Dr. Lachlan Jackson: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview, Professor Crookes. I started engaging with your work when I began seeking alternatives to “more of the same” in my teaching practice. Your work has been highly influential in my development as a teacher, opening my eyes to a range of possibilities regarding what can be achieved when teachers are prepared to “let go.” To start, what was it that drew you to critical language pedagogy? Could your initial forays into teaching be described as traditional? Or have you always taken a critical approach to your work?
Dr. Graham Crookes: My initial teaching was indeed conventional; I taught high school, briefly in London, then in Malaysia, as I had been taught. I only moved away from conventional practices as I moved further into the ELT world, in Japan around 1980, catching up with early CLT (communicative language teaching). But at the same time, I had grown up in a decade and place (1970s London) when “free schools,” such as the White Lion school, were in existence, in the news, controversial sometimes, but at least an established entity. Many other matters involving education and popular culture led one to believe that alternatives were entirely plausible and accessible. So, I was always aware of “radical pedagogy” even though I didn’t know that was what it was called. That kind of pedagogy has sat next to critical pedagogy but tends to take a separatist social position—to disengage from mainstream society, withdrawn to the extent possible, to the safety of a like-minded community. I go back over this old ground in a book chapter which has the words “Radical Teaching” in the title (Crookes, 2009a).
It is worth spending time with radical pedagogy. Giroux uses the term in his early writings, because he was suggesting that it needed, at the beginning of the 1980s, a critical theory to go along with its practices. Remember, it is only after 1983 or so that what we now think of as critical pedagogy acquired that label because of Giroux’s influence on Freire, who had been doing radical pedagogy for at least 20 years and more at that point (See Crookes, 2013).
For many, it was a debatable question whether it was worth trying to do radical pedagogy within state institutions. At that time, at least in the US, there were “alternative schools” using that name that were state-supported. They tended to be for what we would now call “at-risk” students—those who had caused so much trouble or were in so much trouble that regular high schools were allowed to send them away. And at such schools, clearly some alternative practices were engaged in. It was people like Giroux who resisted the implications of Bowles & Gintis (1976) and even Willis (1978), and was optimistic about what could be done. So, even though Freirean pedagogy starts in the adult education sector (a good place to try alternatives), it works its way into the public sector by way of the immigrant education programs in the US in the 1970s and then is taken up, a bit, in postsecondary education (e.g., Shor, 1980; 1992).
What drew me to critical pedagogy were the counter-examples I saw of radical academics who tried to keep their pedagogical orientations out of the public sector where they worked; and others who found ways to integrate their critical analysis of society into education. It became clear to me that the separation was undesirable. I had read a little in the area, but it wasn’t until a student of Elsa Auerbach’s, Al Lehner, showed up in our department around 1990 that I became convinced that values-driven academic research in our field could be integrated with a particular kind of committed second language teaching that would be usable in some (clearly not all) classrooms, rather than requiring a separate sphere of sociopolitical action to operate within. Even then it was very difficult for me to get into the regular classroom; I explored the ideas in a seminar in 1994 (reported on later in Crookes & Lehner, 1998) but put the matter to one side while I worked on values as a necessary preliminary concept (Crookes, 2009b; 2021).
Your work suggests that while CLP is more of an approach to teaching than a methodology per se, it is underpinned by some key principles. You flag several of these in Critical ELT in Action (2013). These include democratic classroom management and assessment, a critical orientation, the centrality of dialogue and problem-posing, and an “action-orientation” whereby students, ideally, work towards improving society in some way. Given that this book was published a decade ago, do these principles remain as relevant today? And if so, given the current state of the world, do any of them now strike you as particularly important?
So long as the current experiment in democracy continues, approaching those practices—I wouldn’t call them principles—would be desirable. US readers may be intrigued to realize that the Founding Fathers thought it was an experiment and indeed one that might fail: Recent reports indicate that democracy is retreating rather than advancing, so such principles are even more desirable, but in shorter supply, everywhere.
When I began implementing some CLP principles into a university class I teach, my initial approach was cautious. I gently tried to transition from simply “teaching about social issues” to “critically exploring social issues with the students.” The next time I taught it, I decided to be less conservative, increasingly “handing over” the course to them. Would you say that my gradual and increasing experimentation with CLP is typical of most critical pedagogues? And do you have any advice for TLT readers considering giving CLP a go?
