IN-PERSON MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY. SECTION B

Abstract

At the outset, classrooms and Universities are spaces of liberation, growth, and transformation. However, at the turn of the contemporary events around the world and at home, similar spaces like classrooms, University campuses, and libraries are on their way to becoming docile spaces of authority and enforced conformity. According to Canagarajah, classroom culture is a site where the agendas of different interest groups are played out, negotiated, and contested. Hence, for a language teacher to experiment and document their own method in the classroom, they need to attempt to understand the subjective realities of their students. The Indian classroom scenario is unique owing to its diverse socio-cultural ethos; however, it still largely emulates the Western idea of pedagogy and is still navigating its own discourse of methods. However, it is not wrong to assume that experimentation has little to no agency for a language pedagogue/ teacher when it comes to language teaching in diverse classrooms and contexts. It is not just the syllabus that needs to be decolonized but the teaching pedagogy also needs to sustain the diverse ethos by placing critical thinking, reading, and writing at its crux. My paper has heavily borrowed from the concept of the Post Method proposed and pioneered by Kumaravadivelu (2003). In the post-method framework, educators are encouraged to go beyond the one -size -fits -all mindset while building content and pedagogy for teaching. This in turn enables the educator and also liberates them from the Centre-based Pedagogy which is much criticized by Canagarajah (1994). In my paper, I will further discern culturally sustaining pedagogies and their impact on building critical competencies in students.