Critical Pedagogy and Cultivating a Democratic Classroom Discourse

Classroom talk plays a pivotal role in boosting the quality of language teaching, and consequently language learning. Reportedly, discourse structure of most classrooms has been predominated by ‘initiation-response-follow up’ (IRF) model. One of the drawbacks of this asymmetrical model is that teachers are afforded more opportunities to talk whereas students are constrained and reduced to making slight contributions. Against such a backdrop, the students’ genuine voices are either sidelined or silenced. Hence, as Freire (1972) remarked, the hope of creating a society whose future citizens can express their thoughts democratically seems to be faint. What we mean is that the students are raised in a ‘culture of silence’ inside the classroom, and they will most probably reproduce this culture in their society at large. Having said this, we feel a pressing need to raise teachers’ awareness toward the moves they take so as to change the ones obstructing learner participation and nurture the constructive ones. In this workshop, an attempt is made to introduce the concept of democratic classroom discourse and demonstrate the ways in which we can open up opportunities for our students to voice their thoughts on a more symmetrical footing. Also, a practical framework along with a checklist is presented so as to help practicing and prospective teachers reflect upon their own classroom discourse and make it more democratic or multivocalic.