Bravo, Lachlan. I am myself a continual beginner. Almost all of us are, as few, almost none of us have seen anything like a critical pedagogy in practice. In addition, what that entity looks like is and should be different in the many different circumstances we teach in. But at the same time, of course, praxis is the name of the game—that is, cycles of action, reflection, and re-theorization, as we move forward gradually in a particular location. I repeatedly write “baby steps.” We can’t and shouldn’t dive in trying to do all aspects of a critical language pedagogy on our first attempt. But one hopes that a dedicated teacher will explore, gradually adding additional aspects (such as syllabus negotiation) to their teaching repertoire. They may also invent, or re-invent things they have read about to fit their specific circumstances or take advantage of particular local features. As for advice, well, in all three of my books that relate to this topic, I list various components of CLP. A reader should simply consider which of them seem least challenging to implement and just try that one. A long time ago, when Stephanie Vandrick had to consider this in print with regard to feminist language pedagogy, she said the first step was just to bring woman-oriented content into a class without changing anything else. So that idea could carry over. None of us should be ashamed of making a first step a fairly unchallenging one.
Graham, the C(L)P literature frequently makes mention of the importance of “codes.” Could we say that “codes” are, essentially, pieces of “realia” that embody the discourses being problematized/investigated in the classroom? For example, in my “film” class, we are currently using the documentary, Food Inc., to think about some of the environmental, health, labour, and animal welfare issues associated with the production and consumption of food. I have had the students take photographs of packaging/wrapping of food in local supermarkets—milk and egg cartons, cheese and yogurt tubs, etcetera—and bring them to class. We have been talking about how the imagery on such packaging of happy cows grazing in green pastures etc., is often at odds with the realities of how many animals in factory farms are treated. Am I correct in thinking that these labels, or photos of them, can be thought of as “codes?” Would you mind elaborating a little on the use of “codes” in the CLP classroom, perhaps with an example or two?
Yes, very close. Instead of embody, I would say “evoke.” Wallerstein (1983a, 1983b, 1983c) has careful detailed advice, and is almost the only source for L2 teachers, though I must mention an obscure but useful work by her early colleague, Moriarty (1985). Freire (1973) explains and provides actual illustrations in his crucial early book, Education for Critical Consciousness. Someone, perhaps it was Shor, refers to codes as projective devices. Rorschach blots are projective devices. Ambiguous material that allows matters to surface. So, codes should not really be one-sided or blatant. There are many actual examples in the Auerbach and Wallerstein books (Auerbach & Wallerstein 1987; Wallerstein & Auerbach, 2004). When I explored this in a recent teacher handbook (Cogo et al., 2023), I and my co-authors came to the view that looking for images online, we were unlikely to find a single image that would work—never mind the copyright issues—and were obliged to use pairs of images. Freire and I suspect Auerbach and Wallerstein had an artist draw specific images. Mind you, it’s not just images. Actual or created dialogues are used. Realia is certainly one more example. Yes, your example of having students bring food packaging is close to Shor’s example of actually bringing a meat patty, or burger—what he calls, I think, a piece of dead cow—to class to get people to really think, or by which to evoke. Yes, we can say discourses now, but we couldn’t say that when Freire was first writing. A full-length documentary, I guess so, but apart from the amount of class time involved, I imagine that a documentary does in the end take a particular point of view and is not so ambiguous as a code. The very important thing about codes along with an inquiry perspective in your curriculum is that it prevents us from imposing our views on students. We may design a code and students, of course, can also do this work which we think will evoke or surface relevant material. But it would not be appropriate to stack the deck, even though we can eventually say what we think, conditions permitting.
Congratulations on your recently co-authored book with A. Abdenia (2022), Starting Points in Critical Language Pedagogy. I found it an accessible, practical, and ultimately, extremely helpful resource. In the introduction, I think, you explain your intention to speak directly to classroom practitioners who seldom have the time or opportunity to engage with the academic literature dealing with critical approaches to teaching. Could you tell us a little about how the book came about?
A key point was our felt need for a book in this area to start where regular teachers are and move forward from that, as opposed to expounding critical language pedagogy and hoping that teachers would come to us. Arman had established, to my surprise, the feasibility of at least some degree of a critical language pedagogy in his home base, the private language institutes of Iran. My response was also that a book of this kind had to have the voices of teachers in it if it were to be both plausible and respectful. So, we developed and ran, twice, a free online course in the area. Arman did the recruiting but word of mouth spread it just a little beyond his mainly Iranian EFL teachers, so there were others in there. And we told our course participants what we were doing, and they were happy to have their words in the book.
