ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE CRITICAL PEDAGOGY PRINCIPLES IN TEACHING EFL READING Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Department of English Education, Indonesia University of Education E-mail: slamet.wahyudi.y@gmail.com APA Citation: Yulianto, S. W. (2015). The use of critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL Reading. English Review 4(1), 25-38 Received: 02-07-2015 Accepted: 01-04-2015 Published: 01-12-2015 Abstract This study attempts to reveal how the use of critical pedagogy principles in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading facilitates students to think critically. Additionally, it investigates and elaborates the benefits and challenges of using critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL reading. The three critical pedagogy principles used in this study were dialogic education, democratic classroom, and reading the world and the word. Critical thinking skills and dispositions expected to be performed by the participants were analysis and evaluation skills, open-mindedness, and making reasoned decision. This is a case study design which was conducted in the form of teaching program. The teaching program which consisted of eight meetings was given to 59 EFL sophomores in the Reading in Professional Context class at a private teacher education in Bandung. Data in the form of classroom talks and activities and students‟ responses as well as their critical thinking skills self-assessment were collected by using video recordings, observation notes, interview guideline, students‟ learning journals, and questionnaires. It is revealed that the teaching program has facilitated students to think critically by providing four categories of activity. They are (1) offering problematic topics and reading materials that are linked to the students‟ lives, (2) encouraging students to read between the lines, (3) distributing classroom power, and (4) creating space for students‟ voices to be heard. Meanwhile, there are two benefits of the teaching program, namely (1) language development and (2) new knowledge as well as experience acquisition. However, there are three major challenges in conducting the teaching program that are (1) the lack of classroom-friendly authentic controversial reading materials, (2) the passive culture, and (3) the unpredictable classroom. Keywords: critical pedagogy principles, critical thinking skills, EFL reading class INTRODUCTION It becomes common knowledge that since the dawn of Reform in 1998, Indonesian citizens have gained almost unlimited freedom in expressing their opinions after 32 years living under the repressive New Order regime. Suddenly, printed and electronic mass media easily spread all over the country. Supported by information technology advancement, now, 18 years after the Reform, Indonesian citizens are often overwhelmed by different and even contradictory conflicting information. In such context, it is crucial for Indonesian citizens to think critically. As a consequence, as it is written in the Indonesian 2013 official curriculum, schools in all levels are required to equip students with critical thinking. It is not sufficient to merely view information and knowledge as separate parts of the larger entities such as power and culture. Information and knowledge are always socially constructed (McLaren, 2003). Therefore, the awareness that there is no neutral information and apolitical knowledge is also needed to be possessed by students to prepare them to become global democratic citizens in the future. In the meantime, for teacher students, the participants of the present research, the conception that education can not be 25 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading separated from politics, economic system, and social values is important. It is believed that the critical pedagogy principles are important to be promoted to the EFL teacher students as a teaching approach in order to provide a critical tool for both teacher and students in understanding the political nature of knowledge and education. In addition, the use of critical pedagogy principles in EFL curriculum and classroom is in line with the call for EFL education reform in Indonesia (Alwasilah, 2004; Emilia, 2005; Hayati, 2010; Gustine, 2014; Larson, 2014). Critical pedagogy, as Phipps and Guilherme (2004) emphasize, provides crucial guidelines for language study and intercultural communication. Bearing in mind the abovementioned explanation, this study aims at investigating the use of critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL reading as well as revealing its contribution in assisting tertiary level students perform their critical thinking skills in classroom. Furthermore, the present research attempts to identify and elaborate benefits and challenges of using critical pedagogy principles in reading class perceived by students as the participants of this study. The literature on Critical Pedagogy (hereafter CP) has three major categories, namely theoretical, political, and pedagogical categories (Cho, 2013). Theoretically, CP is a broad terminology rooted in the critical theory (cultural Marxism) of Frankfurt School, theology of liberation, humanism, Hegelian