A Sociopolitical Agenda for TESOL Teacher Education

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Description

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) sits at the nexus of constant change, which makes it vitally important for language teachers to engage in continuous development and keep abreast of the sociopolitical milieu in which they are embedded. However, most teacher education activities are often associated with what is perceived as best practices that are expected to be adopted (often uncritically) for classroom application and practice, with the intention of training teachers to become technicians in their respective classrooms. In reality, TESOL practitioners often find themselves in situations that require them to be reflexive practitioners and to negotiate sites of political struggles and social injustice. Given that a socially situated understanding of TESOL teacher education is often overlooked, this volume highlights the sociopolitical dimensions of TESOL teacher education. In Part 1, the authors introduce the theoretical underpinnings of the sociopolitical agenda proposed by this volume. Building on these theories, Part 2 realizes the proposed agenda by situating it within actual TESOL teacher education contexts that are characterized by power imbalances and neoliberally inflected educational injustices.

Reviews

This volume provides interdisciplinary perspectives on sociopolitical agenda in TESOL teacher education. It covers major sociopolitical issues such as native speakerism, coloniality, and achievement gap in TESOL. The volume draws on critical theories and provides useful insights into understanding and implementing various approaches towards advocacy for social justice oriented TESOL teacher education. -- Prem Phyak, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Author Bio

Peter I. De Costa is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education at Michigan State University, USA. zgehan Ustuk is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.