My EFL Classroom as a Political Site for Colonial Legacy? An Autoethnography

• In Event: Research in Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Invited Roundtable: Curriculum, Teaching and Learning in International Contexts: Textbooks, Teacher Responsibilities and Classroom Practices (Table 18)

Abstract

This autoethnographic study critically examines my practices of teaching English in an undergraduate program in Indonesia, as well as my experiences as a doctoral student at Penn State, lending from postcolonial lens. I will seek to understand 1) how my experiences as a student and teacher reveal language power dynamics and cultural hierarchies, 2) how my teaching which is guided by the industry-oriented curriculum has been shaped by neoliberal ideology, and 3) how my first semester of doctoral study opens pathways to the need to investigate these questions. Informed primarily by accessible teaching artifacts, this study will produce narratives which I will critically reflect and interpret through the postcolonial view.

Author

• Nurkamilah Nurkamilah, Pennsylvania State University