Rethinking Modern Languages and Cultures Instruction as Decolonizing Pedagogy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 39
  In Roundtable Session: Second Language Teaching and Learning

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore Canadian secondary modern languages teachers’ beliefs about language and their cultural identities, how these beliefs were embodied in their programs and pedagogical practices, and how they incorporated or not their students' first languages and cultures in their classes. The design of the study was qualitative and emergent and was informed by a decolonizing research methodology. The proposed paper presentation will particularly focus on the findings of the first phase of the study where nine secondary school teachers of modern languages and cultures were interviewed about their personal concepts of languages and cultures, what they considered their own cultures to be, and how they considered these personal concepts impacted their daily practices.

Author

• Ismel Gonzalez, Lakehead University