvantage effects comparing with other people who will benefit from this law on others…. CDA of Issam’s Task 4 Remarkably, Issam maintains a critical stance toward the new rent law throughout his fourth response which was constructed toward the end of the academic year. The student establishes his critical position in the first two sentences, although the first one seems contradictory due to the inappropriate use of the complex sentence structure. Issam develops his argument in the third sentence, proposing to disapprove or ignore the law through the inappropriate word “pass.” Then, he explores the sociopolitical and socioeconomic consequences of the law (sentences 5, 6), raising a rhetorical question about the situation of the poor tenants and suggesting that many of them will be homeless in case the parliament approves the law. Issam’s discourse is characterized by critical terminology like “marginalization” (sentences 1, 8), showing keen insights into the sociopsychological effects of this issue, namely, the fear and helplessness that many tenants may experience (sentences 5, 10, 11). In sentences 7 and 12, the student holds the government responsible for ensuring socioeconomic security by issuing laws that maintain justice. Actually, Issam

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has reflected an insightful understanding of how social responsibility is foundational to protecting rights and maintaining justice in sentence 9 in which he argues that all concerned parties “… should be responsible and everyone … no (how) to give each one a right comparing with another.” This embodies a complex, ideal view of justice, self-maintained by the society when its members possess a sense of social responsibility. It illustrates a clear recognition that being socially irresponsible and disregarding of the others’ rights leads to conflicts “… because like these laws will broke the rule of respectation and no one will know what will happen during the next days.” This notion of respect, based on being socially responsible and on having an internalized sense of rights and duties, seems to the student far from being realized, so he argues that “the government before putting like these laws that will be positive on group of people and negative on other … should look to … the negative effects before the positive one, in order to keep … justice and … peace …” (sentence 12). This shows an understanding that in the case of weak social responsibility, balanced laws should promote peace by protecting rights and enforcing duties. DA of Issam’s Task 4 Issam’s fourth response is characterized by a good level of coherence in comparison to the other ones despite a few issues. Although the first two introductory sentences lack contextual information about the law and include some repetition, they present the student’s argument, which is developed in the response. Issam grounds his argument in the socioeconomic and sociopolitical situation in Lebanon and presents a way out in his third sentence. The fourth sentence repeats the participant’s opposition to the law in an attempt to make a transition between the introduction and the first main point. This repetition also occurs in sentence 7, which could be moved to the last section of the response about the role of the government (sentence 12). Sentences 8–11 elaborate on the second reason for the participant’s objection in a subtle way. Thus, although the students’ transitional sentences do not succeed in establishing connections among the different parts of the response, each main point is developed coherently. In his last sentence, Issam sums up his critical stance toward the law in that it benefits some people at the expense of others, and by this, he concludes a complex task in a sophisticated way.

 ave the Participants Improved Their Language Without H Direct Instruction? Both Issam and Hameed exhibit many non-target-like structures in their various tasks. To examine whether or not there was any improvement in the two participants’ language, the frequencies of these forms will be documented in Tables 5.2 and 5.3. Table 5.4 compares the non-target structures in Issam’s work with those of Hameed. A narrative comparison follows each table. Readers interested in locating the different non-target-like structures in a specific response may refer to Appendix B.

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Table 5.2  The non-target-like structures in Issam’s four tasks Frequencies of non-target-like structures in Issam’s four Types of non-target-like structures tasks Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Pronouns 16 4 9 2 Sentence structure 10 5 4 4 Transitions 3 1 Word form 8 3 4 4 Coordinators 4 1 2 Prepositions 9 3 1 5 Articles 3 1 3 Using two main verbs in the same 2 2 1 sentence Singular/plural 3 2 3 Missing nouns 1 Word order of adjective noun 1 Diction 4 9 5 7 Missing the main verb 1 2 1 Punctuation Most sentences Most sentences 5 Most sentences Verb tense 1 5 3 5 The table reveals the following language patterns:   • A significant improvement occurred in sentence structure and wording in the second task, and a slight improvement is evident in the third and the fourth.   • A significant improvement occurred in pronouns in the second and the fourth tasks, but the wrong use of pronouns recurred in the third with a lesser frequency than in the first.   • Non-target-like use of transitions decreased in the second task and was eliminated in the third and the fourth.   • Non-target-like coordinators decreased significantly in the second task, were eliminated in the third, but recurred in the fourth with approximately the same frequency as in the second.   • Non-target-like word form decreased significantly in the second task but remained approximately similar in the second, the third, and the fourth ones.   • Non-target-like use of prepositions decreased in the second and the third tasks, but it increased in the fourth.   • Non-target-like use of articles was eliminated in the second task, decreased significantly in the third, and recurred in the fourth with the same frequency as in the first one.   • Using two main verbs in the same sentence and the non-target-like singular/plural form remained approximately the same in the first three tasks and were eliminated from the fourth one.   • Missing nouns and non-target-like word order of adjective-noun were eliminated from the last three tasks.   • Non-target-like diction increased significantly in the second task, decreased significantly in the third and slightly in the fourth task compared to the second one, but remained higher than in the first task.   • Missing the main verb was eliminated in the third task but remained the same in the three other tasks.   • Non-target-like punctuation remained the same in tasks 1, 2, and 4 but decreased significantly in the third one.   • Non-target-like verb tense increased significantly in the second and the fourth tasks and slightly in the third one.

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Table 5.3  The non-target-like structures in Hameed’s three tasks Types of non-target-like structures Word form Articles Transitions Using two main verbs in the same sentence Pronouns Sentence structure Verb tense Singular/plural Missing the main verb Punctuation Diction Prepositions Coordinators Missing nouns

Frequencies of non-target-like structures Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 8 5 3 6 2 1 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 1 Most sentences 6 1 2 1

5 5 11 7 5 Most sentences 6 2 1 2

5 9 25 10 4 Most sentences 12 5

The table shows the following patterns of non-target-like structures in Hameed’s three tasks:   • Non-target-like word form and articles decreased increasingly in tasks 2 and 3.   • Non-target-like transitions were eliminated in tasks 2 and 3.   • The use of two main verbs in the same sentence was eliminated in task 2 but recurred in task 3.   • Non-target-like pronouns increased moderately in tasks 2 and 3.   • Non-target-like coordinators decreased in task 2, and they were eliminated from task 3.   • Non-target-like sentence structure increased moderately in task 2 and significantly in task 3.   • Non-target-like verb tense increased significantly in task 2 and drastically in task 3.   • Non-target-like singular/plural increased significantly in tasks 2 and 3.   • Missing verbs increased significantly in task 2 and were slightly less in task 3 than in task 2.   • Missing nouns increased slightly in task 2 and were eliminated from task 3.   • Non-target-like diction remained approximately the same in the first two tasks and increased significantly in the third.   • Non-target-like punctuation remained approximately the same in the three tasks.   • Non-target-like prepositions increased slightly in the second task and significantly in the third.

Obviously, the two participants have reflected the use of similar non-target-like structures. However, the frequencies of some of them varied across each participant’s responses as well as between the works of both of them. This indicates that the development of the two participant’s language varied. This variation may be due to many factors that will be discussed later.

 hy Didn’t the Instructor Address Language Issues W in Instruction? It is important to clarify, at the outset, that many participants exhibited a similar language level to that shown in the work of Issam and Hameed. These participants used all their linguistic resources in producing their responses, which gave rise to

Table 5.4  Comparing the frequencies of non-target-like structures in the two participants’ work

Word form Articles Transitions Using two main verbs in the same sentence Pronouns Sentence structure Verb tense Singular/plural Missing the main verb Punctuation

Issam’s task 1 8 3 3 2

Hameed’s task 1 8 6 2 1

1 2

16 10

2 3

4 5

1 3 1

3 2 1 Most sentences 6 1 2 1

Most sentences Diction 4 Prepositions 9 Coordinators 4 Missing nouns 1 Word order of 1 adjective noun

Issam’s task 2 3

Hameed’s task 2 5 2

Issam’s task 3 4 1

Hameed’s task 3 3 1

1

1

5 5

9 4

5 9

2 4

5 2 2

11 7 5

3 3

25 10 4

5

Most sentences 9 3 1

Most 5 sentences 6 5 2 1 1 2

Most sentences 12 5

Issam’s task 4 4 3

1 Most sentences 7 5 2

Thus, while some structures became more target-like across tasks, some non-target-like forms remained the same, increased, or fluctuated in the various tasks. Some of these patterns are common in the work of the two participants reported about here, as the table below shows: The following patterns are observed in the table:   • The two participants showed approximately a similar pattern of the non-target-like word form that decreased gradually across tasks.   • Hameed’s non-target-like article use was double that of Issam’s in the first task, but it decreased significantly across tasks. However, Issam’s use of non-target-like articles fluctuated across tasks.   • Non-target-like transitions were eliminated by the two participants across tasks.   • Using two main verbs in the same sentence was of low frequency in the work of the two participants, fluctuated in the work of Hameed, and was eliminated from Issam’s last task.   • Non-target-like pronouns was of high frequency in Issam’s first task but of low frequency in Hameed’s. It decreased significantly in Issam’s task 2, increased again in his third task, and was of low frequency in his fourth task. However, it increased in Hameed’s second and third tasks.   • Non-target-like sentence structure was of high frequency in Issam’s first task but of a low frequency in Hameed’s. It decreased gradually across Issam’s four tasks, but it increased in Hameed’s.   • Non-target-like verb tense fluctuated across Issam’s various tasks, but it increased drastically in Hameed’s second and third tasks.   • Non-target-like singular/plural fluctuated in Issam’s first three tasks and was eliminated from his fourth. However, it increased gradually in Hameed’s last two tasks.   • Missing the main verb fluctuated across Issam’s four tasks and increased gradually in Hameed’s last two tasks.   • Non-target-like punctuation decreased significantly in Issam’s third task, but recurred in his fourth one and remained of high frequency across Hameed’s three tasks.   • Non-target-like diction fluctuated across Issam’s four tasks and increased in Hameed’s last task.   • Non-target-like prepositions fluctuated across Issam’s tasks and increased in Hameed’s.   • Non-target-like coordinators fluctuated across Issam’s tasks, decreased in Hameed’s second task, and was eliminated from his third one.

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the non-target-like structures and opened a window on their interlanguage system. As Laman et al. (2006) argue, students were in one place, and as they learned and left that place behind, they tried out new things. During this process, students were bound to produce what they possessed, gradually restructuring some forms to become more target-like and reproducing others in the same non-target-like structures in some or all of their responses. The instructor could have made use of this window to address the students’ emerging interlanguage so that it becomes more target-like. The data above shows that non-target-like punctuation, prepositions, and diction were of high frequency in all of the participants’ tasks, and they may affect readability and understanding. Also, the non-target-like verb tense fluctuated in the tasks of Issam and increased in the tasks of Hameed. The teacher could have prioritized these recurrent patterns for instruction over time, based on what affects the readers’ understanding. She could have targeted them gradually through direct instruction in the context of the meaningful literacy tasks that the students were doing, as Nijmeh and I agreed when we were planning for the course. So why didn’t she? It seems that more than one factor contributed to this.

The Intuitive Sense of Progress Nijmeh’s observation that the students’ language was improving seems to be one of the factors that made her see no need for focus on language. Nijmeh stressed that “because (students) have read a lot, written a lot and spoken a lot, they have progressed without knowing that.” She illustrated how critical literacy activities involved students in using language skills: “They read and re-read in order to backup. Reading became the source for their writing.” According to her, “this is real teaching (because) students started to use their minds, to think, to interpret and to discuss.” She supported her point by reporting that two of the very weak students who were assisted by their classmates in tackling language difficulties showed significant progress by the end of the course. The data show that many participants demonstrated significant, cumulative progress at both the rhetorical and the critical levels. This may have impressed Nijmeh and made her think that their language progress was satisfactory. She was intrigued by the students’ cute analytical thoughts that, according to her, led to language improvement. It seems that Nijmeh’s fascination with the students’ intellectual engagement and the resulting intuitive sense of language improvement have contributed to the weak attention to linguistic matters. In her analysis of a critical literacy program, O’Brien (2001, as cited in Oberman et  al., 2014) reported about her students’ fascinating insights as they engaged in a close scrutiny of texts. This fascination, experienced by teachers upon their success in the challenging task of implementing critical literacy instruction, may cause them to be inattentive to important pedagogical matters.

