2. Historical traditions of practice not generally recognized or acknowledged

One of the reasons for spending some time on historical traditions is that this move emphasizes the relevance and practicality of the area by heading off responses that such work is impossible. In some cases, the things that ‘can't be done here’ have already been done here but were discontinued for some reason; alternatively, they may have to some extent been taken up and become part of the scenery. Historical analyses can also focus attention on what enabling factors allowed for early radical pedagogy. In addition, a review of the history suggests that the theoretical inheritances in this area are less unitary than might be alleged – that is, not all critical or radical education derives from Marxist-inspired theory.

What are some of the inheritances that critical language specialists should be more familiar with? An easyFootnote ¹ first option is that of Dewey. Dewey is important because he put an activities-based curriculum in the mainstream (cf. task-based language teaching (TBLT); Samuda & Bygate Reference Samuda and Bygate2008), and advocated for schools a central role in the improvement of society, and because the Progressive Movement, which he was associated with, for a time was a major element in American education. We should note that, in practice, Dewey obtained much from pre-existing models, the ‘schools of to-morrow’ (Dewey & Dewey Reference Dewey and Dewey1915) such as the Parker school which was already running on principles we would recognize as progressive for their time (Stone Reference Stone, Semel and Sadovnik1999). Dewey's two years in China and the uptake of his ideas by Chinese educators in the late 1920s, including their critique from the left by Tao Xingzhi (Wang & Zhang Reference Wang, Zhang and Hansen2007), also suggest that any idea that activity or task-based approaches with a social justice orientation are somehow purely ‘Western’ is questionable.

Dewey's left wing, the social reconstructionists, should also be remembered (identified as precursors by critical pedagogy specialists such as Giroux e.g. Reference Giroux1983) because they at least offer the possibility of showing how matters critical have a long history in US education. In particular, the case of the Rugg social studies textbooks, a success story of the social reconstructionists, should be looked into. Indeed, given the influence he had on a substantial portion of American education in the middle of the 20th century, Harold Rugg was a remarkable figure. It is hard to imagine someone with a similar orientation having equivalent influence in the present conditions of the USA (e.g. Rugg Reference Rugg1931; Evans Reference Evans and Riley2006).

On the other side of the left during the 20th century, there were various anti-authoritarian, non-Marxist inspired developments in alternative education. I want to mention a strand that was not necessarily political in a class sense, but which presaged the ‘personal is political’ line. By the 1930s, Ferrer's New Schools (cf. Ferrer Reference Ferrer1913) and other dissident strands had developed into a range of free schools, of which A. S. Neill's Summerhill became the most famous. Its direct democracy, with all students and teachers having each only one vote on all matters of school policy, and its extreme emphasis on individual autonomy and choice remain striking, though also quite typical of free schools. Directly or indirectly, the model of Summerhill was part of the sudden mushrooming of alternative schools of the 1960s. These are a good example of things that were radical at the time, which were even criticized by some on the left (e.g. Wright Reference Wright1989: 114; or for their laissez faire character, see Freire in Shor & Freire Reference Shor and Freire1987: 46), but many of whose practices have become part of the mainstream, and with the growth of non-formal online education are becoming even more so.

Of course, if anti-progressive forces seriously outnumber, outfinance, and outgun progressive forces, the latter will at least temporarily have to back down. This is pretty much what happened to the progressive movement in the USA towards the end of the 1930s. But somewhat like other individual progressives in a later period, it did not die out; it just moved overseas, taking up temporary residence in, among other places, the British primary school tradition, from which it later returned to the USA or – in some versions of this story – from which hideout it then went on to set up new homes in communicative language teaching (Crookes Reference Crookes2009: 69–71).

3. Advocacy

It should be a matter of concern that young professionals in our field are generally trained only to be employees (whether as teachers or researchers). Gradually we are seeing the rise of programs that also educate our people to be administratorsFootnote ². These courses mainly draw on established practice (e.g. the running of private language schools) and on established literature (the managerial tradition of educational administration). But certainly, critical pedagogies within applied linguistics do need individuals who can set up, run, and maintain fairly non-mainstream operations. They need to network and fundraise – they may not be able to inherit or become part of a pre-existing conventional operation. They may have to engage both more fully and more oppositionally, with existing political systems. Accounts of theory and practice in our field pertinent to this are very rare, as also is critical educational administration literature (Crookes Reference Crookes, Syed, Coombe and Troudi2003; but see Foster Reference Foster1986).

