The Foreign Language Educator in Society: Toward a Critical Pedagogy, by Timothy G. Reagan and Terry A. Osborn; Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002, ISBN 0-8058-3592-X, pp. xiv, 185
✍ Scribed by Paul H. Matthews
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2002
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 14 KB
- Volume
- 13
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0898-5898
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In this work, Reagan and Osborn consider the implications of a critical pedagogical stance for foreign language (FL) education, educators, and students. The authors consider how FL students and instructors might begin to develop "critical language awareness" (p. 2) of FL's position in society, of the discourses of how and why FL matters, and of what counts as a (foreign) language. Indeed, one of the main benefits of this work is that it does raise the reader's awareness of language issues that are often hidden and are only infrequently discussed in FL teacher preparation. The authors suggest that the FL field must "move beyond what might be called technicist concerns about the teaching for foreign languages . . . [and] address the social, cultural, political, and ideological contexts in which we teach, and in which languages are used" (p. 138). Their book endeavors to illustrate some of these contexts with a combination of theoretical expositions and case studies from both domestic and international settings.
Reagan and Osborn's book comprises nine chapters of accessible length (10-20 pages each), with well-conceived "Questions for reflection and discussion" and "Focus on the classroom" questions at the end of each chapter. Perhaps due to the size of the task the authors have undertaken, however, the overall organization of the book, as well as the internal organization of many chapters, often comes across as choppy and ad hoc. Additionally, some potentially important topics are given their own subheadings yet are not developed beyond a single paragraph (e.g., "The native-heritage language teacher" [p. 26]), making their inclusion distracting or frustrating. These issues often impede the flow of the work, and make it difficult to read through the entire book as a whole. However, despite their occasional "lumpiness," many of the individual chapters are quite thought-provoking and would be appropriate for use with pre-service and in-service FL and ESOL teachers, as well as for applied linguistics courses. Especially worthwhile in this regard are Chapters One, Three, and Six.
In the first chapter, in addition to previewing many of the book's themes, the authors problematize the common rationales for FL study, arguing persuasively that the US FL education system is not set up to lead to language learning success, but