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Institutional Constraints The various institutional practices and constraints have possibly constituted another factor that deviated Nijmeh’s attention from language issues. On one hand, Nijmeh was working under the pressure of covering as many texts as possible, because this is expected by the administration and by colleagues, as Nijmeh stated. This may have caused the weak attention to language issues. On the other hand, Nijmeh was concerned with incorporating activities related to the official exams, which do not target grammar directly. Although the participants had to sit for the official exams 2 years later, Nijmeh was worried about not preparing them for it. This worry seems to result from a school culture that makes teaching to the test a regular practice, indicative of the school success. Thus, Nijmeh needed time to break this pattern and to become principled in her choices. In addition, the worry about abiding by the curricular dictates seems to have transferred to Nijmeh’s new practices in critical literacy. During our preparation for the course, I have emphasized the need for flexibility in implementing the instructional plans in accordance with the students’ needs. However, Nijmeh did not use this margin of freedom. This may have been caused by Nijmeh’s fear that modifying the plan to address the students’ language needs might interfere negatively in their critical engagement. This is supported by what Nijmeh said: “If we have focused more on the language, the work would have been hindered.” This indicates that teachers who are constrained by various institutional and social conditions require time and close support so that their approach to critical literacy becomes balanced.

Class Dynamics Another factor that may have led to the weak focus on the students’ language needs is the students’ resistance to critical literacy practices at the beginning of the course, at which time Nijmeh observed that students’ responsiveness was weak. Nijmeh explained that she suffered because students were not interacting, which was discouraging to her. This concern may have caused the negligence of language issues. It is possible that the students’ desires to learn the language have contributed to the discouraging class dynamics. According to Nijmeh, all what students cared about was to have grades. They needed the easiest way possible. Hameed supports this point in his idea that as long as he gets grades, he does not care about the kind of the required activities. According to him, although the activities were difficult, he did them because he needed to pass. This interest in grades indicates a pattern of thinking which many schools encourage. Many teachers in many schools emphasize correctness and competitiveness. This creates a school culture in which thinking is discouraged and in which students are not presented with challenging tasks (Giroux,

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2007; Laman et  al., 2006). Actually, it requires time to break this pattern and to involve students in critical language tasks, which may take some effort on the part of the teacher and lead to the negligence of some pedagogic matters like providing form-focused instruction in the context of meaningful literacy events. Some students’ input in the two focus groups supports the need for a long engagement in critical literacy in order to break the school patterns of formulaic instruction. For instance, Naeem described the course as “… really tough,” because it demanded a lot of deep thinking. He said that he was not used to that. Naeem explained why the activities were challenging: “The answers are not right there. We have to leave our (personal touch). I mean we have to show how we think about the topic, not what the writer (believes about it).” In fact, questioning the authors’ assumptions, challenging the readers’ preferred interpretations, and discussing hot controversial topics (Frey & Fisher, 2015; Luke, 2012; Shor, 2009) represented a drastic shift from typical reading instruction to which students were used. Students did not only resist complex critical literacy practices but also other noncritical, social literacy ones. According to Nijmeh, when students were asked to role-play in the lesson about homelessness, “they were indifferent and said that these activities are nonsense; they also found it funny to draw Mother Teresa based on what they have read about the woman. They complained that they were not skillful at drawing or writing poetry. ‘We are not Shakespeare’,” someone complained to Nijmeh. It may be normal that the drastic shift from to critical literacy will be met with some initial resistance, the management of which requires a systematic prolonged engagement in critical literacy (Laman et al., 2006) for at least one academic year (Huang, 2009), with due attention to the pedagogic needs of the students, including linguistic ones. Indeed, Nijmeh observed that with time, many students started enjoying the class and appreciated what she did, because activities were different from the conventional ones. She clarified that when students were supported through modeling some tasks at the beginning of the course and through praising them for their performance, like for writing interesting poems, many started becoming motivated. According to her, as time passed, resistance to do the activities decreased to a large extent among many students. The focus group discussions back up this observation. For instance, Hameed and Zaher pointed out that although it was hard work, the critical literacy course was a very interesting and good experience. According to Hameed, the textbook activities (stating the theme, locating the thesis statement, and finding specific information that is right there in the text) were boring, while doing challenging critical literacy tasks with success was fun and made him value himself. Many participants agreed with Zaher and Hameed, realizing the significance of being a critically literate person. This appreciation of critical literacy constituted an important opportunity to help students improve their language through prioritized instruction. However, many factors hindered the realization of this opportunity, which indicates the need for visionary instruction that initiates students into critical literacy over time.

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In addition, the present study demonstrates that teachers who are still transforming their practices to become more critically oriented should make sure to balance among all the pedagogical factors that serve the instructional goals and the students’ desires as well as to adapt critical literacy instruction to the institutional contexts. In other words, teachers who wish to transform their practices to become critically oriented should be reflexive in their teaching. This implies the need for teacher-­ training programs to empower teachers with the reflexivity necessary to maintain a self-sustained professional growth. Actually, the interviews with Nijmeh served as platforms for such empowerment. They led to her reflection on her new vision that started to encompass a balance between teaching for social justice and helping students acquire the discrete language skills. During these interviews, Nijmeh reflected on her concerns and worries, concluding: “We should have focused on this integration from the very beginning.” In a phenomenological study carried out afterward with Nijmeh and with another teacher, Nijmeh reflected coherent views and practices, encompassing both traditional and critical literacy instruction (Ibrahim, 2016). Thus, opportunities for such reflexive thinking may take many forms.

 ow Did the Prolonged Engagement in Critical Literacy Affect H the Participants’ Social and Language Identities? It seems that critical inquiry that emphasizes larger systems of meaning, in which the personal and the political are connected (Laman et al., 2006; Morgan & Vandrick, 2009; Shor, 2009), has positioned students as powerful agents who interact confidently with textual assumptions and contextual discourses. The students’ idea that they started thinking deeply about texts and issues because they are related to their lives gives evidence to that effect. For instance, Jameel stated that because the topics and tasks were meaningful and related to his life, he enjoyed reading, speaking, and writing about them. Many participants stated that their weak language stopped being a barrier in expressing their ideas. Hazem, for example, explained that he liked Nijmeh’s class because he discovered that he could analyze despite his “weak language,” which, according to him, had prevented him from expressing himself in English before this course. It encouraged him that thought was more important than correctness and that his classmate helped him find the appropriate language. Hazem emphasized that this led him to believe in his abilities despite the difficulties he faced. “Yes, I can do it,” he said. He stressed that this class taught him “…to read and read and read because if we do not read, we cannot write.” This implies that “the extent to which (the participants) saw themselves as knowledge-producers, communicators, peer teachers, and people with agency (affected) their commitment to the challenging task of learning school English literacies” (Comber & Nixon, 2011, p. 170).

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The interrelationship between the agentive positions of the students and their commitment to school literacies is observed in the comments of many participants. For example, Naeem stated that he learned to depend on himself and to be creative by avoiding ready-made essays. He discovered that writing is a process of thought not a copy paste activity. “These activities helped (him) to value reading (because he does not submit) to the writer’s stance or information.” He maintained: “I may contradict with the writer (and) …ask him questions.” Actually, this is also supported in Nijmeh’s observation that challenging students intellectually motivated them to perform the various tasks. Furthermore, it seems that reading, writing, listening, watching, and speaking for critical inquiry purposes have developed in many participants, even those with beginner language, the desire to use English voluntarily in some literacy events. For example, the interview questions that were conducted in the study were asked in Arabic, and the students were given the chance to use either English or Arabic in their answers. All three interviewees used English to answer the questions. This implies that the participants have reconstructed their identities, adding to them new sociolinguistic dimensions part of which is their voluntary resort to English in some contexts. Furthermore, Nijmeh’s acceptance of the various analyses provided by students may have empowered them to view themselves as critics who have distinct voices (Oberman et al., 2014). Zaher illustrates this point in his idea that what made the class enjoyable was having the chance to reveal how he and his classmates think regardless of the differences in opinions and attitudes. He argued that because the teacher accepted all the ideas and there was no wrong answer, he was encouraged to participate confidently. However, considering all the students’ responses as valid does not mean that they are all correct, as Wallace (2003) explains. They rather present teachers with opportunities to guide students in negotiating their answers (Wallace, 2003). This guidance takes place through constructive interaction and reflection, both written and oral, during which the students’ ideas and voices are valued. The engagement in meaningful language tasks, both oral and written, about meaningful matters, on a platform characterized by freedom and responsibility, have led many participants to negotiate their identities and to take on new roles as language learners. Zaher illustrates how this may have happened in his argument that he learned “… Not to accept the ideas said by others like: teachers, authors, politicians, advertisements,” but to analyze the motives for constructing a certain text from a particular perspective, not from another one. Zaher’s “… questioning stance (with which he started) to approach everything (he reads and hears)” taught him to dialogue with texts and to research the issues and build up (his) own analysis.” In other words, Zaher reconstructed who he is and what he can do when reading a text and speaking or writing about it. This indicates the interrelationship between language and identity far beyond the technical and cognitive aspects of language learning (Norton, 1997; Norton & Toohey, 2011). “In this view, every time language learners (construct their discourses), they are not only exchanging information with their interlocutors; they are also

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constantly organizing and reorganizing a sense of who they are and how they relate to the social world. They are, in other words, engaged in identity construction and negotiation” (Norton, 1997, p. 410). Nijmeh reported that many participants shared Zaher’s view that they would not accept texts as they are (advertisements, opinions, newspaper articles) and that “they started to analyze and critique.” Many participants in the focus groups confirmed Nijmeh’s reports. Jameel, for example, stated: “I started to be more critical about everything I read (and started) being aware of what is presented via social networks; to judge and evaluate what we receive before sending it to others.” This indicates the students’ growing awareness of how varied contexts require different roles as language users and of how critical exploration of what they read, view, and hear contributes to their language and intellectual growth. This interplay among critical exploration, desire, and identity, brought about through a prolonged engagement in critical literacy, may have led to the enhancement of various dimensions in the participants’ language (rhetorical, structural, and strategic) (Norton & Toohey, 2011). It may have positioned the students as powerful language users, hence their feeling that their language has progressed.

Some Persistent Resistance I mentioned before that Hameed did not write the last essay about the new Lebanese rent law for reasons that may relate to the issue of his desire to learn English. Actually, Hameed reflected a growing interest in critical literacy and a weak desire to learn English at the same time. As discussed earlier, all what Hameed cared about was to get good grades. Thus, his interest in doing the tasks he performed was driven by his desire to pass the school exams. This may explain his resistance to carry out some other tasks like the final one. However, a few other participants maintained strong resistance to critical literacy throughout the course. Nijmeh reported that a few students showed indifference to class activities and said they only cared about grades. Data from the focus group show that each of these students had a different reason for their disinterest which varied in intensity. The most extreme negative opinion came from Fadel who said: “I did not like this. What a burden it was! Thanks god it all ended.” Fadel did not see any benefit in the tasks he did and expressed a strong rejection. Saeed shared with Fadel that it was “… too much” work because it included “… Writing…. writing …..Writing….writing all the time.” However, Saeed was less negative than Fadel and saw some benefits in what he did. He explained that the course taught him to read different texts about the same topic to be able to relate things together. He also learned “… to be independent and not to cheat because in these activities, each student has a different opinion.” Thus, it seems that not all students who expressed disinterest in critical literacy had the same reaction to the activities. Nijmeh supported this point when she said that even students who kept complaining about the activities “… use their

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own thinking to come up with something new.” This can be explained in terms of different desires to learn the target language and to be engaged in critical inquiry (Huang, 2009; Ibrahim, 1999; Norton, 1997; Norton & Toohey, 2011).

Conclusions and Some Pedagogical Implications The present case study indicates that the prolonged engagement in critical literacy helps learners as well as instructors in shaping a vision of the world different from how it is at present (Laman et al., 2006; Vasquez, 2003). This prolonged engagement through planned, critical interpretive oral and written tasks around significant matters may stimulate all the students’ linguistic resources in constructing discourses that are more inclusive of people’s common interests and representative of a more just world, as Issam and Hameed’s work demonstrates. It is worthwhile reminding the reader that Issam’s work is representative of many participants while Hameed represents only a few of his classmates. Based on that, the following observations can be made. • The rich learning experiences that result during a prolonged engagement in critical literacy may enhance the students’ ownership of the target language and may position them as people with agency. This provides opportunities to address the language needs of the students through direct language instruction and practice in the context of authentic literacy tasks. Thus, the teacher should plan pre-, during, and/or post-task instruction that targets both language and skill areas in accordance with the students’ needs to achieve the task outcomes. • Novices to critical literacy may need time to get used to its practices, and this requires an informed approach, part of which is patience and respect for the learners’ desires. This informed approach demands that teachers support the learners in every way possible and adapt instruction to the emerging class dynamics. Any instructional adaptation should keep in sight the course goals and the students’ needs to realize them. • A few students may maintain a strong resistance to critical literacy. These students’ desires should be taken into account in instruction. They may participate in decision-making regarding the course topics and tasks, and some of their suggestions may be implemented in the course without jeopardizing the instructional plans. • The present study shows that a few students were able to analyze the textual claims critically early on in the course while many class members developed this ability by the end of instruction. This implies that it may be easier for students to start responding critically to an issue regardless of its textual representation than to dialogue with a text. These implications demand that we organize the critical literacy curriculum in a way that moves students gradually from critical engagement with an issue to a critical exploration of the textual discourses.

