My students hardly speak English, do I still need to decolonise my teaching practice? A dialogue with a critical friend

Abstract

In Malaysia and some parts of Southeast Asia, efforts to decolonise the English language classroom remain minimal. While there are scholars who advocate criticality towards western-centric perspectives on language education, related work has largely been confined to individual teachers’ classrooms. This is further problematised when students’ English proficiency is low. With these circumstances in mind, a dialogue was prompted between critical friends – Daron and Jariya – regarding the necessity to decolonise English language education, especially in a setting like Malaysia. Through their dialogue, issues were raised, such as the possibilities of using translanguaging, and the question of whether communication concepts should be viewed as neutral or local. Throughout the dialogue, no resolutions for these issues were offered, leading towards instances of vulnerability. While seemingly hopeless, such a situation is actually aligned with the decolonial perspective on pedagogy, where teachers are not driven by structured or hegemonic views on teaching and learning; instead, meaningful learning environments are created to better engage with students.

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