Critical Classroom Practices: Using “English” to Foster Minoritized Languages and Cultures in Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

Mexican children grow up in a society where English and Spanish are associated with “development” and economic success and minoritized Indigenous languages with backwardness marginalization. In the context of Oaxaca, the most culturally and linguistically diverse state in Mexico, the chapter aims (1) to present ethnographic portraits of two Indigenous-background student teachers of English who conducted their teaching “praxicum” in an Mexican Indigenous community; and (2) to present classrooms practices, developed by these two student teachers with a critical language educator, which attempt to foster Indigenous languages, interculturalism and egalitarian societies. Taking critical pedagogies and language learning and the notion of ‘identity texts’ (Cummins J, Identity texts: the imaginative construction of self through multiliteracies pedagogy. In: García O, Skutnabb-Kangas T, Torres-GuzmánImagining ME (ed) Multilingual schools. Multilingual Matters, Toronto, pp 51–68, 2006) as its theoretical basis, the chapter develops three main themes: (a) respecting Indigenous community practices; (b) considering children’s lives and contexts as the foundation of classroom practices; and (c) seeing teachers and children as authors of identity texts. It is argued that international languages can be used to promote minority languages if taught critically.