Investigating the Applicability of Critical Pedagogy Principles among Iranian EFL Teachers: From Theory to Practice

Abstract

Critical pedagogy is derived from critical thinking which is considered as a postmodern approach and a newly developed paradigm in thinking about education. Critical pedagogy (CP) provides recommendations and guidelines to account for social relations and injustice in human education. This study aimed at elaborating on ILI language teachers’ awareness of critical pedagogy components and the extent to which they can employ these issues in their teaching experience. To this end, 100 language teachers teaching English at Iran Language Institute (ILI) were chosen randomly to participate in the study. Since this was a mixed design study, the data gathered through CP questionnaire and the interview phase threw lights on some significant facts in this regard. The researcher made use of various statistical procedures such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis, as well as grounded theory in order to analyze both quantitative and qualitative data. Results revealed that although majority of the instructors in ILI seem to be aware of critical pedagogy principles, they do not feel free to implement them in their language classes due to some obstacles of which the topdown and centralized educational systems were known to be the most significant one. Moreover, it was revealed that obstacles in implementing CP principles in language classes will not prepare students to get familiar with these issues.

Keywords

• Critical Pedagogy (CP)
• Critical Thinking
• ILI Instructors
• EFL Context
• Language Teachers