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• Additionally, as the data reveal, the critical transformation of the teachers’ views and practices may face many challenges, including the incorporation of both critical and conventional literacy instruction in an informed instructional approach. Thus, teachers should receive appropriate training that equips them with the necessary professional skills needed for adapting to the constantly changing class dynamics. To that end, they should be empowered to be reflexive in shaping their views and practices. They should also be trusted to use their professional skills in making pedagogical decisions.

Chapter 6

The Teachers’ Worries: Conclusions and Recommendations

The slow entry of critical literacy to EFL classes partly refers to the educators’ worries about the feasibility of implementing it with EFL learners. Many teachers may question the appropriateness of critical language instruction to young learners and/ or to learners with beginner language. They may be concerned about addressing the various skills and subskills in critical literacy classes and about planning instruction that incorporates critical analysis and exploratory tasks, instruction to tackle the students’ language needs, and school requirements in a balanced approach. Teachers may also wonder whether CALT-based instruction makes students overly skeptical of everything around them. This chapter will address these and other concerns, drawing conclusions from the theoretical ideas, from the case study, and from the practical suggestions presented in the book so far.

 an EFL Young and Adult Learners with Beginner Language C Proficiency Deal with the Complexity of Critical Language Tasks? Learning always involves challenge, and this is no different in language learning. Thus, in order for students to learn any language, they should experience its complexity and should be supported by facilitating, not simplifying their work. Many teachers isolate language from its social dimensions and break it into discrete items in an attempt to simplify the learning process, which defeats the purpose of teaching it effectively and efficiently. Hence, teachers should challenge the students with real-life tasks of various kinds and support them by a well-planned sequence of instruction. Remember, CALT does not focus only on critical analysis tasks but calls for using a variety of task types that are derived from the ways we use language

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9_6

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in real life. To that end, teachers can employ tasks that are relevant to the target group, that are optimally challenging, and that may stimulate the learner’s interests. The previous chapters have provided plenty of tasks that can be sequenced differently to achieve various purposes. These do not form instructional recipes but illustrate a way of thinking about language teaching that enable teachers to develop visionary and informed pedagogies suitable to their contexts. The work of the two participants described in Chap. 5 demonstrates that cumulative experiences in various challenging tasks, accompanied with enough support, empower students as language users who can identify with the target language and who develop critical roles as language learners beyond the cognitive/technical view. This does not mean that cognition has no role to play in language learning; it rather asserts that cognition is stimulated through and within social practices, without which language use has no significance, as I have emphasized throughout the book (see Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Norton, 2007). The case study in Chap. 5 is about the literacy development of older learners. However, even young learners in the elementary grades can perform critical literacy tasks that suit their ages. Some reports are published about such practices with young learners in L1/ESL contexts (e.g., Cho, 2015; Laman et  al., 2006; Leland et al., 2005; Oberman et al., 2014; Share, 2010; Sweeney, 1999). To my knowledge, such research is scarce in EFL context; I only know of an unpublished thesis in which Fadlallah explored the responses of elementary students learning English as a third language in a Lebanese private school. Certainly, engaging young learners in language tasks based on CALT requires some different procedures than those implemented with older learners, but in both cases, the same CALT principles form the basis of instruction. It is beyond the scope of this book to explain this difference, but any implementation of CALT in any context demands that teachers possess a clear vision of the goals of CALT as well as a recognition that helping students develop complex literacy skills is a must. Teachers also should remember that these skills evolve gradually as a result of cumulative experiences.

 hat Do I Do with the Non-target Like Structures W Students Exhibit? As my work in in-service and in preservice programs for about 20 years reveals, teachers are usually occupied too much with surface errors. This preoccupation causes the teachers’ inattentiveness to the meanings students convey. In many instances, students manipulate their linguistic resources in interesting ways to present their insights into a certain issue or to produce a creative piece, which results in the use of non-target-like structures. Consciously or unconsciously, teachers view students with a non-target-like language as incompetent, forgetting that they are in their classes exactly because they are still learning the language. This creates tension between them and their students; teachers believe they are doing their best to

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help their pupils when emphasizing their non-target-like forms in both teaching and assessment, and the pupils feel frustrated because they think that their efforts at using the language are not appreciated. Some students may even feel inferior intellectually when in fact they may be creative in expressing their ideas. Measuring the students’ performance against an ideal image of a “native” language speaker runs counter to arguments coming from two scholarly directions: linguistic and critical. From a linguistic perspective, second language acquisition research has shown that the students’ foreign or second language goes through developmental stages, called interlanguage; this interlanguage develops in accordance with the learners’ internal syllabus (Dekeyser, 2009; Ellis, 2002; Long, 2009, 2016; Ortega, 2009). Thus, what teachers think of as “errors” are features of the learner’s interlanguage system. This implies that if teachers wish to help the learners improve, they should address the non-target-like forms selectively in the context of meaningful tasks and should at the same time reward students for their successes. Grammar-oriented teachers believe that beginners cannot perform authentic tasks without intensive grammar instruction. This actually runs counter to what second language research has found and to what many scholars argue for (e.g., Brown, 2000; Ellis, 2002; Long, 2016; Swan, 2002): If too much grammar focus is forced on to beginning level learners, you run the risk of blocking the acquisition of fluency skills. At this level, grammatical focus is helpful as an occasional “zoom lens” with which we zero in on some aspect of language that is currently being practiced, but not helpful if it becomes the major focus of class work. (Brown, 2000, p. 350)

Learners with beginner language should certainly acquire the linguistic building blocks necessary for performing their tasks, but this should be gradual. As students become more advanced, various complex language forms may be addressed. Grammar at the advanced level is less likely to disturb communicative fluency, but that does not mean to give advanced students more grammar. It rather means that students at this level possess the necessary readiness to process more abstract and complex grammar instruction, which in all cases, should be functional. From the critical perspective, opting for a native-like variance in second and foreign language classes carries assimilative ideologies and functions for reasons beyond a thorough discussion in this book. The learners’ own culture, their understanding of the politics of English, the economic and political circumstances of their local communities, the type and duration of instruction they receive, and their purposes for learning the language determine the variety of English they develop (see Canagarajah, 2006; Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005; Norton, 2007). Thus, as Canagarajah (p. 592) argues, “it is not surprising that classroom language based on ‘native’ norms is irrelevant to what students regard as more socially significant needs in their everyday lives.” Both Ibrahim (1999) and Canagarajah (2004) show how these needs affect the desires of their Somali and Sri Lankan students respectively—desires shaped by the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the students. Both authors successfully demonstrate how deviation from standard English

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grammar reflects an act of a creative choice by the learners for expressing ideas, beliefs, attitudes, etc., that they cannot otherwise express with the same impact. Canagarajah (2006) concludes: Overzealous teachers who impose correctness according to (standard written English) norms may stifle the development of a repertoire that will help students style shift according to differing communicative contexts (and will limit their) …linguistic acquisition, creativity, and production. (pp. 593, 612)

What teachers view as errors in most cases indicates the learners’ engagement in a process of negotiating the form that best expresses their meanings. “Rather than being treated as a sign of a lack of proficiency, such negotiations should be treated as a mark of independent and critical writing” (Canagarajah, 2006, p. 612). From this standpoint, students have their own desires for language learning, which means they may not want to master some forms, and this should be respected. From a social point of view, language proficiency, i.e., its fluent and accurate use and production, develops over time. This happens in accordance with the learners’ communicative needs, desires, and learning conditions. Thus, teachers should possess the ability to tolerate non-target-like structures, which implies that the students’ language varieties should not be suppressed. This, however, does not mean disregarding the teaching of grammar, but it necessitates the development of a set of practices, based on an understanding of language learning as a social, fluid, and evolving process and of the learner, novice or otherwise, as agentic, creative, competent individual. Thus, teachers should use the students’ responses as opportunities to address their non-target-like forms systematically and gradually (see the tips in the planning section below). CALT provides students with rich and varied opportunities to use their linguistic resources in carrying out meaningful tasks, but often new linguistic items need to be introduced and/or the already learned items should be reinforced (Ibrahim, 2008). To this end, CALT actually capitalizes on principles grounded in both L2 research and theory in addressing these needs (e.g., the focus on form principle, the noticing hypothesis, the consciousness raising hypothesis). This happens in the direct instruction phase of the CALT model, which draws the teachers’ attention to “…selecting new or yet not acquired grammatical structures and vocabulary items that are encountered in the input and/or required by the output, and using language games, activities, and drills to help students master them” (Ibrahim, 2008, p. 190). This phase may tackle skill areas as well as language components as the major tasks in any unit of instruction demand. Thus, the direct instruction phase attends to the language form and to the subskills in order to facilitate the students’ interaction with the input they are required to process as well as their production of output. The section on planning later in the chapter provides teachers with tips on how to design direct instruction.

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Do I Allow the Use of the Native Language? An issue related to the accuracy problem is whether or not to allow students to use their native language. Many educators are enthusiastic for the “English only policy,” assuming that this helps students master the target language (Akbari, 2008a; Jordão & Fogaça, 2012). This, however, does not withstand a simple scrutiny. Students use their native language when their interlanguage does not help them express their meanings the way they want. Thus, in meaning-focused tasks, the “English only policy” hampers communication. Many educators ask: But how do students learn the target language if we allow them to use their mother tongue? This valid question poses an important dilemma: To learn a foreign language, one should use it, but to use it successfully, one should know it. The response to this complex matter builds on the social view of learning. This view assumes that to be successful, any learning should meet the learners’ desires. When students see the significance of learning the target language, they will do their best to use it; they will use their native language as support in order to express their meanings. Strong evidence to that point comes from the case study in Chap. 5; the participants in this study used English to respond to the interview questions at the time when they were given the choice to use their native language. However, they resorted to Arabic on many occasions during instruction when they could not express their ideas in English, and they used many of these instances as opportunities for learning the language. This does not mean an overreliance on the native language. It rather implies ensuring enough spaces for the flow of ideas through the target language and through capitalizing on one’s mother tongue as a resource (Akbari, 2008a), to which students resort when they do not find the suitable target vocab or grammatical structure. As Jordão and Fogaça (2012) argue, the selective use of the mother tongue during meaning-focused tasks – including critical ones – is fundamental; it prevents an interruption of meaning-making, which often requires deep thinking. Allowing the use of the mother tongue enables students to shape and express complex critical thoughts. This, in turn, provides significant chances for enhancing their target language. When students resort to their mother tongue during an oral or a written activity, teachers can take notes of these uses. They accordingly design form-focused instruction (direct or task-based) to help the learners acquire the foreign language equivalents of the mother tongue vocabulary or grammar. In this way, the learners capitalize on the rich learning experiences that CALT guarantees in order to develop both their critical stances and their language abilities. This makes them view themselves as people with agency who own the target language and can use it when they see fit (see the case study in Chap. 5).

