Abstract
Chapter 2, by Andrea Sterzuk and Simone Hengen, considers the potential for disrupting settler dispositions through English language teaching by drawing on (1) a study of English as a second language students at a Canadian university and (2) pedagogical activities designed to introduce alternative discourses around Indigenous peoples. In one activity, students’ summarized biographies of Indigenous leaders precipitated critical questions about Canada’s history, which were answered by a cultural expert. Through inquiry-based activities like this, participants learn about their appointed place in Canada’s racial hierarchy by learning about the place of Indigenous others. They negotiate the settler disposition as they construct Canadian identities. These local pedagogical examples illustrate language teachers’ responsibility to give students tools to critically examine societal inequity globally and to participate in the reconciliation between Indigenous and settler peoples.
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Sterzuk, A., Hengen, S. (2019). “When I Came to Canada like I Heard Lots of Bad Stuff About Aboriginal People”: Disrupting Settler Colonial Discourses Through English Language Teaching. In: López-Gopar, M.E. (eds) International Perspectives on Critical Pedagogies in ELT. International Perspectives on English Language Teaching. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95621-3_2
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