dialectic, post-colonialism, and post-modernism (Giroux, 1997; McLaren, 2003; Freire, 2005a; Breuing, 2011; Kincheloe, 2011). Politically, CP is the political reflection and action of liberation in seeking social justice by offering alternatives against the capitalistic, oppressive, and exploitative political systems (Giroux, 1997; McLaren, 2002; Kincheloe, 2008). In the meantime, pedagogically, CP is the theories and practices of teaching and learning in raising learners‟ critical consciousness as the attempts to counter the spoon-fed or the teacher-centered teaching learning activity, or what Freire (2005a) labeled as the “banking-education system.” Generally, CP can be defined as a cultural theory which views knowledge as the representation of those who produce and distribute it (Kincheloe, 2008). McLaren (2000) defines CP as a method of reflecting, negotiating, and transforming pedagogical practice, knowledge production and schooling institution relationship and the material and social relations of wider community. Parallel with McLaren, Shin and Crookes (2012) mention that CP is a teaching method that helps students gain transformative experience by problematizing the commonly accepted and taken for granted knowledge. In the field of applied linguistics, Akbari (2008) mentions that CP is the acknowledgement of sociopolitical implications of language teaching and the possibility of social change with language class as the departure point. Meanwhile, for the language education context, Aliakbari and Faraji (2011) identify CP as an approach to language teaching and learning which is concerned with transforming relations of the oppressive power which leads to the liberation of people. The critical language pedagogy is a place where a language pedagogue can relate grammatical knowledge and vocabulary mastery to knowledge of how to solve wider social problems (Riasati & Mollei, 2012). In other words, CP is a language teaching learning approach which is based on the acceptance of its sociopolitical implications and aims at transforming society by relating the grammatical knowledge and the wider social problems. This study, due to the similarity of English as a Second Language (EFL) education in Indonesia as the research context, adopts Emilia‟s (2005, 2010; see also Emilia & Safrina, 2010) three CP principles. They are dialogic education, democratic classroom, and reading the word and the 26 ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE world. Each of those principles is elaborated in the following paragraphs. In the educational practice, dialogue is crucial to be performed to create the ideal teaching learning atmosphere for teacher and students teach each other. Moreover, dialogue is potential to avoid the existence of threatening and dominating teacher for the teacher-students dialogic relation is based on hope, love, and faith (Shor & Freire, 1987; Freire, 2005a; Dale & Hyslop- Margison, 2010). Therefore, in relation with the critical thinking, dialogue is the only activity that can be performed to encourage learners perform their higher thinking order (Phipps & Guilherme, 2004; Freire, 2005a; Hajhosseiny, 2012; Mui, 2013). It is possible because to demonstrate their critical thinking in classroom, students need to be free from the threatening teacher-students relation. For classroom context, through dialogue, both teacher and students constructively learn and share their ideas and world views (Alvarez, Calvete & Sarasa, 2012). Negotiation trough dialogue plays a central role in the classroom which applies critical pedagogy (Mochinski, 2008; Larson, 2014). It should be executed as a two-way process (Freire, 2005a) for every classroom activity. In such classroom activity, teacher still and should have authority to ensure that the activity runs well without restricting students‟ freedom to participate actively in encountering the common knowledge forms and social relations (Shor & Freire, 1987; Giroux & Aronowitz, 1991; Giroux, 1997; Emilia, 2005). Consequently, the class becomes more open and unpredictable (Shor & Freire, 1987; Freire, 2005a; Mochinski, 2008). In the formal education which has rigid official curriculum, the classroom unpredictability may be a serious challenge. Democratic classroom may only be executed by creating classroom conditions which are conducive to support individual freedom and social empowerment and justice (Freire, 1998, Giroux, 1997; McLaren, 2003; Emilia, 2005; Thayer-Bacon, 1996, 2012). Consequently, without losing the needed authority, teachers should encourage their students to comprehend democracy by being involved in governance including arranging learning objectives, selecting learning materials, and forming their own groups (Giroux, 1997; Bowers, 2005). Therefore, it is important for teachers to be aware that they are not the ones who dominate classroom. In the democratic classroom, teacher along with students should respect the voices of plurality, discourse variety, and different languages (Macedo & Freire, 2005). In highlighting human potential for democracy and humanity in order to criticize and challenge social and political structure, Freire (2005a) uses the term “reading the word and the world.” Correlated with the reading class, Frerie (Macedo & Feire, 2005) states, “The act of learning to read and write has to start from a very comprehensive understanding of the act of reading the world.” As a consequence, reading the learners‟ world is considered as the starting point for the reading class. It is because of a crucial way of critical pedagogy in offering hope and possibility for creating equal and more justice society is presenting people‟s social, economic, cultural, political situations (McLaren, 2003; Freire, 2005a, 2005b; Kincheleo, 2008). In other word, reading class as a political act for social betterment should be started from making learners realize their actual situation. It is because only by knowing their lived situation, learners could be encouraged to transform their social life (Freire, 2005b; Macedo & Freire, 2005; Akbari, 2008; Ko, 2013). In the present research, reading the word and the world principle is brought into classroom through presenting generative and academic themes. While themes are the topics that are closely related to students‟ daily life but rarely approached or questioned critically, generative themes are the particular topics that are related to the students‟ specific academic life (Mochinski, 2008). Both types of theme are 27 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading presented in the form of written texts, photographs, diagrams, and videos. The topics that are categorized as the generative themes in this study are beauty representation in advertisements, Indonesian tourism, teacher quality, and disability rights movement. In the meantime, there is only one topic that categorized as the academic theme namely English as international language. There is no single „how to do‟ CP that fits with every context of classroom. Different context requires different method and technique in implementing CP (Addo, 1981; Shor & Freire, 1987; Mochinski, 2008; Dale & Hsylop-Margison, 2010). Freire (2005a) states that the application of CP lies in praxis. Praxis is a social action-reflection recursive activity in transforming the world (McLaren, 2003; Freire, 2005a; Freire & Macedo, 2005; Thinsan, 2015). In classroom, praxis is executed through problem-posing education which has different forms of implementation in different context of classrooms. Extracted from the three principles elaborated in the former sections and synthesized from several references, there are five categories of activity that should be performed when a teacher is willing to implement critical pedagogy in a foreign language classroom, especially for the context of higher level of education in Indonesia. Those five categories are (1) conducting classroom and group discussion; (2) experiencing democratic classroom; (3) presenting students‟ real life problems; (4) using various, authentic and problematic reading materials; and (5) challenging students to think and act critically (Shor & Freire, 1987; Giroux, 1997; McLaren, 1997; Wallace, 2003; Alwasilah, 2004; Freire, 2005a, 2005b; Emilia, 2005; Shin & Crookes, 2005; Mochinski, 2008; Akbari, 2008; Emila & Safrina, 2010; Hayati, 2010; Kaufman, 2010; Aliakbari & Faraji, 2011; Muro, 2011; Swandarini, 2011; Cho, 2013; Ko, 2013; Gustine, 2014; Mambu, 2014; Larson, 2014). Critical Thinking (CT) is an active reasonable thinking which is appropriately explored to evaluate information or statement before considering what to do and what to believe. To put it in the simple world, Epstein (2006: 1) declares that CT is “a defense against a world of too much information and too many people trying to convince us.” Emilia (2005: 25), quoting Nosich (2001), mentions six CT standards including clarity, relevance, accuracy, depth and breadth, sufficiency, and precision. Meanwhile Bassham et al. (2011: 2-7) declare nine CT standards, namely clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, consistency, logical correctness, completeness, and fairness. The similarity between those two different opinions regarding CT standards is laying in clarity, relevance, accuracy, precision, and completeness (what in Emilia‟s term is called as sufficiency). CT is a broad topic to cover for the context of this study. Therefore, limitation should be made to address the specification and detailed learning tasks. Consequently, only particular CT skills can be considered as learning outcomes and the focus of this study. The skills and disposition in this study are classified into three categories. Those skills and disposition are analysis and evaluation skills (AES), open-minded (OM), and making reasoned decision (RDM) skill. Analysis and evaluation skills consist of identifying author‟s point, argument, and conclusion (Wallace, 2003; Wall & Wall, 2005; Cottrell, 2005; Bassham et al., 2011; Chaffee, 2012); analyzing who the author and intended reader and whose interests served and voices missing are (Wallace, 2003; Emilia, 2005; Chaffee, 2012; Ko, 2013); evaluating clarity and connectedness of argument (Emilia, 2005; Cottrell, 2005; Chaffee, 2012) ; and assessing relevancy and source credibility (Wallace, 2003; Emilia, 2005; Cottrell, 2005; Chaffee, 2012). Open-mindedness includes inventorying and taking into account multiple view points (Facione, 1990; Ennis, 28 ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE 1996a; Lipman, 2003) and listening and respecting others‟ opinions (Djiwandono, 2013; Ko, 2013). Making reasoned decision (Paul & Elder, 2002; Emilia, 2005; Bassham et al., 2011) consists only one skill. The CT skills and disposition in this study are applied in and identified from reading texts and performing group and classroom discussions. In doing so, a set of classroom and reading questions are necessary to encourage students to perform the CT skills and disposition that are mentioned earlier. While reading is defined as the appropriate complex mental process of making meaning of the text which involves the reader‟s prior knowledge and personal background (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Nunan, 2003; Hudson, 2007). Reading is a crucial receptive skill in an academic world. It is a discursive activity which is influenced by previous textual experiences. Successful reading activity requires the text and the reader‟s background knowledge interaction (Bumela, 2012; Hood et al., 2005; Lems et al., 2010). Reading does not only consist of decoding the written language, but is also leaded by and interconnected with the understanding of the world, for language and reality are vigorously interrelated (Freire & Macedo, 2005). Reading activity can be performed through practicing several skills. There is a term called “reading as a social process” (Carter & Nunan, 2001: 26). The aim of this process, as Carter and Nunan (2001) say, is not only to comprehend the written text, but also to critique the ways that text has been written, the writer‟s motivation to chose that lexis, syntax, style and presentation of text overall. This process of reading is appropriate to be taught in reading classroom for intermediate to advance EFL learners (Harmer, 2007a). This type of reading process is suitable with the context of the present research. Cahyono and Widiati (2006) mention that there are three underlying theories in approaching the reading teaching, namely the text structure, the schema, and the metacognitive. The text structure theory which is effective in improving second language reading comprehension claims that when reading, a student starts from general into specific information (Cahyono & Widiati, 2006). While schema theory focuses on the students‟ prior knowledge activation in increasing reading comprehension, the metacognitive theory concerns students‟ knowledge about their cognitive activities such as predicting, paraphrasing, summarizing, and retelling (Cahyono & Widiati, 2006). Because of the present research participants‟ reading level is varying from beginning to advance, the teaching reading program for this research employed several approaches to reading. Pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading are three steps in teaching reading comprehension (Brown, 2001; Wallace 2003; Hood et al, 2005; Kress, 1985 and Wallace, 1992 in Emilia and Safrina, 2010). Each stage has its own activities and purposes. The following table displays activities and purposes for every step of teaching reading that incorporates the use of critical pedagogy principles and critical thinking skills synthesized from Shor and Freire (1978), Tierney et al., (1995), Wallace (2003), (Freire, 2005b), Macedo and Freire (2005), Antoni (2010), Emilia and Safrina (2010), Sulyaningsih (2010), Yatmikasari (2011). Table 1. Reading teaching stages Step Possible activity Objective Pre-reading - Sequencing pictures, videos, and diagrams - Predicting by scanning the title, and if exist, subheading, tables, pictures, and photos - Asking some general guessing questions about topic of upcoming written text to see the level of prior - Activating students‟ prior knowledge, experiences, and readiness to connect it with new knowledge and experience they will construct during the upcoming 29 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading knowledge possessed by students - Brainstorming by encouraging students to compare the „codes‟ with their own experience, knowledge, and culture activities; - Identifying the purpose of the lessons. While- reading - Being executed in group, pair, or alone - In group, in facing text and trying to solve reading task, students discuss, negotiate, and help each other - Reading aloud - Silent reading - Identifying parallel discourses - Analyzing linguistic choices - Answering some reading questions to perform several critical thinking skills - Generating appropriate strategies to help students in comprehending the text; - Collaboratively constructing meaning; - checking comprehension as one of while-activities Post-reading - Doing classroom discussion about while-reading activity performed before when every student is „in the spotlight‟ and expected to be engaged and participate equally - Exchanging point of views, understandings, and answers of reading tasks to familiarize students with the practice of democracy and open-mindedness - Summarizing - Monitor comprehension - Justify comprehension - Clarifying - Heightening the students‟ awareness of other ways in which the topic could have been written about; - triggering students to perform critical thinking skills indicators; - practicing classroom power distribution; - evaluating