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 ow May I Plan CALT-Based Instruction with Due Emphasis H to the Various Language Skills? Socially, reading, writing, listening, watching, and speaking are interconnected. People use all or some of them interactively to realize their transactional, academic, aesthetic, critical goals, etc. The various illustrations in the book show how simulating this social use of language through authentic tasks brings this interrelationship into play. This, however, does not mean that we lump the various language skills together, unguided by clear goals and objectives. Thus, instructional objectives should guide task selection as well as our instructional plans. Planning based on CALT happens at both the macro level and the micro level. At the macro level, CALT can be the basis for curriculum, program, and course design. Micro-level planning addresses different lessons or instructional units. Since teachers may play a significant role in planning instruction at this level, this section presents some tips to help them plan balanced instruction and will be followed with an illustration. • Instruction should center around tasks that provide worthwhile learning experiences (transactional, academic, critical, aesthetic, etc.), and it should address specific learning objectives. It should also incorporate the school-mandated skills and knowledge that affect the students’ performance in other classes or in high-stakes occasions such as local and/or international large-scale exams. • The instructional objectives for a course should be determined based on the degree to which they help the learners become competent, critical language users and achieve their functional and academic purposes. • The instructional plans should target the various language skills and subskills proportionally in accordance with the institutional conditions. For example, in case report writing constitutes the instructional objective of a certain instructional unit, the major task should require the use of the needed subskills of this language mode and should guide planning instruction (see the lesson about the tobacco industry report below). The target subskills should be addressed in the direct instruction phase, based on the learners’ needs to master them. The other language modes may provide input or support. These language modes should be the focus of other instructional units depending on the instructional duration, on the institutional goals, etc. • The same unit of instruction may address objectives related to two or more language modes, in which case the unit has different instructional foci at different times. For instance, if the teacher aims to target summarizing in the unit about the tobacco industry, he/she may ask students to summarize a text in order to use the summary in their reports. He/she may design strategy instruction relevant to this subtask. If listening should be targeted in instruction, students may watch a documentary about the industry, take notes, and use their notes in the report. In case description and oral presentation skills constitute objectives in the course,

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students may be asked to design an oral campaign to promote the alternatives to the tobacco industry suggested in their paper; in this campaign, they use vivid description and creative presentation of ideas. Thus, tasks and subtasks are designed to address specific objectives. The students’ responses may give rise to certain needs related to the support skills or language modes. In this case, follow-up instruction extended from the same lesson or provided in other instructional units may address these needs. For instance, suppose the students’ summaries mentioned in the previous step indicate that some students have problems in identifying the ideas that should be included in the summary and in paraphrasing. The teacher may provide direct instruction as an extension of the same lesson. Alternatively, he/she may address these needs in future instructional units. These needs may be ignored altogether if they are not a priority in relation to the students’ and the course goals. Teachers may design pre-task, during-task, and post-task direct instruction in grammar, in vocabulary, in mechanics, and in various subskills in order to help students achieve the targeted objectives. This, however, should not be used as a template to follow. Rather, the teacher should base his/her choices on his/her estimation of the students’ needs to realize the specific objectives of the lesson. The first set about the technology generation gap in Chap. 2 illustrates one way to do that. There are two major tasks in this set: a talk show and a written critical exploration of the issue. Before students do the talk show, they are provided with instruction in the vocabulary they may need to do the task. After they compose their critical exploration task, they are provided with grammar instruction based on their needs that may have arisen in their outcome. Only functional grammar and vocabulary, i.e., the ones that serve communicative purposes should be taught. Form-focused instruction should address the structures that affect the learners’ meanings and/or that may affect their identifications with groups of concern to them. This should be done with the understanding that the learners will acquire the targeted forms when they are ready for it cognitively, socially, and psychologically, not when the teacher determines that this should happen. The non-target-like structures that students use should be grouped in various categories. Not more than two or three categories should be addressed in the same lesson. Teachers should consider the pedagogical conditions such as duration of instruction and the differences among students when deciding what form to teach and when to teach it. The degree to which the learners’ wish to master the language should be taken into consideration in planning instruction. One task may use several texts as sources of input or as substance for the task. Thus, many texts that the curriculum requires can be targeted in a few tasks. In all cases, texts should be conceptualized as tools for learning and not as the center of instruction.

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• A few tasks may target many academic reading and writing subskills and may subsume many curricular objectives. • The CALT phases should not be used in a linear fashion. The various illustrative sets of tasks show how the phases of the model intend to draw the attention of the stakeholders in the educational process to the range of purposes and situations, transactional, academic, linguistic, aesthetic, exploratory, and representational that could be tackled in language classes. This intends to emphasize the need to address this range of purposes and situations in a balanced manner and in accordance with the students’ prioritized needs. Hence, the model is not a template that should be followed strictly. Rather, it constitutes a frame for conceptualizing instruction. More importantly, the frame is situated in an understanding of the social nature of language. It is also premised in the belief that teachers can capitalize on their informed, professional intuition in using the model as a guide for designing balanced instruction. Thus, teachers may omit one or more phases in a certain lesson and may use them all in another, in accordance with the students’ needs to achieve the instructional objectives and in accordance with the institutional conditions. For instance, the access phase may be omitted in case the theme or the text is familiar to the students and no other needs dictate the use of this phase. Likewise, the critical exploration and the alternative representation phases may be omitted if it is deemed that students will have enough experiences in exploratory and representational tasks in other lessons relative to the other prioritized objectives and to the allotted instructional time. The yearly plan described in Chap. 5 and the analysis of its implementation provide teachers with an example that illustrates how to apply these tips. The plan was carried out in grade 11 in a Lebanese public school, in which EFL is allotted 40 sessions only. The teacher is expected to teach writing and reading and is required to cover the assigned materials. However, grade 11 students do not have to sit for an official exam, hence allowing teachers some margin of freedom in adapting instruction. Readers may want to examine the described plan and to think about possible ways of making it more inclusive of the students’ needs and more flexible. In addition, the illustrations in the first three chapters demonstrate how teachers may generate tasks and provide support based on CALT. Another illustration is presented below to further clarify the task generation process and to illustrate lesson design.

An Illustration The table that follows will illustrate how tasks can be generated to address specific instructional objectives in any phase of the model and the number of tasks that can be generated around the same theme. The theme is smoking which is still being practiced in many forms by many people all over the world (Table 6.1).

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Table 6.1  Instructional objectives and suggested tasks Objectives/subskills Cause-effect; description; narration; creative presentation of information; synthesis Brief presentation of scientific information; cause-effect; reasoning; using interview data; analysis; synthesis

Tasks A campaign against smoking Narjeeleh in specific and other kinds of smoking in general. It can be a web activity An analysis newspaper report that includes a brief description of the composition of various kinds of tobacco and their effect on health; an argument for stopping smoking, an analysis of the reasons for smoking, interviews with some smokers and health specialists, and some recommendations for getting rid of the habit Write a comedy about a heavy smoker trying to stop smoking

Creative writing strategies: Narration; vivid description; dialogues; monologues; creative language use to construct a comedy Summarizing; reacting to Students summarize a story about one a text person’s experience with smoking and comment on it in a whole-class discussion Reading and watching for Reading and watching some smoking advertisements, reacting to them, and fun; close reading and analyzing their agendas as well as their watching; note-taking; effects on readers/viewers reacting to advertisements; critical analysis of advertisements Suggesting forms of healthy smoking and Cause-effect; synthesis; preparing advertisements for such forms creative presentation of ideas Cause-effect; reasoning; A newspaper report about the tobacco analysis; synthesis industry in which students present some facts about it; analyze the reasons for its proliferation despite the harm it causes; explore the roles of various international and national institutions in promoting, supporting or opposing, and/or overlooking the industry; and suggest alternatives to the industry

CALT phase(s) Meaning construction

Problematization and critical exploration, alternative representation

Problematization and critical exploration, alternative representation

Meaning construction

Meaning construction, problematization, and critical exploration

Alternative representation Problematization and critical exploration, alternative representation

Some tasks in the table address similar sets of objectives. Teachers may choose any of them as the focus of instruction. What task to use depends on the context and the perceived interests of the students. It may be that none of the above tasks is relevant to a certain context, in which case teachers may design tasks that more suit their particular groups. Let us design a lesson around the industry analysis report described in the last row of the table to exemplify the planning process based on CALT.

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Lesson Plan: The Industry Analysis Report • The teacher sets any of the subskills mentioned in the table as objectives for the lesson. • The teacher explains the major task to the students and asks them to give some points relevant to the report during a whole-class discussion. • The teacher explains the different steps involved in writing the report if it is a new task to the students. He/she discusses with the students possible sources of information for their reports (interviews, news articles, TV reports, etc.). • The teacher trains students in questioning as an idea-generation strategy through a brief explanation and modeling. Modeling takes place through asking questions aloud about one point raised in the brainstorming task. • Students work in groups and raise questions related to the other points generated previously. They jot down some ideas in response to these questions. • Students collect data from the agreed-on sources and write the first drafts of the report. • The teacher reads these drafts, identifies the students’ needs, and prioritizes them for instruction based on the time allotted to the unit, on what is more important to the overall course goal and to the task, on what is not going to be targeted enough in other lessons or units, etc. Suppose the following needs were identified: synthesis, analysis, appropriate genre structure, appropriate vocab, sentence structure, and appropriate verb tense. Let us assume that the prioritized needs were the following: genre type, vocab, and synthesis (verb tense, analysis, and sentence structure have been targeted previously and will be targeted in future lessons). Based on this, the teacher does the following: –– Gives students vocabulary instruction in order to learn the words that they do not know and that they will most likely use in their reports. –– Brings data about another industry, coke for instance, and trains them in synthesizing the information. –– Gives students a published report about the coke industry or a relevant topic to help them recognize the organizational pattern used in such reports and examine how similar reports synthesize and analyze data. –– Provides this training gradually, in small, well-sequenced steps. • Students receive different types of feedback which they use to finalize their report. In large classes, the teacher may use the multimode feedback strategy as follows: –– The first draft of three or four students are distributed to their classmates who provide whole-class feedback on selected parts of each report. –– The students write a journal in which they categorize the types of feedback provided to their classmates, reflect on the benefits of each category, and write some criteria for feedback provision. –– Students share their reflections in class, and the teacher guides them in formulating clear criteria for peer feedback.

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–– Then, students work in groups to provide feedback to each other in accordance with the written criteria. Each group includes one student who received whole-class feedback, but this student’s report does not receive feedback again; the purpose is to involve all students in peer feedback sessions fairly. –– The groups share their comments on each other’s drafts, and the teacher guides them in terms of what is and what is not appropriate feedback. • Students revise their papers and write a reflection on how they used the feedback. • The teacher grades both the final draft and the reflective report and uses them to identify the students’ needs for future instruction. As you notice, the CALT model has been used to frame instruction flexibly. In this lesson, the major task addressed specific subskills and was generated based on the two phases of problematization/critical exploration and alternative representation. The other phases of the model, such as access and direct instruction, were used based on the students’ needs to achieve the task objectives.

The Concerns of the Marginalized Groups The instructional illustrations the book presents address various economic, social, political etc topics. Many teachers, however, may still wonder about how to address the concerns of the marginalized groups (women, people with disabilities, religious and ethnic minorities, etc.) within the curricular constraints. A social view of education conceives of the society as inclusive of everyone in all its social, economic, political, and leisurely activities. The various arguments and illustrations in the book show how this social vision materializes in various language tasks that address various social, political, and economic issues. Teachers with this vision can include the concerns of the marginalized groups in their instruction, using many themes usually discussed in language classes. For instance, one task in the tobacco industry report may require students to examine the work conditions of women workers. Another task may demand the examination of whether or not this industry employs people with disabilities. In the set about the new rent law described in Chap. 5, students may analyze the consequential effects of the law on some disempowered groups, such as the refugees. In the trip lesson in Chap. 1, students may examine whether or not their selected tourism plans include any facilities for people with disabilities. They would possibly discuss the social constraints that may inhibit women in enjoying such luxuries. W. Morgan (1997) presents an interesting unit on tourism in which she highlights the differences between the marginalized groups and the lucky ones; you may refer to her book to see how she does that. Other scholars provide insightful discussions of the issues of gender and race in EFL classes (e.g., Hammond, 2006; Norton & Pavlenko, 2004).

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An Illustration The following task is usually performed in EFL classes: “Describe a famous person—e.g., a singer or athlete—that you admire. Focus on both their appearance and personality traits.” The following suggestions show how tasks can be generated based on CALT to address the theme of celebrities and the description subskill. A lesson plan that provides a CALT-based alternative to the task specified above will follow to illustrate how we can incorporate the concerns of the marginalized groups in the same theme, addressing clear instructional objectives. • You are in a committee responsible for selecting celebrities for an outstanding award. Choose the person whom you believe deserves the award, and write to the committee describing both the physical characteristics and the personality traits that make your chosen person a good candidate for the award. • Suppose that the committee’s choice had been very disappointing to you to the extent that you decided to go public about the matter. Write a newspaper article in which you explain your point of view, clarifying how subjectivity plays a considerable role in the committee’s choices. Analyze reasons for the final decision of the committee and raise questions about the motives of its members. • Celebrities are always celebrated by many well-known international organizations. Search for published reports about some of these awards in the last 10  years. Examine whether or not celebrities from ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, women, etc. have been well represented in these awards, and construct a multimedia news report about the matter.