In our field, McGroarty (Reference McGroarty1998) is a path-breaking review and analysis of some aspects of this matter (see also Auerbach et al. Reference Auerbach, Barahona, Midy, Vaquerano and Zambrano1996). In Crookes & Talmy (Reference Crookes and Talmy2004), partly as a result of reviewing what wasn't working during an effort by Hawai'i ESL teachers to pressure their legislators for funds, we arrived at a simple set of headings that represent matters that need to be addressed by practitioners in this area. Perhaps they are just common sense.

• Organize: Develop institutional networks, develop connections with parents, develop networks in the community.

• Address leadership, but try to see that all are leaders, if provided with the right orientation and skills.

• Fundraise: There is a literature on fundraising in education, mainly targeting the post-secondary level but with little guidance for the rest of us.

• Engage in action: The old slogan ‘direct action gets the goods’ is relevant because in many places conventional politicking will not provide what a critical language teacher might need.

Besides these matters, crucially, shifts in perspective and self-image are needed. It is no good saying that teachers do not do this sort of thing and do not involve students in their struggles (see Smoke Reference Smoke and Smoke1998). It is important for critical practice in our field that teacher education, teacher re-education, and teacher in-service programs place greater attention on these areas.Footnote ³

4. Implications of newer institutional developments

In working with young language teachers, I have noticed that the aspirations of these individuals are often far more humanistic than the institutions from which they themselves graduated. If they have, or acquire a broader, more sociopolitical dimension to their thinking and pedagogy while they are doing advanced professional studies, they also sometimes acquire greater frustration. For example, if they are coming from, say, an existing high-school practice, it becomes increasingly clear to them that they cannot simply return to it with enhanced ‘skills’ and then carry out ‘improved’ English language teaching.

In response, I urge them to consider the broadest range of possibilities that exist for educational practice involving language. It is hard for young teachers to see right out to the margins of educational practice in their societies, and also how fast things are changing. Within this range, the margins have often been good places for those with a critical orientation.Footnote ⁴ Margins are places where the established order is weak and the writ of law or regulation less effective, so they should be places where experiment and boundary-crossing can flourish.

The full range of institutional change and alternatives that deserve to be put before potential critical language teachers is too great for me to discuss in detail here, but includes

• • the break-up of monolithic state educationFootnote ⁵ (as in the USA or the UK: Fuller Reference Fuller2003; or China: Xu Reference Xu2002)

• • alternatives in the private sector (e.g. private alternative schools: Appleton Reference Appleton2000)

• • charter schools (Fuller Reference Fuller2000; Buchanan & Fox Reference Buchanan, Fox, Rofes and Stulberg2004)

• • online education, particularly the so-called ‘virtual school’ (e.g. Berge & Clark Reference Berge and Clark2005)

• • informal education (streets, museums: e.g. Mayo Reference Mayo and Mayo1999)

• • community schools (Morgan Reference Morgan1998, Reference Morgan2004)

• • other formats and host structures for critical practice (e.g. community organizing, social work, NGOs)

• • possibilities within conversation schoolsFootnote ⁶

Just a couple of comments on these points. First, one of the matters on which the libertarian or anarchist left in education traditionally divides from the authoritarian or statist (Marxist) left has been trust of, or willingness to work within, the state sector. Apparently it was not always the case; at the time of Proudhon, anarchist educators in France apparently thought that they could reform the state sector from within using syndicalist or trade union force (Smith Reference Smith1983). Later, of course, reproduction theorists seemed to argue against any such possibility (e.g. Bowles & Gintis Reference Bowles and Gintis1976), then with Giroux (Reference Giroux1983) we have resistance theorists being more optimistic. At the present time, certain nation-states have allowed a greater degree of flexibility into their state sectors, with charter schools in the United States. Some states have always had this sort of thing (e.g. Holland). The left's initial fear of charter schools as driven solely by right-wing fundamentalists has modified, and many indigenous Hawaiian schools in my home state have taken advantage (Buchanan & Fox Reference Buchanan, Fox, Rofes and Stulberg2004).