students‟ comprehension in particular tasks Reading class trying to implement critical pedagogy teaches the whole three Hillerich‟s (1983 in Antoni, 2010) reading comprehension levels: literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, and critical comprehension. He farther elaborates that literal comprehension requires readers to evoke facts which are explicitly written in the text; inferential comprehension permits reader to suggest relevant additional data derived from the personal experience and text confronted; whereas critical comprehension leads reader to make balanced judgements about several aspects of texts and writer‟s style. METHOD To search the answers for the research questions, the present study applied a case study design. A case study is defined as an in-depth and detailed investigation of a case that could be a setting, a particular event, a subject, an ongoing process, or a document rather than a full numerical survey (Boglan & Biklen, 1992; Fraenkel et al., 2012). A case study was used as a consequence of this study trying to understand the detailed aspect of meaning and process of a particular phenomenon. The research site for this study was a private teacher education in Bandung, West Java. This teacher education was selected due to the importance of introducing CP as a teaching EFL approach to tertiary level education in Indonesian context (Hayati, 2010). Furthermore, by implementing CP principles to teacher students, it is expected that the participants will practice and develop dialogic education and democratic classroom after they become teachers in the future. The group of participants was one of Reading in Professional Context classes consisted of 59 fourth semester students (13 male and 46 female) in English Education Department. The participants were 19-21 years of age. The research was conducted in the form of teaching program which consisted of eight meetings from March 2015 to May 2015. The data collection techniques in this study were divided into two categories. They were the main and the supporting techniques. The main data collection techniques were observing classroom interactions and activities and distributing questionnaires. The supporting ones were 30 ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE conducting interview and gathering students‟ learning journals. The various data collection techniques were employed in order to seek the rich data and to reduce the weaknesses possessed by each data collection technique (Yin, 2011; Alwasilah, 2012). The accumulated valid data were systematically transcribed, organized, coded, looked for patterns, thematically categorized, synthesized, interpreted, and concluded to answer the research queries (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Silverman, 2005; Yin, 2011; Alwasilah, 2012; Fraenkel et al., 2012). The data analyses were performed both during and after collecting the data (Bogdan, & Biklen, 1992; Silverman, 2005). The ongoing analysis was executed for data that are assembled using classroom observation (Silverman, 2005) and the rests were analyzed after the data had been collected. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION How the use of critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL reading assists students to think critically After analyzing the collected data, it could be concluded that the teaching program has assisted students to think critically by providing four major categories of activity. They were (1) offering problematic topics and reading materials that are directly related to the students‟ personal and academic lives, (2) encouraging the students to read between the lines, (3) distributing classroom power, and (4) creating space for students‟ voices to be heard. The elaboration of each category is presented below. Offering problematic topics and reading materials that are directly related to the students’ daily lives This category was the application of the reading the world and the word principle. When conducting this category, the students were offered four classroom topics, five written texts, and several codes in the form of pictures, diagrams, and videos. The selection of the classroom topics, the written texts, and the codes was based on whether they are problematic, controversial, and related to the students‟ real life. The evidence of the application of this category can be found in the observation notes. In the observation note of the second meeting, it is written that “Materials are related to authentic real world of Indonesia and are problematic to be argued.” Moreover, upon the third meeting, the observer explicitly wrote, “News as one of critical sources for students to think critically.” The identical notes were then occurred again several times both in the first and the second sections of the teaching program. In the interview session, commenting upon the discussed topics during the eight meetings, several students emphasized the role of controversial topics that are related to their lives in giving them opportunity to perform their critical thinking ability. It is indicated in the following excerpts: Topik-topik yang disampaikan berkaitan dengan kita. Lebih singkron juga dengan apa yang dipelajari [the discussed topics