 CALT-Based Lesson: The Marginalized Groups A in Celebrity Awards Instructional objectives: Students will be able to: • • • •

Synthesize for a specific purpose. Analyze the textual representations of some social groups for a specific purpose. Describe for a specific purpose. Narrate for a specific purpose. Procedures

• Students discuss the task (the last one described above) with the teacher. • Students search for the appropriate reports with the help of the teacher. • Groups of students select texts about one celebrity and assign each member to read the reports published in 2 or more years. • Each student summarizes the assigned reports, including the following: name of the award, year of granting it, the nominated people, the awarded individuals,

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number of people from the marginalized groups who were nominated, and their percentages in relation to the total number of nominated people, people who could have possibly been nominated or awarded from the marginalized groups, and the main justifications for the committees’ decisions. Each student gives copies of the summaries to the group members who read them individually and comment on them. Groups work in class on the project which will be a multimedia news report. They decide on the points to tackle and distribute responsibilities. Each student does the assigned part, and the groups meet again to organize their work and make it coherent. The teacher supervises the students’ work and plans direct instruction in any issue that arises during group work or in the students’ summaries. He/she may take one or two summaries from each group and identifies reading or summarizing issues that need to be tackled. Based on the needs that arise in the summaries, he/she designs direct instruction. Students prepare their reports, and the teacher gives feedback to help them complete their projects successfully. The teacher watches the reports and provides students with feedback and direct instruction in their oral performance. He/she may do that in an additional session in the same lesson or may plan to do that in future instructional units.

 ow Do I Introduce Critical Literacy to My Classes Without H Conflicts with the Administration, with Colleagues, and/or with Parents? The answer to this complex question requires a careful consideration of many factors. Many teachers have a considerable degree of freedom of action in the state educational sector in many countries (Crookes & Lehner, 1998), which makes it possible to use CALT. However, like any change process, introducing CALT to a conservative educational system may be met with some resistance. This resistance may happen in both the private and the public educational institutions. Thus, some teachers may feel that the suggestions in this book cannot be applied in their contexts. There are myriad ways of introducing critical literacy in contexts where such practices may be resisted. Lin (2012) reports on interesting experiences of introducing innovative pedagogies under difficult pedagogic conditions in Hong Kong. The instructors in Lin’s report depended on their intuitions and informed reflections to introduce new ways of teaching. Thus, the teacher is the only one who can determine the type of objections that may be raised to CALT and the best ways to handle them in his/her particular context. There are, however, general characteristics that any critical teacher, whether or not highly constrained by a conservative educational system, should possess. The following points, adapted from Ibrahim (2015b) with modifications, may help in introducing changes to one’s teaching smoothly:

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1. Believe in your intuition regarding how to make your instruction critical without creating a degree of opposition that may hinder the change process. 2. Make sure that you do not introduce significant instructional changes before you gain membership in the school community, i.e., before the stakeholders in the school accept you as member in this community. 3. Reflect critically on the curriculum, on school policies, and on your practices. 4. Make critical conversations on old and new ideas a common, regular practice in your institution. You may, for instance, transform any casual dialogue with colleagues into a constructive exchange of ideas about the changes you are thinking of. You may share some critical readings with your colleagues for discussion as the conditions allow. You may share with colleagues information about interesting resources that may facilitate the change process. You may ask the administration for structured occasions for the exchange of ideas and experiences among colleagues. 5. If possible, invite teachers to observe some critical tasks in your class. 6. Stop implementing a new idea if you feel that it will cause significant opposition which may not be handled successfully, but continue implementing a successful idea if the opposition it incurs is not harmful, based on your informed intuition. 7. Make the change process a gradual one, during which you start changing the practices that may incur the least opposition possible. 8. When a certain change becomes accepted in the school community, introduce another one. 9. Some teachers do not share what they do if they deem any positive, professional relationship with colleagues not possible. This is certainly not a situation we would like ourselves to be in, but in some complicated contexts, it may be the best option. The main principle, though, is to keep trying to create a cooperative environment in your institution. 10. Carry out cooperative action research projects with your colleagues when possible. 11. Take into consideration the knowledge and skills that students are required to demonstrate in official exams or in large-scale tests, even if they are useless in real life. 12. Devote enough time to train students in official exam questions, but do not teach to the exam. It is unreasonable to give official exam questions more time than they need. Such questions require a small portion of the instructional time allocated to teaching English. 13. Capitalize on the meaningful tasks that the students enjoy in training them to write the types of essays required in official exams. When students enjoy writing for a variety of purposes and develop their writing subskills, it becomes easy to teach them how to answer official exam questions. For example, after students organize any of the advocacy campaigns mentioned before, you can ask them to use their outcomes in writing a cause-effect essay, abiding by the formats recommended by authorities. Any of the advertisements mentioned in

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the planning section can be transformed into a descriptive essay required by schools. These are certainly not exclusive recommendations. Teachers may use other ones on the basis of making changes appropriate to their contexts in order to contribute to the betterment of the teaching/learning process.

 ouldn’t CALT Classes Give Rise to Some Controversy W Among Students and/or Between Students and Me? I would like to start this section with Akbari’s following observation: Educational failures (in the form of indoctrinations, indifference, prejudice) have been at the heart of such tragedies as the genocide in Rwanda, hunger in Africa, holocaust in Europe, and ethnic cleansing in former Yugoslavia. What happened during these events surpasses human imagination, making philosopher Theodore Adorno pose the question of what education will be like after such senseless instances of human suffering. (2008b, p. 292)

This failure has resulted from our escaping questions of difference, injustice, and prejudice. Thus, it is the educators’ responsibility, language educators included, to refrain from this escapism if we want our classes to be successful and rewarding even at the linguistic level (see B. Morgan & Vandrick, 2009). In addition, schools have the responsibility of developing the learners’ ability to respect different opinions and to manage emotions so that any significant disagreement does not lead to conflicts in the society. Even teachers who avoid these issues altogether may face difficult moments because emotionally charged and significant conflicts in attitudes, values, and opinions are bound to surface in interactive classes (Jeyaraj & Harland, 2014; Kubota, 2014). To handle emotionally charged disagreements successfully, teachers are required to pay close attention to the affective dimension of class discussions, capitalizing on imagination and empathy (Kubota, 2014). To illustrate, I will narrate some class incidents reported in the literature. Then, some tips will be provided to manage critical literacy classes successfully. In an insightful article, Kubota (2014) reported about a dilemma she faced in a teaching English as a second language methods course at a university in Japan, in which male and female students preparing to become primary and secondary school English teachers were enrolled. The researcher adopted a critical approach to content-­based instruction; she used “… an example of the complexity of victim-­ victimizer relationships in selected historical events during the Asia-Pacific War (World War II). (She) wanted to question the dominant view that positions Japan as a loser/victim but not a victimizer of the war” (p. 227). Many students attended a seminar that was organized at the university at that time around the victim/victimizer debate, during which the Nanking Massacre of 1937 was discussed. In this event, the Japanese army massacred tens of thousands of Chinese civilians. In class, the teacher/researcher discussed with the students their feelings during the seminar, which led to some tension. The following account illustrates the tension:

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One Asian Canadian student asked, “Is there really a view that the Massacre never happened?” Another male student who did not attend the lectures said yes. The Asian Canadian student looked surprised. Another Japanese male student, who attended the lectures, chimed in: “We need to look at both opinions to make a fair judgment.” (The eyes of the two Asian Canadian students looked red with tears.) One of them, who immigrated to Canada from China as a teenager, reacted emotionally: “I grew up hearing about the Massacre from my grandparents. You all saw the film and listened to the testimonies yesterday and you still don’t believe that it happened?!” Yet, the three Japanese men insisted that the validity of the information presented at the lectures should be judged by considering the other point of view. One eventually said, “Those people, like the ones in the film, are telling lies. Yeah, they tell lies.” I mentioned the historians’ consensus about the fact that the massacre did happen. I also asked the students what they would think if they were told that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing was justified. To this question, they said they would not accept this view. (However, they wanted the denial of the massacre to be treated equally.) (pp. 228–229)

Based on class interaction, Kubota discussed the various subtleties inherent in various positions that teachers may take regarding controversial issues in the language class. For convenience, I will draw on some of them in analyzing similar events and in presenting some suggestions as to how to deal with them. I would also like to foreground this analysis with Morgan and Ramanathan’s idea that critical literacies aim “…to create space for the agency of others and not to determine if or how that agency will be realized” (2005, P. 155). In other words, in analyzing the conflicts that occur in critical classes and in practicing critical literacies ourselves, we should keep in mind that our role as teachers is to create a platform for a critical examination of the learners’ experiences and of discourses surrounding these experiences, but not to determine how people should think or behave during or after such an examination. Unfortunately, tragic military events still happen in many parts of the world, and they find support among many people under various emotional slogans, e.g., patriotism, promotion of democracy, fighting terrorism, freeing the oppressed, punishing atheists, etc. This support is produced discursively and historically through the partiality of knowledge, the fluidity of identities, the power relationships, etc., as post-­ structuralism assumes; this assumption is explicated in the following excerpt by Kubota (2014), quoting landmark scholars in the field: Knowledge is understood as “socially, historically constructed, contingent, partial, and provisional” (Andreotti, 2011, p. 192). As such, social identities of the self and the other are “not autonomous properties or discovered attributes,” but they are multiple, fluid, relational and “are negotiated and renegotiated through social interactions” (Nelson, 2009, p. 12). In this view, oppressions, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, are produced and legitimated in the discourses of “the repetition of harmful histories” (Kumashiro, 2000, p. 40). (pp. 238–239)

Thus, in the EFL language classroom, exploring such topics as the atrocities committed in the Lebanese civil armed conflict, in Rwanda’s genocide or Afghani wars, or in more recent Syrian and Yemeni’s armed struggles, the conflict between North and South Korea, or the hardships in some parts of South America may spark the sincere but not necessarily justified emotions of many participants. As Kubota (2014) suggests, these strong emotional moments shouldn’t be viewed as closures

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for the discussion; they rather should become openings for other learning opportunities and deeper insights through exploring the discourses surrounding the event that sparked the controversy. In a language course I taught at the Lebanese University, students discussed the armed struggle that took place between the Lebanese Army and a Lebanese armed party during the late 1980s. The students’ arguments about the causes of the fight and of the massacres sparked a tense, emotional debate between two students whose fathers were directly involved in the struggle. When one of them was narrating how her father, a prisoner of war, was tortured by the other party, drops of tears fell on her cheeks. The discussion was ended when it reached this stage. In retrospect, the emotional reactions of the two students should have been used as a point of departure for analyzing the discourses that shaped the narratives of that particular event, rather than a point of closure (Kubota, 2014). Students could have explained the rationale for their opinions, after which the class could have cooperated in searching for materials about the event (newspaper articles, TV reports, and books) and in analyzing how the discourses of these materials may have constructed their views in partial ways. “(This) … unpacking the meanings of our knowledge, the mechanisms of its construction, and the individual, social, and institutional consequences of the meaning … involves unlearning one’s worldview and reworking other ways of knowing” (Kubota, 2014, p. 239). Teachers wanting to adopt this idea may fear their lack of access to the needed resources and/or their inability to guide the students regarding which resources to use for their analysis. They also may worry about not going to the class fully prepared and in control of every class move (Jeyaraj & Harland, 2014). Though understandable, these fears should not characterize educators who master their profession and who believe in what they are doing. Additionally, critical teachers always view themselves as learners. They certainly should possess the necessary knowledge and skills to pose an issue and to manage the discussion, but they do not need to know the details of every topic posed in class. They rather should possess an attitude that unjust beliefs, discourses, texts, and behaviors should be questioned. This questioning leads to the exploration of matters significant to the students and to the teacher, which deepens their understanding of these matters. Certainly, critical language teachers come to the class prepared but do not fear the dynamics of the class activity. Skilled educators direct classwork successfully, regardless the directions in which these dynamics may go. They address these complexities effectively, keeping in sight the learning goals, the students’ desires, and the institutional conditions. Even less extreme ideas about race, gender, and religion may pose a challenge especially in teaching additional languages, in which different cultures and perspectives often collide with each other in intercultural exchanges. In such contexts, shared morality is not always guaranteed and teachers are often caught in multiple moral hierarchies of gender, race, class, culture, and historical positioning of the colonizer/colonized. (Kubota, 2014, p. 244)

Ibrahim’s (2016) research illustrates Kubota’s observation. In this study, Ibrahim analyzed Nijmeh and Tatiana’s early experiences in implementing critical literacy. These two teachers used critical literacy instruction in their EFL school classes and

