Commentary: Reimagining Online TESOL Teacher Education: Creating Dialogic and Critical Online Spaces.

2024-07-01
My view of critical and dialogic education is inclusive, respectful, and reciprocal similar to Kibler et al.’s vision of CDE. Like Kibler et al. (2021), I aim to challenge inequitable and discriminatory ideological and institutional policies and practices excluding minoritized students from equitable opportunities for learning, voice, and participation in and beyond the classroom. I highlight multiple ways of being and languaging in the school and society. As in their CDE framework, I problematize global and local issues and center my pedagogy and research on posing questions relevant to our lives. I also acknowledge the tensions arising from the unpredictable, dynamic, and multivocal nature of critical dialogue in exploring complex topics, as Kibler et al. (2021) suggest. When it comes to building relationships among the classroom community, I agree with Kibler et al.’s (2021) idea that “classroom dialogue is built upon personal relationships” (p. 187). However, in my view, teacher-student relationships should also be given equal importance to disrupt the traditional power relations. For me, critical teacher education should model equitable relationships for teacher candidates to build similar relations with their own learners. While I acknowledge Kibler et al.’s (2021) focus on creating “equitable and inclusive learning spaces for linguistically minoritized students inside and outside the classroom” (p. 192, italics mine), I believe we should also foreground helping and joining minoritized language learners in their individual and collective struggles against the hegemonic policies, discourses,and practices in and outside the school setting to build inclusive and democratic schools and societies. My commentary as to the chapters in this section will therefore be informed both by the CDE approach conceptualized by Kibler et al. (2021) and by my own understanding of CDE.
Citation Formats
S. Y. Tezgiden Cakcak, Commentary: Reimagining Online TESOL Teacher Education: Creating Dialogic and Critical Online Spaces. 2024.