Second, McMahill (Reference McMahill, Pavlenko, Blackledge, Piller and Dwyer2001) presents a good example of the sort of thing one might hope for in a critical language teaching entity on the margins. McMahill describes a feminist English class in Japan. One of many, ‘the class termed “Colors of English” started in 1996 and is organized by a women's counseling service and publishing house called Femix. It is held weekly in a meeting room in a women's center in Tokyo’ (p. 312). My interest in this case at present is not so much the content of the course as the fact that this English class was not in a school, and my question is, what was institutionally or resource-wise necessary for it to run? The answer is, among other things, that there was a women's center, a counseling service, and some source of funds – presumably the publishing company, not to mention the students.

5. Other languages?

It would be strange if forms of critical practice could not manifest themselves in the teaching of languages other than English. If they could not, it would be an indication of impracticality. Such reports do exist but they are sufficiently scarce to deserve every opportunity to be publicized.

Radical language teaching of the Freirean variety was from the beginning associated with languages other than English. Freirean L1 literacy instruction continues to be documented under conditions somewhat similar to those in which it originally emerged (e.g. Purcell-Gates & Waterman Reference Purcell-Gates and Waterman2000). The foreign language (FL) field within English-speaking countries has been less active in taking up these ideas despite their early development by Crawford (Reference Crawford1978; Crawford-Lange Reference Crawford-Lange1981, Reference Crawford-Lange and Higgs1982). Newer proponents (notably Reagan & Osborn Reference Reagan and Osborn1998, Reference Reagan and Osborn2002; Osborn Reference Osborn2000) have provided useful analyses and advocacy but have few actual instances of radical FL pedagogy to report on. Over the last 10 years, the teaching of Japanese as a foreign language has produced some reports and discussion (Kubota, Reference Kubota1996; Siegel & Okamoto Reference Siegel and Okamoto2003) containing advice, critique, and occasional accounts of actual short pedagogical initiatives (e.g. Ohara, Saft & Crookes Reference Ohara, Saft and Crookes2001; Kumagai Reference Kumagai2007) or analyses that focus on the effects of power in FL learning. There is, however, an overlapping area in the study of FL learning and teaching which is focusing on the effects of globalization and particularly interested in matters of identity, sometimes having a somewhat critical focus though perhaps more directly informed by post-structuralist ideas (e.g. Block & Cameron Reference Block and Cameron2002).

6. Critical EFL

From FL or world languages, I turn now to the much larger area of EFL. Even much less provocative approaches to language teaching than critical pedagogy have been dismissed, by some specialists, as culturally inappropriate for the East Asia contexts. However, historical explorations (Shin & Crookes Reference Shin and Crookes2005a, Reference Shin and Crookesb) of the past of Korean educational culture and patterns in the broader aspects of Korean sociocultural history suggested that activist positions were possible and indeed had been adopted at various times and locations in Korean education; that accordingly, dialogue and critical inquiry were entirely possible, and even quite explicitly political positions, including of course anticolonial positions during the colonization of Korea were natural, though extremely dangerous, for educators. Within the admittedly often oppressive or constraining state education system, nevertheless, Shin's explorations of more than usually inquiring or dialogic English language teaching further supported our position that critical perspectives in English teaching were possible within educational systems whose cultural contexts had been presented by some as unpropitious. Shin's actions were small-scale interventions within existing institutional arrangements: one within an actual high-school English class, the other within an after-school English-speaking club, but still with high-school students. Thus, they are what we could call proof of concept initiatives.