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reported on their experiences in their master theses, but Nijmeh also was the instructor in the study described in Chap. 5. I will refer to Nijmeh’s thesis as “study 1” and to the one in Chap. 5 as “study 2.” In my 2016 research, Nijmeh and Tatiana described the dilemmas and the successes they went through during critical literacy instruction, dilemmas and successes shaped by the group of learners they taught, by their social and institutional circumstances, as well as by the instructors’ worldviews. The selections below are quoted from my 2016 research with some modifications: The following narrative was provided by Tatiana about an interaction that took place in a university language course which she taught after she had finished her thesis. In a class discussion, the students, who included many veiled Muslims and some Christians, were all against abortion even when the child would be severely disabled. These were some of their arguments: “Who are we to end one’s life?” “We should accept and tolerate calamities because they are from God.” I was shutting up. I couldn’t tolerate. During the discussion, I said: “My niece suffers from mental retardation. She does not walk, hear or speak. Her mother curses life one hundred times a day. Probably, the daughter will do the same in the future. Can we say we are against abortion? Can I tolerate my child’s daily sufferings? Is it humanity to see people suffer? I do not want the God whom you are describing. I don’t want him.” I was upset a lot. I even cried because I remembered the terrible situation of my niece. I certainly now wish that nothing happens to her. But when she was still an embryo, one can tolerate losing her. One student insisted that humanity does not allow her to kill. I told her: “Where does humanity lie in what you are saying? Even God should ask people if they can tolerate a certain situation. I should have the choice. If religion is against forcing people to believe in certain ideas, why do you want to force us to do it?” Two people went out. Two students changed their opinion. Obviously, Tatiana’s sensitive personal experience with the issue was highly implicated in the debate. As the narrative indicates, Tatiana could not manage the effect of her emotions on her role in class discussion. Her anger, though understandable, reveals that her position and her blame of the individual students for being against abortion dragged her into an argumentative situation, which constituted limitations for analyzing the social discourses that shaped the students’ beliefs. One challenge that a critical literacy instructor faces is to make students examine their own discourses critically, without letting her genuine emotions guide the discussion. In the end, empathy with the victims of injustice is an important goal of critical literacy, and one should be himself/ herself empathetic, i.e., emotional, in order to promote this sense of empathy among people. The extent to which one can manage his anger at injustice determines the degree of success in making people see it and recognize how texts and discourses can promote it. Teachers with a vision of a democratic and a just world can develop this ability through methodological rigor, which refers to the teachers’ devotion to their profession in all its aspects: “scientific formation, ethical rectitude, respect for others, coherence, a capacity to live with and learn from what is different, and an ability to relate to others without letting our ill-humor or our antipathy get in the way of our balanced judgment of the facts” (Freire, 2001, p. 31). This seems a complex task, particularly the ability to tolerate an unjust discourse that impacts one’s life significantly, so that all concerned parties can analyze it. Tatiana explained that critical conversations with students and others “are dangerous because they shock them, which might lead to rejection”; they are so also because they make her reflect on her values and thoughts. This, according to her, taught her not to be so shocking during such conversations. This indicates Tatiana’s recognition of what may inhibit critical learning, in which the learners and the teachers are in a continuous process

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of transformation and during which both are the subjects of constructing and reconstructing knowledge (Freire, 2001). However, it seems Tatiana had difficulty in dealing with unjust discourses that affect her personally. (pp. 344–345)

The impact of the teachers’ worldviews may take other forms than the ones illustrated in the narrative above. The following interaction with Nijmeh exemplifies one of these forms, namely, the subjectivities involved in choosing materials: While sharing ideas about possible materials for study 2, Nijmeh demanded that we avoid one text that she used in study 1 titled “Professor’s snub of creationists prompts US inquiry.” In brief, the text describes the case of a professor who refuses to give recommendation letters to biology students who do not believe in the theory of evolution. This has stimulated legal indictments against the professor by some students and student organizations at the university where he used to teach. Nijmeh’s students were required to assume the role of the professor and argue for his position. Nijmeh commented on the task as follows: The topic was challenging. It should have been given to a higher level. I have explained it well, but they did not like it. I did not feel that it stimulated interaction. Students could not put themselves in the shoes of the professor to defend his position and mistake, which contradict their religious beliefs. They believe that he discriminated against students. Only one student said: since we are judging him as a discriminating person, we are being discriminatory ourselves. As Shor (2009) argues, controversial topics demand teachers who believe in the possibility of questioning anything; those teachers can help students see the value of and reduce their resistance to a questioning stance. Nijmeh claimed that she believed in this questioning approach and attributed the students’ resistance to the idea that “they did not reach the stage at which they understand that we are just putting ourselves in the shoes of others, without necessarily changing our beliefs.” She added that this is “maybe due to their religious background. Usually people are attached to their beliefs and find it difficult to surrender easily to the other party.” She described this as stubbornness and inflexibility and suggested: “Students have to be exposed to situations like this, to other articles that show such people are misjudged and that they have the right to believe whatever they want.” However, Nijmeh’s resistance to include the “Professor’s snub of creationists…” in study 2 indicates that she was still not able to make her students reflect on values so dear to many of them, to her, and to the local community which the school serves. In her reflection on this interpretation, Nijmeh stressed: Your analysis was right, really it was right. At one point, I felt that critical literacy contradicts my religious beliefs. A strong example was when I couldn’t raise questions and facilitate the discussion to help students be in the professor’s shoes because it challenged my belief system. I had this barrier. Because I had this conflict, I could not make the students raise questions and do further analysis. However, when I thought about it, I accepted it because we have to teach our students and even our children how to think and how not to accept everything they are told. We should be critical about everything, even about religion. (pp. 342–343)

Nijmeh’s experience clarifies that choosing materials for language classes, or for any other subject for that matter, is ideological (Kubota, 2014). It also indicates that teachers need to be open to different points of views, even when some of them are at odds with their own beliefs. This does not mean to accept what they do not believe in but to respect the other and to negotiate with him/her, for all discourses are partial and interested. This openness should characterize critical teachers not only when students express ideas with which they do not agree but also when raising questions

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to make the learners see things from different perspectives, as Tatiana’s following narrative from Ibrahim (2016) indicates: In a language class she had taught before she embarked on her critical literacy study, Tatiana invested in the students’ desire to talk about a building that had collapsed in their neighborhood in Beirut at that time. “When (she) entered class, the students were expressing pity towards the victims and blaming the owner for not obliging the residents to leave.” Tatiana asked a number of questions which included: “Who is responsible? If your parents were in this situation, what would you expect them to do?” According to her, the students started seeing the problem from a different perspective and gradually shifting their views of which the criminal and the victim were. When they had started attributing the delay of the residents to leave the building to their poverty, she brought to their attention the TV scenes which showed that they were not poor and indicated the residents’ desires to get some compensation as a motive for staying in the houses. The students concluded that “even if we will be on the street, (our parents) should save our lives.” In another instance, Tatiana’s coordinator asked her to discuss with the students a religious story about a poor man who used to live in the desert with his young child. The child used to complain about the lack of electricity, water shortage, the lack of computers, etc., but the father used to give the following justifications: “but we have stars, fountains, and animals.” Tatiana made the students relate the lesson to socioeconomic conditions, as her account below indicates: The text was a bit frustrating to me. I wanted the students to analyze the father’s efforts to make his son accept (his circumstances). They first said that the story emphasizes the importance of living in nature. I asked: “If he wants to study, can he study in the light of the stars?” Some students said that maybe the father is lazy and does not want to work. I asked: “Why does the father want to send a religious message?” One student said: “The father wanted his child to shut up. Only God shuts us up. We use religion to make people shut up and accept reality and not to revolt”. I was very happy with the answer. Tatiana’s questioning and comparison strategies seem to have enabled the students to examine how discourses manipulate the “truth” and to challenge the myths engendered in the social, religious and political rhetoric, as Shor (2009) calls for. This is important, but questioning the myths engendered in any discourse does not mean a strong claim to the truth. Tatiana’s subjectivity (feelings and beliefs) about the topics discussed in her classes seem to have guided the discussion. Her questions made students focus on interpretations compatible with her beliefs and marginalize others. For instance, in the case of the religious story, alternative interpretations include the father’s honest belief in what he is saying; the conflict of interests between the two family members; the father’s submission to the religious discourse because of fear, for instance. While one’s subjectivity is where any critical instructor starts, one’s feelings and reactions should be managed through an important dimension of a reflexive teacher, namely admitting one’s position and opening the floor for all possible interpretations. While Tatiana could involve her students in analyzing the dominant social discourses, she appears to lack the ability to manage her subjectivity during the discussion of significant issues so that all possible interpretations are considered by students. This could be done through reflexivity which allows contemplating critical moments in one’s practices by falling back on theory and connecting it to practice. Tatiana could have positioned herself as a facilitator of critical dialogues among students. (pp. 335–337)

Because CALT enables the learners to reflect on their authentic experiences which embody subtle social issues as well as tense emotions, it may initiate strong resistance on the part of a few students, and this resistance may take the form of silence. Sadeghi (2008) reported a striking case of this form of resistance during a critical language course in an Iranian rural area. In this course, adult students discussed

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topics such as local habits, patriarchy, religious differences, etc. One student, Sara, remained silent most of the class time. A class discussion on the unfair authority of the father in the students’ local communities, during which most students narrated their personal experiences, triggered Sara’s strong but short reaction. She commented that resisting fathers’ authorities is ridiculous and unrealistic, but she declined any further elaboration. However, at the end of the class, she privately related the following personal experience to the teacher and never showed up again: Look, I escaped with my boyfriend to Teheran, because my dad didn’t allow me to marry him (I had to marry my cousin in keeping with traditional custom), and one day……(hesitantly continuing) - I went back to home, because my mom tried to commit suicide. …. Though she survived, but I tarnished my family name, broke my mom’s heart. Yeas, I have actualized myself, gained my own identity. But at what cost? I hate you, your class, and your ridiculous ideas. Because you have no idea of what it means. (p. 288)

Although Sara represents an extreme case and although many factors may have contributed to her strong resistance, various forms of resistance are a normal part of interactive classes, let alone critical ones. In the section below, some suggestions will help teachers deal with resistant students.

What Do I Conclude from These Experiences? It is important to stress, at the outset of this section, that although challenging, critical literacy is rewarding at many levels: in terms of language development, in terms of students’ interest, in terms of the teachers’ enrichment, and in terms of intellectual and social growth (see the previous chapters as well as all the cited research related to this topic for more details). The dialogues that result from basing class instruction on significant authentic experiences are transformative socially and intellectually. Sadeghi (2008) explained that many students transformed their views as a result of class discussion, illustrating her point with one student who said in a journal entry that the discussion changed his perspectives of his country and made him more accepting of difference. This is highly rewarding for both students and teachers, a point made clearly in the following selections from Ibrahim (2016). Nijmeh said: “When students started responding favorably to the tasks, she started feeling happy with that because … (students became) more involved …” (and deeper readers and writers) (p. 340). Tatiana “… remembered very well when she informed the students (with whom she used ‘The Dead Poets Society’ during her first teaching experience that she) won’t be with them the coming year, how some of them stood on the desks and repeated ‘Oh Captain, My Captain’” (p. 340), indicating that she impacted them greatly. Tatiana felt “… very, very proud about it” (p. 330). Nijmeh explained: “This is real teaching. (Students noticed that) there is something exciting about what we are doing because in other classes, all what teachers do is asking them to read aloud in turn and ask them about the tone and the theme” (p. 341). (See Chap. 5 for more testimonies.) These testimonies confirm that language learning cannot take place effectively without interaction, and interaction

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remains limited without controversial topics. Thus, controversy is inevitable in the language classroom. The question, then, is not how to avoid controversial topics but how to make the discussions around these topics conducive to learning, to tolerance among the school members, and to positive social change. In order to help teachers realize these attributes of critical classes, I will present some measures at three levels below: At the attitudinal level, teachers need to: 1. Believe that language development happens best when students feel a sense of ownership of learning; this, in turn, takes place when learning means to students, which implies emotional and intellectual engagement. 2. View emotional and intellectual engagement as involving of co-construction of knowledge, of values, of beliefs, and of identifications. 3. Recognize that this co-construction involves continuous learning, unlearning, and relearning on the part of both teachers and students. 4. Respect all opinions and love the students for who they are. 5. Recognize that any learning involves some kind of confusion and that ambiguity tolerance is an important attribute of successful, critical learners. 6. View the problematization of knowledge and of experiences through questioning and other exploratory tasks as essential attributes of engaging students in meaningful learning experiences. 7. Recognize that some learning and change may be observable, but a lot of it happens in unexpected, unobservable ways through micro-cracks in one’s systems of knowledge, beliefs, and values, as Wolfe (2010) argues. At the instructional level, teachers should: 1. Establish a positive relationship with the students based on trust and respect. This does not mean to let go of your authority as a class manager and as an expert in some areas; this means to use your authority and expertise to facilitate participatory learning, to move the learners toward more positive relationships and cooperation, to help them shape a clearer vision of justice and equity, to help them be less offensive, and to help them become more tolerant of difference. 2. Establish the pedagogical conditions most conducive to learning. 3. Make sure that the adopted approach balances among the various prioritized goals for a certain course. 4. Provide opportunities that enable students to develop their language and their exploratory skills in some observable ways, i.e., through setting objectives for both teaching and assessment. 5. Take moments of tense emotion and/or instances of strong debates in class as points of departure for the construction and the deepening of learning. 6. When planning for the course, choose materials and topics of significance at both the global and the local levels; make sure that the chosen materials tackle knowledge and values that may promote interaction, negotiation, thoughtfulness, and learning; this implies that you may choose topics which challenge the students’ beliefs as well as your beliefs.