As a form of exploratory practice, CLP seems to require that we open students and ourselves up to new ways of looking at the world, of exposing ourselves to alternative perspectives, and so on. Some critical pedagogues have pointed out the need in this regard to “push students out of their comfort zones” and provoke them to think about things in ways that they previously hadn’t. At the same time, others highlight the importance of creating classroom environments conducive to the exploration of sensitive topics such as safe spaces, trigger warnings etc. Of course, these are not mutually exclusive positions to hold, but do you have any specific thoughts on these two points relating to classroom tone? Do you have any advice for teachers regarding the fostering of classrooms in which complex, controversial, or even “taboo” topics can be broached in appropriate ways?
Yes. My first response is to say that I have seen too many accounts, some of which might have used the word critical, in which teachers unilaterally present students with controversial topics or content, where provoking or challenging is the aim. Whereas, even though we might not always get it right in practice, the examples—back to Auerbach and Wallerstein, and Shor—we have considered involved teachers who have become very familiar with a category of student, mostly those who are to some degree oppressed or not privileged, and know or maybe have done a critical needs analysis that allows them to be fairly certain what students’ issues and problems are or were. Then we are again in problem-posing territory—the teacher poses the problem that emerges from the students, back to them, with some guidance on how it could be studied, perhaps with a view to taking action on it. I think such a move is not what is implied in the critical pedagogy literature I am familiar with. It comes from a different tradition. I have heard the phrase teaching the conflicts, or it comes from the English literature studies tradition, in which a professor selects one or more literary works—in this day and age, perhaps edgy, involving issues of race or gender—and teaches these books. Students sign up to take the class but it is the professor who is determining content. This is not an inquiry-based pedagogy.
That said, presumably there is a middle ground; if students have the option to take or not take a class, that is, it is, in some sense, an elective, then there can be some advertising of content or style ahead of time, such that those students who show up on day one are indicating a willingness, say, to engage with a certain category of topic. But with that in mind, the instructor must then put lots of time and resources into play, such that sensitive topics can be handled in accordance with negotiated forms of language for dialogue. Much preparatory work is going to be needed and lots of care. Gradual development of teacher expertise and instructional resources, over multiple offerings of a course, will be needed, and the building of good rapport and the deployment of culturally-informed professional judgment. That is an inexplicit answer, but it is consistent with my mantra “baby steps.” I repeatedly warn, in print, that this kind of teaching is more difficult than the average.
Michael Ellis (2023) has recently noted that critical approaches to language teaching can rejuvenate teachers and prevent burnout. That has certainly been my experience. Is this something you have also noticed or had experience with regarding the in-service teachers you have worked with?
Ah, good. No, I hadn’t picked up on that, exactly. I do say that if one has certain personal and professional values and cannot act out of them or manifest them, one will live an alienated life, which is indeed a recipe for burnout. At least if you have the opportunity to point in the direction you think is right, professionally, you will have some sense that the days are worthwhile.
In several of your writings you have noted that critical pedagogies are far from new—they have been around, in one form or another, for a very long time. With respect to Japan, however, CLP seems to me to remain relatively underutilized and misunderstood. Additionally, critical approaches do not seem to feature prominently, if at all, in many of the more well-known distance learning MA programs that many teachers in Japan undertake in order to begin teaching in the university system here. Firstly, do you agree with this assessment that CLP is not as understood and utilized by teachers “out there” as it could be? If so, why do you think this might be? And do you see this changing in the future?
Sure, certainly, of course CLP is not as understood and utilized as it could be, because it is by definition a marginal form of practice that runs against the grain of a modern consumerist society or a credential-oriented education system. I may use the word “values” to characterize its driving force, but a lot of ELT is in the private sector, in which a key value is caveat emptor. The objectivist, scientistic thrust of (perhaps past) SLA research doesn’t help. Many MA programs are just too short and oriented to “just the facts” to get into the actual reason we are doing this. Plenty of international language teachers did not actually choose to get into language teaching, but drifted into it for non-education reasons, so it’s hardly surprising they would not be interested in something like CLP even if they knew what it was. But back to the central point—no, it simply is not known. And if it has been heard of, in a general sense, it may well be thought of as impractical. So, it is my responsibility to continue to hold up the flag and say it exists, and also to explain how it can, in small measure, be done, under favorable conditions, step by step, a little at a time; and further, taking up your point earlier, it is probably a good thing. It is good for a teacher with democratic values to know that this exists, and the world will be a better place if more of us can do it, to whatever extent possible in the realities we live in.
One important feature of CLP is that it is action-orientated. When it comes to integrating the target language with real world action, I’m wondering if this isn’t more difficult to do in EFL rather than ESL contexts. Wouldn’t letter/petition writing, for example, be done in Japanese when trying to make changes to the local society in Japan? Doesn’t action in the local context usually require students to operate in their L1? I was wondering if you had any thoughts on this.