were related to us, and correlated with what we have learnt]. Icha The issue you brought to class. It gave us experience to be more open to contrasting and competing view points rather than only force other to receive our opinion. Adi Icha, in her utterance above, demonstrated that she was aware of the correlation between the topics and her life as well her major. The student used the word „we‟ that might mean she also spoke on behalf of her friends. In the meantime, Adi‟s comment uncovers the value of the controversial issues in providing two or more possible contradictory view points that further will be used by the students to read between the lines. Encouraging the students to read between the lines 31 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading Encouraging the students to read between the lines was executed by posing a set of critical questions as a tool to analyze the presented reading materials and classroom topics. The critical questions demanded the students to identify and evaluate arguments, source credibility, included and excluded voices, cause and effect, and fairness of the particular texts. Upon the questions, the students communicated their answers both spoken and written during the group and classroom discussions. During the classroom discussion in the pre-, while-, and post-reading activities, some students were observed performing their critical capacity in order to respond the questions which were proposed by the teacher or their classmates. The following are evidences found by the observer: Students discuss the difference between racism and discrimination. Students discuss cause and effect of racism in the beginning of the lesson. (observation note on meeting #6) Students analyzed cause and effect saat memaparkan argument mereka [when they elaborated their arguments]. (observation note on meeting #8) From the aforementioned notes found in the observation during the teaching program, it can be seen that there were two critical thinking skills were performed by the students. It is assumed that the students‟ critical thinking performances were the results of encouraging them to „read between the lines‟ by exposing critical questions repeatedly. The students‟ exposure to the posed questions and the designed classroom activities during the teaching program was relatively successful in encouraging them to perform their critical thinking capacity. The further evidence can be found by examining the students‟ reflective leaning journals, as indicated in the following excerpts. In analyzing the text we can learn how to get and tie ideas taken [from] the text. And we can identify whose voices are missing. (Imas‟s learning journal on meeting #3) I think critically when I answer the question. (Neni‟s learning journal on meeting #8) Both students‟ reflective writings above demonstrate that the provision of the critical questions was successfully encouraging them to read between the lines as well as to think critically. The data from the teaching program are parallel with the data which were collected through interview. In the interview session, Imas and Neni gave detailed explanation about what they have written in their learning journals. The explanations are presented in the following experts: This questions used in the program motivates us to think beyond the texts. (Imas in the interview session) There are many questions that the answers are not consisted in the texts. Jadi ada di luar teks [outside the texts]. So it forces us to think about so we develop it. And it can make the discussion to be effective I think. Jadi kita kan membahas contohnya seperti kemarin tentang bahasa- bahasa akhirnya kan mengacunya ke mana- mana gitu kan, secara luas. Jadi tertariknya itu senengya itu seperti itu. Jadi tidak hanya terfokus hanya kepada teks itu saja [so we discussed the example, like yesterday, about languages that at the end referred to everywhere, broadly. Then we did not focus only to particular text]. (Neni in the interview session) Imas‟s utterance above indicates her effort in generalizing the advantage of the teaching program with the posed questions which motivate her and her friends to not only read and think about the texts, abut also to read and to think about what lies beyond the texts. Meanwhile, Neni‟s answer above delineates her recognition upon the intention of presenting the particular critical questions. 32 ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE Distributing classroom power The classroom power was distributed gradually in each meeting during the teaching program which was conducted for this research. One of the indicators of classroom power distribution can be seen from the number of speech production (Milal, 2011). From the video transcript of the second until the eighth meetings, it can be identified that there were 403 utterances. From those utterances, 223 of them were produced by the teacher. Table 5.1 illustrates the utterances which were produced during the teaching program. Table 2. Utterances during the teaching program Producer Utterance per meeting Total % #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 T 27 44 23 32 38 28 31 223 55.3 S 22 36 16 24 34 22 26 180 44.7 Total 49 80 39 56 72 50 57 403 100 By looking