Critical pedagogy and language learning in the age of social media?

• Autor(a) principal: Chun, Christian
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Lingüística Aplicada (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://www.periodicos.letras.ufmg.br/index.php/rbla/article/view/11978
• topic: critical pedagogy; public pedagogy, social media

This paper examines the possibilities of critical pedagogy and English language learning in our era of social media which have been dominated by commercialization, fake news dissemination, and hate-driven discourses. With the emergence of social media in the past 10 years, these online spaces have facilitated what has been called “public pedagogy” – the varied educational and learning activities occurring in public domains beyond traditional educational institutions.With the increase of digital devices with constant Internet access, many have been enacting for quite some time now so-called ‘digital literacies’ with frequent texting, posting, and commenting via various media. These public spaces in which even a text or comment meant for a private audience can be disseminated worldwide via a screenshot demand our attention as educators for both the possibilities and the limitations of digital connectivity with regard to students’ literacy and language skills. In both these online and offline spaces, how can critical pedagogy facilitate English language learning through students’ encounters with the language and discourses used to construct the hegemonic and naturalized societal representations they face in the classroom and online?