From elsewhere in Asia we have now a variety of reports, more from the most developed parts (e.g. Hong Kong: Lin & Luk Reference Lin and Luk2002; Singapore: Kramer-Dahl Reference Kramer-Dahl2001), though also from South-west Asia too, that is, Iran (Ghahremani-Ghajar & Mirhosseini Reference Ghahremani-Ghajar and Mirhosseini2005), and Central and North-east Asia: Mongolia (Cohen Reference Cohen2005) and Tajikistan (Fredricks Reference Fredricks2007), of implementations and initiatives in EFL critical pedagogy of one kind or another (see also Sung Reference Sung2001, Reference Sung2002, Reference Sung2006, Reference Sung, McLaren and Kincheloe2007).

I emphasize Asia because of assertions that things critical in language teaching cannot be done there. By contrast, one might assume that there should be a lot of critical pedagogy in, for example, Brazil. After the renewal of democracy in Brazil, Freire himself guided initiatives when in the Ministry of Education of the state of Sao Paulo (O'Cadiz, Wong & Torres Reference O'Cadiz, Wong and Torres1998). But these were, in many cases, not continued under succeeding administrations. Cox & de Assis-Peterson reported (in 1999) that the outlook for critical pedagogy in Brazil was not positiveFootnote ⁷ (see also Busnardo & Bertoli Braga Reference Busnardo and Braga2001). In a recent overview of critical language pedagogy in Brazil, Jorge (Reference Jorge2009) explains that familiarity with and action concerning this concept is split across elite and grassroots sectors in Brazil, including across language teachers. On the other hand, writing about EFL in Chile, Farias (Reference Farias2005: 216) notes, ‘as Clark & Ivanič [Reference Clark and Ivanič1997] have suggested, the empowerment of learners constitutes the main purpose of CLA [Critical Language Awareness]. This concept will not be foreign to Chilean eyes or ears given our familiarity with the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’. The assumption of familiarity with Freire by virtue of being Chilean teachers is not what one would find in an introduction to critical language awareness written in, say, Vietnam or Korea. Overall, on the basis of these studies, the argument can be made that critical pedagogies of EFL are just as relevant and possible as those of ESL.

7. Getting beyond the class base: ‘post-structuralist’ understandings enhance relevance

My quick look at the past at the beginning of this paper was intended to suggest not only that critical pedagogies of some kind have been practical possibilities in the past, but also to remind us in a preliminary way of their diversity. At the present time, too, there are different strands of critical pedagogy, and indeed there may be a growing diversity. The more that this area can tackle the range of interests, groups, and issues that the early 21st century produces, the more relevant it could be.

Feminist pedagogy is probably the first and clearest example of a perspective related to critical or radical pedagogy, arising generally after Freirean critical pedagogy had established itself as a concept in academia, whose proponents wanted to not only draw from Freirean ideas but also critique them and be separate from them. Without waiting much for the development of ‘identity theory’, other curricular or practice strands also struck out on their own. Attention to a range of possible sources of oppression beyond that of class is one positive interpretation of what is signaled by the use of the term ‘post-structural’ (e.g. Morgan Reference Morgan, Cummins and Davison2007). Clearly, the increased sensitivity to diversity, to the different tropes of oppression, is indeed likely to make radical pedagogical initiatives of all kinds more practical and more relevant to a variety of groups. Yet at the same time, perhaps there is less of this out there than one might think, when it comes both to analyses of how race, gender, etc. play out in language learning and to language teaching. More reports of practice are needed. Let me quickly allude to some of the areas I have in mind.

Race is perhaps quite belated on the language teaching scene. The publishing of the TESOL Quarterly special issue on the topic (Kubota & Lin Reference Kubota and Lin2006) can be taken as a turning point perhaps, though Curtis & Romney (Reference Curtis and Romney2006) dates from a TESOL convention panel from 2001, so perhaps that is a better indicator of increasing attention in our field to this matter. It is not the case, however, that there has been a rush of developments subsequently, and general critical pedagogy has been criticized for ignoring race (Leonardo Reference Leonardo2005).

