Cultural activities

Critical Language Awareness and the Second-language Classroom

Critical Language Awareness and the Second-language Classroom ICM

In a relatively short amount of time, the field of Spanish language learning and teaching as a second language has experienced a huge evolution, moving from a traditional approach based on translation and memorization of grammatical rules to a more active, communication-centric style of learning. The so-called “Social Turn” in the field of language acquisition at the end of the twentieth century, enabled the emergence of new pedagogical approaches more committed to change and social transformation. Since then, previously concealed (but not invisible) issues in the field, such as the prejudice and discrimination suffered by minority groups due to their linguistic practices, have come to light and discussion. The emergence of the Critical Awareness of Language (Leeman, 2005; Loza & Beaudrie, 2021) theory is perhaps the clearest example of this change in the paradigm. This teaching model, which takes Freire's Critical Pedagogy as a starting point and which also draws on current theoretical perspectives such as translanguage or raciolinguistics, seeks to drive the transition to a more just and tolerant society through dialog and reflection upon our own linguistic attitudes and practices. The objective of this presentation is to explore what Critical Language Awareness is and understand how we can enhance its application in the classroom.

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