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7. Introduce challenging topics gradually; you may start with the less sensitive ones and increasingly move toward more challenging topics; this can be based on your estimation of what topics may or may not lead to early closure in discussion. 8. When any member in the class, including you, reaches an emotional tension during discussion, change the class dynamics by asking students to write about what led to this point, by moving the discussion away from the contentious aspect to a more analytical one, by asking students to move to a reading activity related to the point under discussion, etc. 9. Involve students in analyzing texts and discourses related to the point that has sparked emotional distress. 10. Guide the discussion so that students say their opinions without appropriating them to your position; this does not mean to hide your position; it rather means to ask questions that make students consider all sides of an issue; you may say your point of view at some point during the discussion, when you deem that it will not lead to closure or affect the students in a way that marginalizes their views. 11. Avoid dialogues between two or more students or between you and one or two students. 12. Always ask students to address the whole class when they express a point of view. 13. Ask students to respond to the point itself and not to the person who expresses it. 14. Do not allow aggressiveness during discussions. 15. When aggressive discourse immerges during class discussion, interrupt the speaker respectfully. Then, you may restate the point of the discussion in a way that reduces tension. You may direct the discussion toward a less contentious point. 16. Understand students who resort to silence during discussion, for silence may indicate a conscious act of opposition (Stein, 2004). Stein explains other symbolizations of silence, including the power of the taboo discourse. 17. Consider the whole range of tasks when evaluating the students’ participation and performance; silent students in some class discussions may become highly engaged in other discussions or in other forms of expression (see Ajayi, 2015; Stein, 2004). 18. Use a variety of tasks with various formats to give all students the opportunity to participate in ways with which they feel comfortable. Stein (2004) suggests the notion of multimodal pedagogies to address this point. Although she discusses it in the context of South Africa, the notion may be adapted to various contexts. In this regard, consider various forms of expression as modes for the tasks, i.e., acting out, storytelling, singing, documentaries, the use of the Web for interaction, texts supported by various media tools, etc. This does not mean reducing the focus on the major class objectives; it rather means using these multimodal representations as ways to involve all students in order to enhance

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their performance in relation to the course goals and assigning these ways of expression appropriate weight in terms of assessment. At the assessment level, teachers should: 1. Ensure fair evaluation by developing criteria based on what students are able to do, not based on what they have not practiced enough and learned. 2. Make sure that you address a variety of task types for a range of purposes so that the potentials and needs of all students are addressed in both teaching and assessment. 3. Share with the learners the type of questions and tasks as well as the criteria on the basis of which they will be evaluated. 4. Ask the students to participate in designing assessment tasks and take their suggestions into consideration. 5. Make sure that the students’ suggestions are incorporated in your assessment plans to address the specified instructional objectives, not something else. 6. When students suggest assessment tasks, guide them so that their suggestions are relevant to the targeted objectives. 7. Remember that not all learners will respond to all types of instruction, including critical instruction, in the same way. 8. Take into consideration those who have responded least favorably to instruction in grading; I may give those learners the average grade if their weak responsiveness is not due to negligence or unwillingness to work. 9. Seek an understanding of the students’ undesired performance. 10. Work with resistive students in order to accept CALT instruction and to meet the course requirements. 11. Evaluate the students’ skills based on clear instructional objectives that have been targeted during instruction, not their stance regarding an issue no matter how biased their stance may be. 12. Use evaluation tasks as opportunities for learning and for helping students do better. 13. Reflect on the pedagogical process so that you capitalize on what goes well in order to minimize the chances of failure.

 oesn’t CALT Make Students Question Everything and Lose D Their Moral Grounds? The question assumes that the learners are without agency, history, and identity. It supposes that students cannot distinguish between fairness and unfairness. Actually, the questioning mentality on which CALT works aims to help students develop a value system that is just and conducive to a better life. No one will do away with a certain belief or value system without replacing it with another. Thus, when students develop an awareness of what is just and what is not, they may become agents of

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change. This agency is necessarily driven by a belief system that makes them see, for instance, that empathy should replace discrimination. The question at the beginning of this section also predicts that critical literacy will lead to drastic changes in the students’ belief systems. This ignores that beliefs and attitudes are shaped discursively, socially, and historically, are linked to the persons’ multiple and fluid identities, are consolidated by their desires for various group identifications, etc. Thus, changes in beliefs and values require suitable conditions and proceed slowly. When students analyze the discourses that advocate violence, they may not turn into activists against violence, but they will at least become aware of its individual and social consequences; they may stop being supporters of some forms of violence and will develop instead the value of dialogue and of peace. This does not mean that they will be totally peaceful regardless of their sociopolitical and socioeconomic conditions. The complexity of violence, particularly the one enacted within group identities, such as fighting national enemies or resisting occupation, makes it hard to reach an absolute rejection of it, but CALT instruction helps in shaping an understanding of its reasons and may make room for creative possibilities for a more peaceful world. This certainly does not imply, for instance, demanding the colonized to stop resisting their colonizers, for this kind of violence will only stop when people are guaranteed their rights. Thus, CALT aims to develop global citizenship in all people so that the cycle of violence and injustice is broken. This is certainly a strategic, not within sight goal. A questioning mentality may bring people to a better understanding of their common interests, keeping intact some of their multiple identities that surface in appropriate conditions. These conditions, then, play significant roles in promoting the human common interests, and critical literacy is but one factor that contributes to this process. Based on this, critical teachers should not conceive of change as a must in their classes. They should rather view critical language classes as spaces for dialogue and for critical exploration.

Spaces for Fun and Enjoyment The teachers’ concern for over skepticism in critical classes implies their understanding of CALT as always focused on grief. Remember that CALT aims to instill in students the idea that change is possible and that they can contribute to this change in some way. CALT also does not neglect transactional and aesthetic purposes (see Misson & Morgan, 2006). For instance, jokes may be the content of a critical literacy lesson, during which students laugh at them and analyze their language for its potential bias, racism, overgeneralization, etc. Students may enjoy the aesthetics of an interesting advertisement and unravel its hidden agendas in the same lesson. Stevens and Bean (2007) explain: “Sometimes it’s just fine to simply enjoy a poem, song, novel, film, enticing ad, or art of all kinds. Not everything should be deconstructed, and students have their own spaces where they simply

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need to enjoy the aesthetics of (certain texts)” (p. 15). I would add that it is not just fine to do that, but it is a must to allow students spaces for fun and enjoyment, for pleasure and hope are among the values that CALT aims to promote. People’s emotions and subjectivities constitute essential attributes beside and beyond reason. In order to enable our students to critique objects and discourses in which they find pleasure, we must allow them spaces for fun and enjoyment (Morgan & Ramanathan, 2005). Otherwise, we will stifle their interest in critique (Janks, 2002). “We need to work with (the learners’) pleasures and desires, as well as on them, to redirect them and create an even more pleasing subjectivity” (Morgan, 1997, p. 44). In this way, change is more possible because it may be linked to changing desires, and desires constitute powerful tools for shaping our identities.

Conclusion In a peaceful world, we will still need critical literacy; in a world dominated by exploitation and by political, ethnic, and religious terrorism, the need is even greater, as Janks (2012) argues. A critical reflection on the political, economic, and social turmoils that plague many parts of the world today makes us realize that education has in many instances failed to play its role in reducing the human sufferings. Thus, it is time that everyone of us takes up that view that education has been invented to promote a better life, and for it to do so, it should respond to the unjust world order that exists today. This requires grounding our educational practices in an informed social vision of teaching and learning. The present book offers EFL teachers varied opportunities to develop this vision and to materialize it in their teaching. It does so by foregrounding the complex theoretical ideas of critical language teaching in practice and by offering plenty of practical illustrations. This does not only make these ideas accessible, but it also enables teachers to base their instruction in coherent theoretical views in ways that suit their contexts.

Appendices

Appendix A: Sample Lessons The lessons in this appendix are taken from various teaching resources widely used in EFL contexts. The five lessons included in this appendix have been used in the analysis in Chap. 2. Thus, only the questions in each lesson are presented as a reference for the reader. The appendix starts with Lesson 2 because Lesson 1 is presented in the chapter.

 esson 2: “Tuesdays with Morrie,” a Memoir Written by Mitch L Albom, Grade 11 Pre-reading Understanding aphorisms 2.1 Which elders in your life have given you good advice—a parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, or neighbor? 2.2. What advice did they give you? 2.3. Did you realize it was good advice at the time, or did it take some time before you appreciated it? 2.4. Have you followed the advice? 2.5. Read the following words of wisdom, also called a proverb or an aphorism. And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 N. K. Ibrahim, Critical Literacy Approach to English as a Foreign Language, English Language Education 29, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04154-9

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Paraphrase the meaning of the proverb in your own words. 2.6. Lincoln’s words are made more impactful by the use of antithesis and parallelism. Antithesis is a rhetorical device in which two opposing ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect. Parallelism is the use of similar grammatical structures within a sentence of paragraph. Do you think antithesis and parallelism are effective? What are their purposes? Can you think of any other examples of these rhetorical devices? During Reading 2.7 As you read this excerpt, notice how the two main characters are described. Highlight details that describe Morrie in yellow and those that describe Mitch in blue. Then add a comment to write a word that describes the general feeling of the highlighted detail: positive or negative. After Reading Use the following questions to check comprehension: How does the phone ringing in the first paragraph impact the story? 2.9 When the phone rings the second time, Morrie doesn’t take the call, saying, “I’m visiting my old pal now.” How does Mitch react to this event? 2.10 Mitch reflects on his life when he asks himself, “What happened to me?” What do these details reveal about Mitch? Give examples. 2.11 Try to infer the meanings of the unfamiliar words in BOLD from the context. Then look them up and create footnotes that include the meaning of each. 2.12 Details are like windows into a text’s meaning. They give us a deeper look at aspects of character and theme. Copy the descriptive details you highlighted in the passage into the chart below. In the second column, indicate if the detail is positive or negative. Finally, in the third column, explain why you labeled this detail as positive or negative. Description of Morrie (Words and Actions

Positive or Negative

Explanation

Appendices Description of Mitch (Words and Actions

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Explanation

Second Read 2.13 Determining the central idea Read through the excerpt from Tuesdays with Morrie for the second time with a partner. One person should take the part of Morrie and the other the part of Mitch. What is the theme of the passage? Underline one or two sentences that capture the main idea of the passage. 2.14 Focus on determining the central idea Author’s carefully include descriptive details to develop the theme of the text. In the first read of the passage, you looked at the descriptive details about the two main characters. How do these details support the theme the author is communicating? 2.15 Read the dialogue below and then answer the following questions. “Dying,” Morrie suddenly said, “is only one thing to be sad over, Mitch. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.” Why? “Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own. Most people can’t do it. They’re more unhappy than me—even in my current condition.” “I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?”

(a) What theme or themes does the discussion between Mitch and Morrie introduce? (b) Based on his words and actions, how would you describe Morrie’s character? (c) Based on his thoughts and actions, how would you describe Mitch’s character? (d) How do the details about Mitch and Morrie support the theme of the passage?