I have thought a bit about it but haven’t much concrete to offer. However, in supporting a Korean teacher in an early exploration of critical language pedagogy, she found that the Korean high school students she tried out ideas with liked the idea that they could use English to explain Korean practices to the wider world. Or consider how often one sees video of a protest in a country which is not primarily English-using, yet which has signs intended for the news cameras that are in English. I don’t think that the action has to be in English, even if the English class was the one, often the only one, in which discussion was possible. I think this has not been explored in our tiny literature and would welcome any documentation of actual actions. The area of actions is one of the least explored and written-about in the literature of critical pedagogy.
I see, Graham, that you have written with Nicole Zeigler about the extent to which a CLP approach might inform task-based language teaching (TBLT)—and vice versa—(Crookes & Zeigler, 2021). Are there other frameworks in addition to TBLT that teachers might consider incorporating CLP practices with?
I guess any framework that is broadly communicative or committed to the idea that one can learn a second language through use, even if not only through use, will do. If you say, what about communicative language teaching, I would say fine. First I would say, does that still exist, I suppose, and then we just have to start saying we want Critical CLT. CLT is one step distant from TBLT in the sense that you still have to say, “What do you need or want to do with the language you are learning?” I suppose the CLT/notional-functional answer gets specified in exponents of critiquing, analyzing, explaining, protesting, and notions: race class, gender, democracy, exploitation, change, but the TBLT person will come back with, “OK, but what genres of discourse will you use to accomplish the tasks associated with those notions and functions.”
Less resistantly, I suppose I could say that project-based learning would fit easily with a critical perspective—service learning, with adjustments. Suggest a learning-through-use perspective, and I would probably go for it. The more the merrier!
Professor Crookes, thank you very much for being so generous with your time and expertise. In closing, may I suggest that anyone interested in finding out more about CLP is well advised to check out Graham’s recently published introductions to CLP listed in the references below.
References
Auerbach, E. & Wallerstein, N. (1987). ESL for action: Problem-posing at the workplace. Addison-Wesley.
Bowles, S. & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic life. Routledge.
Cogo, A., Crookes, G., & Siqueira, S. (2023). English for a critical mind: Language pedagogy for social justice. Delta Publishing.
Crookes, G. V. (2009a). Radical language teaching. In M. H. Long & C. J. Doughty (Eds.), The handbook of language teaching (pp. 595–609). Wiley Blackwell.
Crookes, G. V. (2009b). Values, philosophies, and beliefs in TESOL: Making a statement. Cambridge University Press.
Crookes, G. V. (2013). Critical ELT in action. Routledge.
Crookes, G. V. (2021). Critical language pedagogy: An introduction to principles and values. ELT Journal, 75(3), 247–255. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab020
Crookes, G. V. & Abednia, A. (Eds.). (2022). Starting points in critical language pedagogy. Information Age Publishing.
Crookes, G., & Lehner, A. (1998). Aspects of process in an ESL critical pedagogy teacher education course. TESOL Quarterly, 32(2), 319–328. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587586
Crookes, G. V. & Zeigler, N. (2021). Critical language pedagogy and task-based language teaching: Reciprocal relationship and mutual benefit. Education Sciences 11(6). 254. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11060254
Ellis, M. (2023). ‘Woke up!’: An ongoing journey of teaching for social justice. In G. P. Glasgow (Ed.) Multiculturalism, language, and race in English education in Japan: Agency, pedagogy, and reckoning (pp. 297–312). Candlin & Mynard. https://doi.org/10.47908/26/12
Freire, P. (1973). Education for critical consciousness (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.). Sheed & Ward.
Moriarty, P. (1985). Codifications in Freire’s pedagogy: A North American application. Unpublished MA thesis, San Francisco State University.
Shor, I. (1980). Critical teaching and everyday life. Bergin & Garvey.
Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. The University of Chicago Press.
Wallerstein, N. (1983a). Language and culture in conflict: Problem-posing in the ESL classroom. Addison-Wesley.
Wallerstein, N. (1983b). Problem posing can help students learn: From refugee camps to resettlement country classrooms. TESOL Newsletter, 17(5), 28–30.
Wallerstein, N. (1983c). Teaching approach of Paulo Freire. In J. W. Oller & P. A. Richard-Amato (Eds.), Methods that work: A smorgasbord of ideas for language teachers (pp. 190–204). Newbury Press.
Wallerstein, N., & Auerbach, E. (2004). Problem-posing at work: Popular educator’s guide. Grass Roots Press.
Willis, P. (1978). Learning to labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Routledge.
