A Postcolonial Peace Approach in Study Abroad English-Language Professional Development Training

• In Event: A Long and Representative View of Peace Education Across the Globe

Abstract

This session explores the continuing relevance of Galtung’s (1964, 1969) notions of positive and negative peace through research that examined the experiences of approximately 200 English language teachers in a training project hosted by a Canadian research university in successive years from 2015 to 2018. The project helped secondary teachers from two rural Chinese provinces evaluate and adapt current language teaching methodologies to their own classroom realities.

Many teachers who seek professional development abroad feel that they forfeit their positionality as experienced sources of linguistic knowledge and pedagogical expertise, especially if this training is from a top-down colonial-knowledge perspective. The project in question strove to overcome these disempowering tendencies through the incorporation of post-colonial approaches, critical content and decentralized delivery.

Authors

• Douglas J. Fleming, University of Ottawa

• Eugenia Gene Vasilopoulos, University of Ottawa