“I really don’t know what you mean by critical pedagogy.” Reflections made by in-service teachers in the USA

Abstract

This is a study of the responses given by in-service teachers in an exit interview upon completing a grant program that prepared them to be ESL teachers in the USA. There were 28 participants in this study and they were in-service K-12 teachers who would become ESL certified. Based on Gee’s (2015) discourse analysis, the researcher analyzed their responses and found that the majority (96%) did not know about critical pedagogy or took the literal meaning and thought that the term meant critical thinking or evaluation of teaching. The researcher advocates for academic programs to include critical pedagogy for strengthening the knowledge base of MA TESOL programs.