at the table above, it can be seen that the range between the number of speech produced by the teacher and the utterance produced by the students were not too far. It means that it was possible that the power had been distributed in almost equal portion between the students and the teacher. It is supported by the observation notes on the third and the fifth meetings. While in the third observation sheet is written “Teacher and students have equal relation,” in th e fifth meeting observation sheet it is written, “Equally teacher-students relation in the teaching and learning process.” In order to give opportunity to the students to control the classroom topic, the classroom power was also distributed through negotiating classroom decision making (Akbari, 2008). The classroom decision making negotiation occurred several times both in the first and the second sections of the teaching program. the classroom decision making negotiation can be explicitly observed in the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh meetings. Additionally, the following excerpts are the observation notes commenting the execution of the classroom power distribution which occurred in the fourth and the sixth meetings: Negotiating saat T bilang ‘sudah belum?’ tapi siswa minta video diulang, lalu T mengulang [negotiating classroom decision making occurred when teacher asked „have you finished?‟ but students wanted the video to be replayed, then teacher replayed it]. (observer‟s note on meting #4) Classroom discussion is more alive than before for the existence of the interesting topic from students. (observer‟s note on meeting #6) The second excerpt above provides the abstraction of the event that happened in the sixth meting. In the pre-reading stage, the teacher told the students that the class would discuss the text that had been distributed in fifth meeting. As a consequence, some students were observed enthusiastically performed four activities. Those four activities were (1) engaging and demonstrating their critical thinking ability in discussing cause and effect of racism, (2) linking and making clear distinction between racism and discrimination, (3) supporting their claims with argument, and (4) being open-minded. Further evidence about the distribution of classroom power could be found in the learning journal which was written by Dian commenting upon the fifth meeting. Dian writes: If there are things I do not know or are still difficult to understand, I will ask the lecturer and other students about it. If there is something I know, I explain what I know to 33 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading them. It is very important in discussing the issue so that there is no misunderstanding about the knowledge that we know. (Diah‟s learning journal on meeting #5) That excerpt indicates the desire for clarity as well as the openness to negotiate knowledge in order to collaboratively construct meaning. Such desire and openness seem impossible to be occurred in asymmetrical power distribution and anti- dialogue relation (Shor & Freire, 1987; Freire, 2005b). Creating space for students’ voices to be heard This category covered inviting students to share their experience and knowledge regarding particular topics. It also consisted of listening and giving positive feedback to every occurred opinion, answer, and question. In responding students‟ ideas, the teacher often acted neutrally through confirming or inviting other students to react upon it rather than giving negative feedback. In order to train the students to be open- minded as well as to give them opportunity to view from multiple perspectives, the teacher used his authority to ask the students to respectively listen, consider, and appreciate their friends‟ opinion upon the discussed issues (Shor & Freire, 1987; Giroux, 1997). The observer‟s notes provide the authentic data which represent the application of the dialogic education. In this study, it was the result of creating space for students‟ voices to be heard. Table 5.3 below lists those observer‟s notes meeting by meeting. Table 3. Observer’s notes on creating space for students’ voices to be heard Meeting Observer’s notes #2 Teacher allowed students to express their point of views; Teacher gave positive feedback upon students‟ opinion #3 Answer and opinion are frequently invited to stimulate students‟ critical ability. #4 Every student has an opportunity [to speak] in equal way; Suasana kelas seperti hening saat ada siswa yang menjawab, mereka saling menghargai [classroom atmosphere seemed quiet when there is a student who answer; they respect each other]. #5 Students were freely delivering the point of views related to the topic; Teacher appreciated Students‟ thought without interfering and direct judging #6 Teacher listened to the answers and put them to consideration. #8 Teacher tidak langsung bilang ‘salah’ terhadap pendapat siswa [did not directly say „wrong‟ towards students‟ opinion]. By looking at those observer‟s notes, it is seen that the conducive and supportive space for the students and the teacher conducting the dialogue was established. The data in the above table represent the classroom activities from observer‟s view point in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth meetings. The activities could be interpreted as the indicators of the application of democratic principles in classroom (Thayer-Bacon, 1996). It is supported by the data in the form of students‟ answers during the interview session. It can be seen in the following excerpt: After discussion, I often get very different understanding rather than when I try to solve a problem by myself. I often get many differences and similarities with other‟s opinion. In his answers, Adi uncovered the influence of being exposed with the activity of exchanging information and ideas during discussion. It represents his open- mindedness (Djiwandono, 2013). Benefits and challenges of using critical pedagogy principles The data in the form students‟ learning journal, interview, and open-ended questionnaire reveal that there are two major categories of benefits and three types 34 ENGLISH REVIEW: Journal of English Education ISSN 2301-7554 Vol. 4, Issue 1, December 2015 https://journal.uniku.ac.id/index.php/ERJEE of challenges as the consequences of using critical pedagogy principles. The two benefits are (1) the language development and (2) the new knowledge and experience acquisition. Meanwhile, the three challenges are (1) the lack of classroom- friendly authentic controversial reading materials, (2) the passive culture, and (3) the unpredictable classroom. Each category of those benefits and challenges will be elaborated further in the following paragraphs. The development of students‟ language proficiency is the first benefit of using the critical pedagogy principles in teaching EFL reading. This category consists of the development of students‟ four integrated language skills and the improvement of students‟ vocabulary mastery. Those two benefits are the result of four classroom activities during the teaching program that are conducting classroom discussion reading the written texts, watching videos, and writing learning journals. There are three types of knowledge acquired by the students during the teaching program, namely the knowledge about themselves, about English as their major, and the knowledge about how to stand for the disability rights. In the meantime, there are also three types of new experiences acquired by the students. Those new experiences are learning something that was never obtained, participating in the classroom discussions, and being motivated to be heard by classmates. The new knowledge and experience acquisition is the result of bringing several controversial and related to the students topics and reading materials as well as practicing reading and analyzing various types of texts writing learning journals, and conducting group and classroom discussions. The lack of classroom-friendly authentic controversial reading materials causes the unfamiliar words used in the text and the complex structure of text. The challenge labeled the passive culture is represented in the students‟ personal disengagement and the lack of their self- esteem. Meanwhile, the classroom unpredictability is a consequence of negotiating and distributing classroom power. The classroom decision making negotiation may cause the teaching learning activities run differently from what have been planed before by the teacher. CONCLUSION The utilization of the three principles of critical pedagogy has helped students to think critically through providing four categories of activity. The first is offering problematic topics and reading materials that are directly related to students‟ personal and academic lives. The second is encouraging them to read between the lines. The third is distributing classroom power. The last is creating space for students‟ voices to be heard. There are two categories of benefit in addition to the development of the students‟ critical thinking skills. They are the development of students‟ language proficiency and new knowledge as well as experience acquisition. The developed language proficiency consists of four language skills and vocabulary mastery. In the meantime, there are three sub-categories of new knowledge and two new experiences that are acquired by the students. The three sub-categories of new knowledge are knowledge about students themselves, about the variety of English, and new knowledge about how to stand for disability rights. The obtained new experiences are learning new lessons, participating in classroom discussion, and being motivated to communicate voices and to be heard by the classmates. There are three major categories of challenges which were perceived by the students during the teaching program. The first challenge is the lack of classroom- friendly authentic controversial reading materials. The second is the passive culture. And the last is the unpredictable classroom. 35 Slamet Wahyudi Yulianto Critical Pedagogy Principles In Teaching Efl Reading It is recommended for EFL teacher education to introduce and promote the contextualized principles of critical pedagogy to EFL teacher students. It is crucial for EFL teacher education institutions to give sufficient understanding and training for teacher students regarding the use of critical pedagogy principles in their future classroom. 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