“I really don't know what you mean by critical pedagogy.” Reflections made by in-service teachers in the USA

Abstract

This is a qualitative case study of the responses given by in-service teachers in an exit interview upon completing a grant program that prepared them to be English-as-a-second-language (ESL) teachers in the USA. There were 28 participants in this study and they were in-service K-12 teachers who would become ESL certified. Based on Freire's (2000) Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Gee's (2015) discourse analysis, the researcher analyzed their responses and found that the majority (96%) did not know about critical pedagogy or took the literal meaning and thought that the term meant critical thinking or evaluation of teaching. As critical pedagogy is an important construct for ESL teachers to take ownership and appropriate social justice, challenge the status quo of systemic oppression and marginalization of immigrants and refugees, the researcher advocates for academic programs to include critical pedagogy for strengthening the knowledge base of ESL teacher education programs.