Discursive enactment of power in Iranian high school EFL classrooms
Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable and dialogical teacher-student partnership and...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit UKM
2012
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4910/1/pp%2520375_392.pdf |
| Summary: | Teachers’ dominance in teaching environments has been criticized as an oppressive
educational practice by critical theories of education. While critical pedagogy that
espouses a problem-posing model of education has sought to promote a more equitable
and dialogical teacher-student partnership and to transform the oppressive conditions of
the ESL/EFL classroom, the claimed potential of the approach has had only limited
success in practice. Drawing upon Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis to
make for a principled analysis of EFL classroom practice, this study investigated the
discoursal features of unequal power relations in Iranian high school EFL classes. The
data was collected via observation of two classrooms, one located in an urban area and
the other in a semi-urban area of Iran. The analysis of the observation data, which
included transcripts of classroom lessons as well as field notes, indicated that teachers
played a disproportionately dominant role to the extent that the students were kept
apparently passive and powerless via a range of discursive strategies including
maximizing teacher-controlled talking time, turn-taking, topic control, modes of
meaning-construction, and elicitation strategies. The findings of this study are expected
to provide critical and emancipatory insights into ESL/EFL classroom practice and
contribute to the transformation of its status quo. |
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