Gender orientation as a focus of oppression is present, but its manifestations in the practice literature of applied linguistics needs to be greater. Obviously, gender as a research focus has increased enormously over the last twenty years. But reports of responses to sexual-orientation-related oppression with a practical orientation are uncommon; the matter is indeed challenging. It is important to say, and say repeatedly, that in this day and age, oppression on the basis of non-heterosexual gender orientation is still an enormously extensive, pervasive, and corrosive form of oppression. Indeed, it is almost certainly because of the strength of oppression, and associated feelings of taboo in this area, that there is comparatively little language educational and applied linguistics work in it. However, I would urge applied linguists to note the substantial amount of research and publication in neighboring disciplines with a sense of a burden of responsibility, so that Nelson's Reference Nelson1999 article ‘Sexual identities in ESL’ can be seen as a turning point (see also Vandrick Reference Vandrick2001; Nelson Reference Nelson2006, Reference Nelson2008; O'Mochain Reference O'Mochain2006, inter alia).

Another curricular strand I would like to identify and at the same time encourage more of, is ‘Green’. Green, peace, and global education are strands in critical pedagogy (broadly defined) that actually have a long existence in curriculum theory. There is less development of their L2 manifestations in our academic literature than one might perhaps expect (but see Cates Reference Cates1990; Lopez, Santamaría & Aponte Reference Lopez, Santamaria and Aponte1993; Brown Reference Brown and Alatis1994; Jacobs et al. Reference Jacobs, Kumarasamy, Nopparat and Amy1998). Brown, as early as Reference Brown and Alatis1994, gave a good short statement of a whole variety of publishing initiatives that indicated mainstream action in this area. Concerned scholars in our field have raised these matters in the past (e.g. Cates Reference Cates1990 cites Rivers Reference Rivers1968: 262), but it could be argued that as a result of growth in mainstream curriculum in these areas, resources are greater than they used to be and also that this is an area where what was more radical before has become somewhat more mainstream. That is to say, the green/environmental line is occurring so widely that to use curriculum material that advocates peaceful citizen action to decrease global warming is not going to get you into trouble.

Finally, I should note that English for Academic Purposes, as a long-standing distinguishable curricular domain, has also increasingly been treated as subject to critical analysis and practice. The classic work of Benesch exemplifies more than a decade of development and growth in this area (e.g. Benesch Reference Benesch1993, Reference Benesch2001, Reference Benesch2009).

9. ‘The imaginary’: institutional (and political) models?

The last issue I want to tackle is the role of statements of the broader outcomes of educational programs of the sort I have been discussing (see Ellis & Barkhuizen Reference Ellis and Barkhuizen2005: 279). If we intend to attempt language teaching of a critical kind, we would presumably be doing so in the hope of broader social change.Footnote ¹¹ Should we not say something about this target? This is a point that has been made obliquely by Pennycook (Reference Pennycook, Norton and Toohey2004: 330) citing Foucault (Reference Foucault1980: 190): ‘the problem is not so much one of defining a political “position”. . . but to imagine and to bring into being new schemas of politicisation’.

Looking at what the present literature of critical pedagogy generally has to offer my students, I notice a lack of tangibility concerning the broad goals. It seems that through critique alone it is hoped that there would be general improvement. Perhaps, on the one hand, critical pedagogists are reluctant to prejudge the situation but perhaps they have some models in the back of their mind as well as a sense of the dangers they face if they state them too explicitly. However, more seriously, I would suggest that the entire realm of ‘the imaginary’ has been colonized by the forces of globalization. Critical pedagogy needs it back, or, we need one that will serve our purposes.

‘The imaginary’ is a term used by a few philosophers (Sartre Reference Sartre and Webber1940/2004; see also Castoriadis, Reference Castoriadis and Blamey1974/1987; Costa Lima Reference Costa Lima and Sousa1984/1988), and its importance should not be neglected by optimistic critical educators. From a Sartrean point of view, it adds the concept of ontological freedom on to our capacity to imagine things. It is because we can imagine that we can reconstitute the world.

