This reflective article examines the emerging tendencies in critical perspectives within English Language Teaching (ELT). The article begins by providing a brief historical overview of ELT's critical pedagogies and discussing its perspectives in the post-pandemic era. It highlights the need for critical approaches that address power dynamics,…

This article addresses a growing call for the use of more culturally relevant texts and pedagogy in classrooms. We present how a teacher sharing power with emergent bilingual (EB) students during read-aloud discussions with culturally relevant texts supports EB students' literacy opportunities. These opportunities include (1) initiating new topics…

In this article, we advocate for integrating select graphic novels into curricula for English language learners and emergent bilinguals to push against the dominant and harmful narratives that tend to be found in traditional history texts and curricula. We use "Vietnamerica" by Tran and "Escape from Syria" by Kullab et al. as…

Learning Mandarin Chinese as a heritage or additional language at Chinese complementary schools has long been a tradition for many Asian Canadians. However, research that looks at teachers' experiences and perceptions in Canadian settings, especially the power dynamics embedded in biliteracy development at complementary schools, is scant.…

This article provides an overview of a digital storytelling proyecto final (final project) completed by 18 young bilingual Latinxs as part of a Spanish for "heritage/native" speakers course at a university in the U.S. Midwest. Specifically, the article charts out the move from concepto (concept) to proyecto, zooming in on key aspects of…

Social work is language work, and yet the profession has operated without a fully critical theory of language difference. Rather, a model of language as merely a neutral conduit of communication has prevailed, with the result that language issues have been addressed mostly as problems of translation. But a more rigorous approach to language as an…

This study highlights the teaching practices of three white instructors--who addressed social justice issues in the context of their English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classes--to contextualize their pedagogy in relation to intersections of Whiteness and English language teaching. The study was conducted at a four-year private university on the…

Research has suggested that U.S. K-12 dual-language and Seal of Biliteracy programs do not benefit all students equally in their recognition of students' multilingual competencies. The authors explored the perspectives of high school Seal of Biliteracy graduates: how they conceptualized the seal and the benefits that they had or had not derived…

As Spanish heritage courses multiply all over the United States, the need to reexamine the curriculum and pedagogical approaches that are most appropriate to meet instructional goals is becoming increasingly pressing. Although several researchers have called for developing students' critical language awareness (CLA) in the Spanish heritage…

Colonial and decolonial tensions manifested in a unique, Mexican school for the deaf that used Mexican Sign Language for instruction. (De)colonial tensions were inherent in the school's work, from its non-Mexican, Foreign-origin school board to its child-of-deaf-adults principal's vision. We observed the presence of a colonial legacy, decolonial…

The 21st century has brought rapid global change to the cultural and linguistic landscape of many nations; this rapidly changing landscape has prompted educators to argue that the lived and evolving reality of contemporary classrooms demands a re-examination of current curriculum, pedagogies and assessment practices. Australian classrooms now…

Over the past 40 years, Jim Cummins has proposed a number of highly influential theoretical concepts, including the threshold and interdependence hypotheses and the distinction between conversational fluency and academic language proficiency. In this book, he provides a personal account of how these ideas developed and he examines the credibility…

This article examines instances of a U.S.-Mexican transnational youth honing his critical translingual literacy skills through his engagement with corridos, Mexican balladry in Spanish that often emphasizes injustice and border strife. The author relies on ethnographic classroom observations, the student's journals, and semistructured interviews…

In recent decades, bilingual education policies, programs, pedagogies, and practices have been constrained by neoliberal agendas which have undermined the radical vision of bilingual education as a means toward self-determination that the Chicana/o Movement youth articulated more than 50 years ago. This narrowing of educational possibilities has…

This article offers a critical interpretation of the current trends in instructional models for English language learners in California. We review key instructional models and analyze them from traditional (teacher-centered), progressive (student-centered), and critical orientations (society- and power-centered). These instructional models share…