Critical Pedagogy and Language Acquisition: Benefiting from a country’s crisis to improve Second Language Instruction

Jamile Forcelini, Florida State UniversityFollow

Publication Date

October 2016

Abstract

Education has the power to influence learners to either accept reality or critically deliberate and change it. Critical thinking is vital to empower learners and society as a whole to move from a practice of inertia to Freire’s practice of freedom as well as humanization. Change, however is only attainable if pursued with one of the most powerful social tools: Language; the most perceptible manifestation of culture and culture is our connection to the world, what unites us in society, identifies us communally, and serves us as guidance for civic conduct (Larson and Smalley, 1972). The present article aims to present a compound view of language and language acquisition. It shows the several connections language and culture have which makes both elements intrinsic connected., the present work seeks to indicate the importance to include cultural components when promoting L2 instructional and discusses the inclusion of Critical Pedagogy as a viable pedagogical practice in L2 instruction. A different educational practice that can blend problem-solving practices to think critically about language and culture. Brazilian Portuguese has been used as the main language in the present article. It is considered a fundamental language worldwide. In addition Brazil currently occupies a unique position in the world. It is still considered a promising economy with great international influence. However it is facing abysmal transformations by fighting deep-rooted and corruption and resolving a notorious economic crisis. A brief account of Brazil’s current political and economic situation is presented in order to generate themes and ideas for PFL instruction. It aims to combine Critical Pedagogy and second language acquisition and to benefit from a country’s crisis for improve second language instructional practices.

Author Bio(s)

Jamile Forcelini currently teaches Spanish and Portuguese at Florida State University. Her areas of interest include psycholinguistics, second language acquisition, trilingualism, critical pedagogy and cultural studies.