Let me also make a connection to works of the imagination in education. These have often been been as effective as empirical research in promoting change in education – if not more. The most obvious case is Rousseau's (Reference Rousseau1762/1963) best-seller, Emile (cf. Pestallozzi Reference Pestalozzi and Channing1781/1910). Critical pedagogues (such as Giroux and Shor) have not shrunk from using the term ‘utopia’ – though they do not say clearly what one or ones they want. More recently, the role of the utopian imagination in education has been discussed by Halpin (Reference Halpin2003). A handful of specialists are using literature in professional education (e.g. Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum1995; Florio-Ruane Reference Florio-Ruane2001). For example, Kurth-Schai & Green (Reference Kurth-Schai and Green2006) interestingly combines an entirely fictional narrative about school reform with academic essays, and is on particularly strong ground in a chapter on the role of intuition and vision in the education of young teachers with school reform in mind.

What about the role of the imaginary more specifically, in terms of the relation between a critical or radical form of education and a transformative outcome for society? How would one express the goal? Does it make sense to talk about it as a unitary entity? When class was the primary term of analysis, a political system was the primary expression of the goal of critical work. It was almost certainly to be expressed using a totalizing term like ‘socialism’. That is what, for example, Dewey expected the USA to become. Yet historically, most socialisms have been inhospitable to diversity; pluralism of some kind perhaps seems to be necessary if some future state, or other nexus of power, such as a mega-church or a multinational corporation, is not to exert a greater degree of control than criticalists would be comfortable with. If we are in a condition of post-modernity, we are likely to value and recognize non-homogeneity rather than assume some unitary progress (cf. William Gibson: ‘The future is already here, it's just unevenly distributed’ – www.brianstorms.com/archives/000461.html). Moreover, there seems to be no reason to suppose some final end-state. On the basis of the history we have so far, a continuing struggle seems most likely, with local solutions rather than grand narratives being looked out for. Thus, at the political level, instead of saying we need socialism, or anarchism, or any other specific general ‘—ism’, we should consider local solutions, which possibly involve local instantiations of a diversity of mixes; mash-ups, I suppose. Here I want to draw attention to the encouraging work of Gibson-Graham (Reference Gibson-Graham2006), which also uses the term ‘imaginary’ when calling for a ‘feminist imaginary of possibility’ (p. xxvii).Footnote ¹² In the analysis of geographically-located networks of economic exchange presented in this work, the emphasis is on those that are non-homogenous and thus open possibilities. Employing a discoursal strategy, the work aspires to make a contribution to the literatures of non-capitalist exchange systems, particularly by emphasizing the non-homogenous nature of political economy.Footnote ¹³

It is an enormous job to imagine alternative social structures, so let me draw back to alternative educational institutions. Perhaps critical (language) teachers should attempt the less challenging task of imagining alternative (critical language) schools or programs. Within this sort of context I would encourage critical language teachers to begin imagining their ideal school, then, as an entity manifesting alternative values and acting as a model institution with a mandate to assist critical (or radical) change in society. Many details would have to be worked out in practice, but as a beginning, perhaps the community school might be a partial inspiration – a community not located only in geographic space but also partly located in cyberspace, administered with a radical administrative philosophy certainly involving direct democracy of teachers, students, and staffers and connected to supportive federations of like-minded institutions, probably cooperatives. Undoubtedly, it would involve a Deweyan critical task-based curriculum. Like an NGO, it would be engaged in educational work in many countries, integrating language teaching with ecological projects and developmental studies. It would take into account the critical psychologists’ (Sullivan Reference Sullivan1984; Tolman Reference Tolman1994) emphasis on wellness (Prilletensky & Prilletensky Reference Prilletensky and Prilletensky2006); but it would be prepared to compromise (Crookes Reference Crookes2009) with mundane demands for credentialling and exam training. Yes, it is a dream of course, and space does not really permit development here – but I would assert that some sort of imaginary goal is better than nothing. I hope readers can allow me the possibility of suggesting at least that the imagination, and an entire realm of the imaginary, is what finally is needed to help dreams become reality and enhance the practicality and relevance of critical pedagogy in our field, in our time.

A concluding note: It has been there in the past, it is here in various forms right now; it is not something just for the future, it is something relevant all the time. The relevance of any approach to teaching in our area of language and culture that addresses social justice is obvious to anyone who sees the world as failing under an ethical analysis, but the practical relevance of such an approach is something that has continually to be struggled for.