Task 2 - Pt 1 (answers)

1.       Araya (2007) thinks that teaching materials can help teachers and students to develop more critical thinking, or to construct misconceptions and ideas about language and its linguistic communities. Some of the problems related to the lack of social and ideological awareness regarding the language teaching-learning process as well as the use of teaching materials rely on the impossibility of conceiving language in social rather than structural terms.

Language teaching materials need to considerate the social aspect of learners and the target language in order to conceive the language in a structural and social way.

2.       Elsa Roberts (1995, p. 9) says that classrooms themselves may be seen as self-contained, autonomous systems, insulated from external political concerns. people use the language in study have implications in the educational processes, as well as the attitudes and values individuals develop towards linguistic matters, cultural diversity and society.

3.       Cooper R.L. states (1989, p. 45) that “language planning refers to deliberate efforts to influence the behavior of others with respect to the acquisition [and learning], structure, or functional allocation of their language codes”. As a way to modify people’s attitudes, language planning often functions within a context of ideological control. One might think that when those components of the curriculum are so restrictive in terms of tolerance towards diversity, it is very difficult to construct a teaching-learning environment based on the principles of critical thinking pedagogy. However, there is always a range of possibilities to question and analyze the proposed teaching policies for language learning and teaching.

4.       Therefore, the way the curriculum is presented and developed can make the difference between a critical thinking classroom and a non-critical thinking one. What makes the difference between a stereotyped oppressive education and a liberating one is found in the activities students and teachers perform and their use of language. Terrence G. Wiley (1996, p. 106) proposes that Language planning frequently attempts to solve conflicts over language, it can result in creating conflicts. Thus, we may ask: what is the relationship between language planning and various types of conflicts – social, legal, economic, political, and educational? Language planning affects speakers of regional and social varieties within the language, immigrants who do not speak the standard or majority language, and indigenous conquered peoples and colonized peoples who speak languages other than the dominant one.