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2.16 Focus on figurative language Notice how the characters use figurative language to communicate larger ideas about life. For example: “Here’s the thing,” he said. “People see me as a bridge. I’m not as alive as I used to be, but I’m not yet dead. I’m sort of … in-between.” Explain the figurative language used in the following quotes:

(a) He coughed, then regained his smile. “I’m on the last great journey here – and people want me to tell them what to pack.” (b) I had become too wrapped up in the siren song of my own life. I was busy.

Third Read 2.17 Synthesizing details from multiple sources Read Albom’s passage one last time. Then read the following excerpt from a book by Morrie Schwartz. Preview the text by looking at the structure and reading the headers and quotations under them. Think about how these features help the writer accomplish his purpose and message. As you read, underline important lessons about life and death. 2.18 Focus on synthesizing details from multiple sources Morrie’s book of wisdom is organized by aphorisms. Using this organizational design allows him to teach important life lessons. An aphorism is a pithy observation that contains a general truth. Many teachers throughout history used aphorisms to capture important ideas in a few careful words. Proverbs can be found in the Bible, Shakespeare’s plays, the writings of Ben Franklin, and the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. Return to the passage from Tuesdays with Morrie, and identify where Morrie can be seen practicing the wisdom he shares in his own books. Fill in the table accordingly. Aphorisms from Morrie: In His Own Words

Application in Tuesdays with Morrie

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Write 2.19 Identify and analyze the purpose of antithesis and parallelism in one of Morrie’s aphorisms.

Lesson 3: “Footsteps on The Moon,” Grade 5 Look at the photo and answer the questions that follow: 3.1 What makes the moon give light? 3.2 What things can an astronaut find on the moon? 3.3 How can one go to the moon? Read the text and answer the questions that follow: 3.4 How many years ago did the first man walk on the moon? 3.5 Where did the two astronauts come from? 3.6 Where did they leave their foot prints and why? 3.7 If you visit the moon today, will you see the foot prints? Why? 3.8 Find the meaning of the following words from context:

(a) Telescope (b) Invent (c) Footprints (d) Dust (e) Astronaut (f) Discovered.

3.9 Fill in the blanks with the correct words from the list above.

(a) I wanted to look at the stars above so I borrowed my friend’s … (b) Do you know who … the washing machine? My mom said he is a great person. (c) Your shoes are all muddy. You left … on all the carpets. (d) The strong wind blew … into our eyes. We couldn’t see for a while. (e) Who … the cave in Jeita? No one knew anything about that before. (f) I want to learn about stars and space and later on become an …

3.10. Listen to the rest of the story. Find the missing words. Write the words in the appropriate blanks. The two astronauts … on the moon for … … They picked up. for earth scientists to … The next day, the landing-craft rockets …. As the men left the moon. They joined Michael Collins in the …. … that waited for them … the moon. Then they began the long … back to … They left … on the moon that may last …

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 esson 4: Parents, Teens, and Tech: Bridging L the Generation Gap Close Reading Focus 4.1 Find examples that illustrate the technology generation gap between teens and adults or that implied that one exists. Close Reading 4.2 According to the authors, why should teens teach adults about technology, even though adults have used computers longer? 4.3 Think of some apps you use that are geared to your age group. Why might adults be unfamiliar with these apps? Discuss 4.4 The authors of this blog express their opinions about a generational gap in relation to technology. Summarize their opinions in your own words. Do you agree or disagree with the authors? Support your opinion and discuss it with a partner. Critical Reading Draw conclusions 4.5 What are some ways in which Luke and his father show that they care for each other, even when they have difficulties? Cite three examples from the text to support your answer. Predict 4.6 After learning from their experience described in “LOL!,” how might Luke and his father deal with communication problems in the future? Compare 4.7 According to “Parents, Teens, and Technology,” what are the main differences between adults and teens in the way they use technology? Evaluate 4.8 In “Parents, Teens, and Technology,” the authors argue that teens are well suited to teaching adults about new technology. (a) What reasons do the authors give to support their opinion? (b). How convincing is their argument? Cite evidence from the text. Compare and contrast 4.9 Analyze both the article “LOL!” and the blog. Illustrate how teens and adults use technology differently. Find examples in “LOL” that support the opinion of the authors of the blog. Connect 4.10 “LOL” describes the personal experience of a father and son, while “Parents” presents more general information. Which ideas in these texts can you relate to? How do the texts reflect or contradict your own experiences with new technology as used by different generations?

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Lesson 5: The Necklace, By: Guy De Maupassant, Grade 8 Previewing Texts 5.1 Preview the text by looking at the pictures and reading the captions. What do you predict this story will be about? 5.2 Fill out the first two boxes of the K-W-L Chart below. Write down what you know about the topic in Box #1. Write down what you want to find out in Box #2. When you finish reading the story, write what you learned or discovered in Box#3. Pre-reading Vocabulary 5.3 Write the definition next to each of the following words. Next, write a sentence that properly uses each word in context.

(a) Incessantly: Constantly or continually (b) Disconsolate (c) Vexation (d) Pauper (e) Adulation (f) Aghast (g) Privations (h) Exorbitant

Questions for Thought 5.4 What social rank does the protagonist belong to? 5.5 Why does the protagonist “grieve incessantly?” 5.6 What are some of the things that the protagonist dreams of? 5.7 Why does the protagonist no longer visit her classmate from her old school days? What does this tell you about her? 5.8 What does the protagonist’s husband have with him when he gets home? 5.9 Why does the protagonist scornfully toss aside the invitation to the reception? 5.10 How does the protagonist treat her husband? 5.11 What was Mathilde’s husband saving up his money to buy? What does he decide to do with his savings? 5.12 In addition to having a nice outfit, what did Mathilde want in order to make her appearance complete? 5.13 Who does Mathilde turn to in order to borrow some jewelry? 5.14 What does Mathilde choose to borrow? 5.15 How does Mathilde act when she is at the reception? Why does she now have so much confidence? 5.16 How does Mathilde react when her husband puts her wraps over her shoulders? What does this reveal about her character? 5.17 What excuse do Mathilde and her husband come up with for not being able to return the necklace the next day?

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5.18  Why is it ironic that Mathilde ends up having to do heavy housework and chores? 5.19 How long did it take to pay for the necklace? 5.20 Explain the irony in the story’s outcome. Literary Focus 5.21 What is conflict? What is the main conflict that drives the plot? 5.22 What is characterization? How might the reader characterize Mathilde? 5.23 What is motivation? How does Mathilde’s motivation change throughout the story? 5.24 What is theme? What lesson do you suppose we can learn from the story? Critical Thinking 5.25 Mathilde and her husband had to endure a great deal of hardship and suffering in order to pay for the missing necklace. Do you think that in the end Mathilde learned to be satisfied with what she had, or do you think that she became even more envious of those who are wealthy? Provide support for your answer.

Lesson 6: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Grade 3 Warm Up 6.1 Have you seen rats in your surrounding before? 6.2 Do rats scare you? Lead In 6.3 Look at the picture. What is strange about the man? Why are the rats following him? 6.4 What may this big number of rats cause in a town? Teacher reveals the title and introduces the man as the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Teacher explains that “pied” is an old word that refers to his clothes of two colors and that Hamelin is a small town in Germany. Set a Purpose 6.5 Look at the pictures and find out the answers to the following questions while reading:   Why were the people of Hamelin worried?   How did the Pied Piper help them?   Why did the Pied Piper take the children of Hamelin to the cave?

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During Reading The teacher plays the recording of the story and asks the children to follow in their textbook. After every few pages, the teacher stops and asks some of the following questions:   6.6 Why did the people of Hamelin go and see the mayor?   6.7 Why did the rats follow the piper?   6.8 Why did the piper take the rats away?   6.9 Why did the piper take the children away?   6.10 Why did one boy come back to Hamelin?   6.11 Why did the mayor leave Hamelin? Teacher reads out the story again and asks:   6.12 What did the mayor say to the pied piper? Make sure they understand the use of the conditional: If you can …, I will give you … Show reader pages 28–29 and focus on the dialogue as before. Ask:   6.13 Why is the Pied Piper angry? What is he saying to the mayor now? Focus again on the use of the conditional:   If you don’t give me … If you want to play music … After Reading 6.14 Children see names of characters, places, and/or objects on flashcards and answer the following questions:

(a) Why is this person/place/thing important in the story? (b) What mistake did the mayor make? (c) Was the Pied Piper good or bad? (d) Do the children ever come out of the mountain?

Appendix B The non-target-like structures in Issam’s Task 1 Frequency of non-target-like Error type structures Diction 4 Sentence structure 10 Punctuation Most sentences Word form 8 Verb tense 1 Singular/plural 3 Prepositions 9 Articles 3 Coordinators 4 Missing verb 1 Pronouns 16

Location of non-target-like structures 3, 5, 9, 10 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11 5 1, 7, 13 4, 5, 11 3, 5, 12 2, 4, 5, 10 2 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13 (continued)

Appendices

152

Error type Using two main verbs in the same sentence Missing nouns Order of adjective noun Transitions

Frequency of non-target-like structures 2

Location of non-target-like structures 1, 4

1 1 3

2 5 1, 4, 6

The non-targe- like structures in Issam’s Task 2 Types of non-target-like Frequencies of non-target-like structures structures Diction 9 Sentence structure 5 Punctuation Most sentences Word form 3 Verb tense 5 Singular/plural 2 Prepositions 3 Coordinators 1 Missing verbs 2 Pronouns 4 Using two main verbs in the 2 same sentence Transitions 1 The non-target-like structures in Issam’s Task 3 Frequency of non-target-like Error type structures Diction 5 Sentence structure 4 Punctuation 5 Word form 4 Verb tense 3 Singular/plural 3 Prepositions 1 Articles 1 Missing verb Pronouns 9 Using two main verbs in the same 1 sentence Missing nouns Order of adjective noun Transitions

Locations of non-target-like structures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 15 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 1, 6, 14 1, 2, 5, 12, 14 5, 16 1, 3, 4 5 3, 6 2, 3, 13, 15 5, 12 16

Location of non-target-like structures 4, 7, 9, 11 6, 7, 8, 11 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 5, 6, 8, 11 2, 5, 8 3, 8 2 7 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 2

(continued)

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153

The non-target-like structures in Issam’s Task 4 Types of non-target-like Frequencies of non-target-like structures structures Diction 7 Sentence structure 4 Punctuation Most sentences Word form 4 Verb tense 5 Prepositions 5 Articles 3 Coordinators 2 Missing verbs 1 Pronouns 2 The non-target-like language in Hameed’s Task 1 Frequency of non-target-like Types of non-target-like language language Diction 6 Sentence structure 3 Punctuation Most sentences Word form 8 Verb tense 3 Singular/plural 2 Prepositions 1 Articles 6 Coordinators 2 Missing verbs 1 Pronouns 2 Using two main verbs in the same 1 sentence Missing nouns 1 Transitions 2 The non-target-like language in Hameed’s Task 2 Types of non-target-like Frequencies of non-target-like language language Diction 6 Sentence structure 5 Punctuation Most sentences Word form 5 Verb tense 11 Singular/plural

7

Locations of non-target-like structures 2, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13 3, 6, 12, 13 5, 7, 10, 12 3, 5, 8, 12 2, 8, 13 9, 10, 12 7, 8 8 5, 10

Location of non-target-like language 4, 9, 10, 11 6, 9, 13 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15 2, 5, 8 4, 11 2 2, 3, 8, 12, 13, 14 12, 13 3 3, 14, 9 3 11, 14

Location of non-target-like language 10, 12, 15, 17, 24, 25 2, 5, 11, 12, 17 11, 13, 14, 24, 25 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 26 1, 7, 9, 16, 22, 23, 24 (continued)

Appendices

154 Types of non-target-like language Prepositions Articles Coordinators Missing verbs Pronouns Missing nouns

Frequencies of non-target-like language 2 2 1 5 5 2

The non-target-like structures in Hameed’s Task 3 Type of non-target-like Frequency of non-target-­ structures like structures Diction 12

Location of non-target-like language 1, 2 6, 13 11 4, 10, 19, 20, 26 2, 4, 5, 11, 22 4, 11

Location of non-target-like structures 9, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 18, 20, 23

Sentence structure Punctuation Word form Verb tense

9 Most sentences 3 25

Singular/plural Prepositions Articles Coordinators Missing verb Pronouns Using two main verbs in the same sentence Missing nouns Order of adjective noun Transitions

10 5 1

16, 18 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23 3, 8, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24 2, 4, 5, 7, 24 3

4 5 1

8, 10, 16, 18 2, 17, 18, 22, 24 23

1

1

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