ABSTRACT
Children from across the globe have been ‘adding’ English to their linguistic repertoire, differing tremendously in each context in terms of historical, socioeconomic and political dimensions. This addition of English, whether or not imposed by the educational system, to children’s linguistic repertoire is by no means ‘neutral’, ‘apolitical’ or ‘ahistorical’ but rather inherently connected to discriminatory practices, social inequality, hegemonic power and identity negotiation. In order to address these issues and thereby resist the imperialistic nature of the English language, teacher educators, researchers, and classroom teachers have found in critical pedagogy a theoretical starting point to critically analyse the effects of ELT around the globe. Although critical pedagogy and its connections to English language teaching have been theorized for the last three decades, its introduction into classrooms with young learners has not been well documented or summarised. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of different attempts to reinvent critical pedagogies in ELT classrooms with young students (K–6). To this end, this chapter provides a historical overview of critical pedagogies in education in general and their connection to ELT; addresses the critical problematisation of ELT; discusses current studies of critical pedagogies in ELT; presents recommendations for critical ELT practice; and contemplates future directions of critical ELT.
