Launched at the Language School of the UABJO, the TEMC study was a four-year research project (2008–2013) under the supervision of faculty member Ángeles Clemente, who formed a research group with student teach- ers and other members of faculty (i.e., “teacher educators”) including the coauthors of this chapter. The TEMC study had two objectives: (1) to develop a critical pedagogical awareness in English student teachers primarily by instilling in them an understanding of the social, economic, political and cul- tural aspects of Oaxaca and (2) to research marginalized communities of Oaxaca and connect this research with the professional practices of the afore- mentioned student teachers. At the start of each academic year, the TEMC project invited students in their final undergraduate year to participate in the project. For those interested, the project included a teaching practicum to serve as a data-gathering opportunity not only for TEMC but also for the student teachers’ BA thesis. The first stage was about planning and raising awareness. Having background knowledge from a curricular language teach- ing methodology course taken earlier in their degree studies, the student
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teachers now attended a course on critical pedagogies for language teaching.
Then, to prepare their practicum, Ángeles Clemente, the student teachers, and teacher educators met twice a week for two-hour sessions to plan the teaching and research work that they would develop with the different classes in the communities where they had chosen to work (i.e., either DEMA, CANICA, Ignacio Allende school, or Ixcotel penitentiary). Meanwhile, the student teachers visited their respective institution and met their future stu- dents. Back at the university, the student teachers planned what they agreed to call the Multiple Abilities Workshop. The main objective of this workshop was for the student teachers to develop diverse abilities such as sociability, col- laboration, literacy in Spanish and English, and creative skills. The content of the Multiple Abilities Workshop was discussed in the TEMC meetings involv- ing both the student teachers and teacher educators. The priority was to con- struct a teaching program that went along with the philosophy and rationale of critical pedagogy while meeting the apparent needs of the four Oaxacan institutions where the student teachers would do their practicums. The agreed-upon contents revolved around seven issues: language, identity, power, national concerns, ethnicity, social justice, and domestic coloniality.1
The issue of “language” was taken up in the introductory phase of the work- shop: specifically, the multiculturality in Oaxaca and the role of English in the local Oaxacan context. The next topic involved “identity” in terms of not only
“who we are” and “where we come from” but also “what we want to become,”
“how we have been represented,” and “if we agree with these representations”
(Hall, 2015). This theme delved into personal histories, family histories, local contexts, social concerns, quotidian lives, and other related dimensions.
The “power” and “domestic coloniality” topics dealt with the social locations (e.g., gender, age, social class, and ableness) that cause discrimination and social injustice; the “national concerns” and “ethnicity” topics related to the colonial difference2 (Mignolo, 2000) and explored prejudices and stereotypes connected to physical appearance; and the final topic, “social justice,” discussed
1 According to Maldonado-Torres (2007), coloniality refers to:
long-standing patterns of power … that define culture, work, inter-subjective relations, and knowledge production well beyond the strict limits of colonial administrations…. Coloniality survives colonialism. It is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of the peoples, in aspirations of self…. In a way, as modern subjects, we breath coloniality all the time and everyday. (p. 243)
2 Mignolo (2000) explains that colonial difference takes place when the coloniality of power is carried out;
when subordinate knowledge is restored; when border knowledge is discovered; when local stories are invented and implemented; when global designs are created from local stories; and when global designs are adapted, adopted, rejected, or ignored.
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incarceration in Mexico and in particular Oaxaca, a discussion directly relevant for those student teachers who would be placed at the penal institutions DEMA and Ixcotel and generally relevant for the other student teachers.
Based on the above topics, the Multiple Abilities Workshop culminated in a syllabus co-created between the student teachers and the teacher educators conducting the workshop. Before the syllabus was put into practice, a work- ing version of it was implemented within a loop-input scheme.3 Pursuant to this scheme, during their university courses, which ran parallel to the TEMC project and which were taught by some of the same teacher educators in TEMC, the student teachers themselves developed the different materials and activities related to the syllabus they would carry out in the classrooms.
Simultaneously, the students continued their participation in the TEMC meetings and discussion sessions. At these TEMC sessions, the teacher educa- tors engaged the student teachers in collaborative discussions in order to eval- uate these materials and activities; and based on these discussions, the student teachers modified the materials and activities and developed their own English-language lesson plans for their classes at DEMA, CANICA, Ignacio Allende Elementary School, and Ixcotel prison. These lesson plans also reflected the particular needs of the institutions, such as craft making, music, and theater (DEMA); recreation, literacy skills, and homework assistance (CANICA); life competencies required by the national educative program (Ignacio Allende Elementary School); and “open” middle school and high school English curricula in Mexico (Ixcotel state prison). The student teachers remained attuned to any emergent needs and interests of the students while carrying out the lesson plans in the class. For instance, many students at the state prison repeatedly said that they did not want to forget the “street English”
they had learned when living illegally in the USA; and so, the student teachers at Ixcotel included the practice of colloquial vocabulary and phrases in the class activities.
In regard to the teaching methodology underlying the lesson plans, the TEMC researcher team decided to leave open the selection of a language teaching methodology or an eclectic mix of methodologies such as the Direct Method, Communicative Language Teaching, and Task-Based Learning.
3 Loop-input is a specific type of experiential teacher training process coined by Woodward (2003) that involves an alignment of the process and content of learning. The “process” consists of the student teach- ers’ classroom experiences which are continually reflected on by the practitioner and discussed within a group setting; while the “content” consists of teaching and pedagogic topics which a teacher educator introduces to the group of student teachers, according to the discussion of classroom experiences (Woodward, 2003).
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Knowing that the student teachers had amply studied language teaching methodology during their previous four years of study in the BA degree, and following the CPELT call to adjust, localize, and reinvent established teaching methodologies (Kumaravadivelu, 2012), the TEMC team felt that the stu- dent teachers should now have the freedom to plan their classes and choose their teaching materials according to their own preferred methodological backdrop. While teaching their classes, the student teachers worked in pairs within each classroom, interchanging teaching and observing roles; and they ensured that their classroom plans and activities reflected the multilingual, participative and inclusive approach of CPELT that the TEMC members had agreed to develop. The following sections describe the four different scenarios and discuss the critical pedagogical basis of the TEMC project as pertaining to each scenario.